# Liberty Movement > Grassroots Central > Foundational Knowledgebase Project >  The Mission Advancement Framework - A new site initiative!

## Bryan

The following describes a new long-term site initiative! Much more detail is to come!


*Forward*
I have been formulating ideas and plans on how gain liberty since 2007, these ideas keep getting reprocessed and rethought over and over to continue to refine the best path forward towards liberty. I have acted on a variety of points and ideas but there was still a larger set of ideas that have not been put into motion yet. I purchased RPFs in 2013 with the hopes of acting upon these rough ideas; I spent a good amount of time and effort in 2013-2015 to continue to refine a path and worked to reshape the website to achieve these goals. Almost all of the changes I have made to the site have been calculated to this vision to which I am dedicated.

As these efforts started to come together more I decided it would be best to defer the involvement of others until after the conclusion of Rand’s campaign to prevent any interference with his campaign on the site. As Rand’s campaign is now in the past, I am moving forward. 

I have tentatively referred to the plan under consideration simply as the “Mission Advancement Framework” (MAF) and have broken down the efforts to deploy the MAF into different phases. This introduction you are now reading just focuses on the initial goals of the framework; the phases of actual effort to implement the MAF will be forthcoming.


*Mission Advancement*
The Mission of the site and the liberty movement in general is no small undertaking. The reality is there is no perfect solution; there is no right way to achieve success. Still, past experiences within the liberty movement have shown there are many, many roads to failure. These failures are not hard to see with numerous cases of large amounts of money and energy being put forth which have netted little results. The liberty movement has also seen failures with organizations trying to direct volunteers into efforts that the volunteers don’t value highly, little comes from these as well. There are lessons to be learned from these failures! I submit that a high level analysis of our failures would show that we are not using the right strategies and tactics to achieve success and we often don’t properly identify or understand the goals.

In order to help make sense of our historical failures and to identify better strategies for success, I am proposing an effort with the following three initial goals:

1) Develop a Foundational Knowledgebase characterizing our end goals. – The objective of this effort will be to gain clarity of what we are trying to achieve and to help educate new members about our goals.

2a) Conduct a movement retrospective study on our past efforts and on the tactics used to achieve our end goals. The study would include issues of applied resources, messaging tactics as well as measured and perceived results such as the overall public perception that resulted.

2b) Conduct a study on the tactics used by other campaign, organizations and groups to achieve their end goals. [credit site member "thor" for this point.]

2c) Conduct a study on significant historical elements that relate to our Mission in order to catalog and characterize them. Topics should include major world events and significant works in philosophy, law, history, economics and fiction that form the intellectual pedigree for our Mission. [credit site member "thoughtomator" for this point.]

3) Feed the results of the studies into the development of a Foundational Knowledgebase that can characterizes the use of tactics, highlight paths that lead to failure and direct people to use proven methodologies for common projects. This effort should drill down into the root cause of all issues including topics within management, marketing and human psychology.

The objective of this effort will be to drive toward the effective use of resources in the future and to help formulate strategic plans.

4) Encourage adoption of the Foundational Knowledgebase and continual improvement of it. – The objective of this effort will be to broaden the circle of use and contributors to the Foundational Knowledgebase, a work product that can provide wide and long lasting value in the achievement of our goals. The Foundational Knowledgebase can become the go-to resource for almost all topical discussions.

In short, we need to correct the problem of acting without adequate thinking and planning. After we have identified the right common ground and have developed better tactics and tools, we will optimize the results of our efforts. Note, common ground does not mean that everyone agrees on the same end goals and optimal tactics, it’s that we share an agreed understanding of them. 

While many written works already exist about our goals, none satisfy what I see as the key requirements for success of this effort, which include for the Foundational Knowledgebase to: 
•	Be complete in encompassing all issues within our scope in a single source format.
•	Be freely available to read on the internet.
•	Be broken down into small, easy to read sections.
•	Be massively hyperlinked to allow for easy navigation from subject to subject and to navigate up and down subject matter details.
•	Develop the logical reasoning behind important principles and then apply the principles throughout the work.

Existing works will certainly play a role in shaping the content of the Foundational Knowledgebase and can be referenced from it, but existing works have not proven to be the big solution that is needed; it is now time for a more complete Foundational Knowledgebase to rally around and support our Mission.

To achieve these goals an operational framework needs to be established as a prerequisite goal. This structure will be called the Mission Advancement Framework (MAF), a construct designed to work towards the achievement of these and other goals in a voluntary yet organized and effective manner.

While the established goals as outlined above are no small undertaking, much like our Mission itself, this effort is designed to provide permanent value and is something that is needed now and will forever be of value regardless of the current situation on the planet!


Continue with the next step in the MAF here:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...87#post6141187

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## HVACTech

basically a clearinghouse on the subject of Liberty?

what immediately comes to mind... would be the need for an agreed upon glossary of terms.  with the very first being Liberty itself..
very few people can give a basic definition of this word, off the top of their heads. 

to narrow the focus from a Liberty forest..  to the pursuit of Liberty..  ?

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## Bryan

> basically a clearinghouse on the subject of Liberty?


Ideally it would develop into that. 




> what immediately comes to mind... would be the need for an agreed upon glossary of terms.  with the very first being Liberty itself..
> very few people can give a basic definition of this word, off the top of their heads.


Yes, for Goal #1 there will have to be very well define terms and then principles developed from the concepts. All of this will be worked out as part of the bedrock for the effort.

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## Cabal

> Foundational Knowledgebase


Am I correct in reading this as essentially a sort of wiki?

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## willwash

This idea has great potential IMO.  Any possibility of networking it with other liberty friendly sites?

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## Bryan

> Am I correct in reading this as essentially a sort of wiki?


Largely, yes. Of course we can tailor the FK to our needs but considering a wiki is a good baseline.

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## Bryan

> This idea has great potential IMO.  Any possibility of networking it with other liberty friendly sites?


Everyone will be welcome to join in. That's part of Goal #3.

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## presence

> Ideally it would develop into that. 
> Yes, for Goal #1 there will have to be very well define terms and then principles developed from the concepts. All of this will be worked out as part of the bedrock for the effort.


I started a thread recently that ended up in hot topics regarding execution or entitlements for gays.   Albeit it was a less than desirable issue... my line of thought was in this regard; develop a community platform on a specific issue by expressing a clear liberty stance:

"the government should take no action to promote or deter homosexuality" 

then allowing every shade of gray on either side of the that middle ground.

then see if it holds true to a 80% or better of our community; we have platform

from there we can engage dissent through effective rhetoric on line items

as ill subject as it may be it does serve as a good model of a method to develop coalition:


                         Thread:                                                      Do Homosexuals Deserve the Death Penalty or Entitlements? 

I think we could attack a number of issues in this way; create a subforum for threads that are "liberty issue polls" then apply thurston or likert type scaling techniques to gauge uniformity of opinion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurstone_scale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale

When we arrive at and demonstrate a uniform, cult like thought processes as a liberty movement we are the strongest and boldest; it is our culture which holds us together.

keep the government out of the bedroom, end the fed, et al.

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## Bryan

> then allowing every shade of gray on either side of the that middle ground.
> 
> then see if it holds true to a 80% or better of our community; we have platform
> 
> from there we can engage dissent through effective rhetoric on line items


Exactly.







> I think we could attack a number of issues in this way; create a subforum for threads that are "liberty issue polls" then apply thurston or likert type scaling techniques to gauge uniformity of opinion
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurstone_scale
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale
> 
> When we arrive at and demonstrate a uniform, cult like thought processes as a liberty movement we are the strongest and boldest; it is our culture which holds us together.
> 
> keep the government out of the bedroom, end the fed, et al.


Good links and points. I could see two parts of the FK, one part is purely informative and totally objective another part is subjective to which we could use community scales as linked.

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## scrosnoe

I agree on the clear definition of terms as a starting point.  We also need a clear basis for operational philosophy.  An understanding of who is in charge and how we operate is foundational to any group attempting to formulate and operate.  Funding is also key.  Knowledge of the assets and who makes decisions regarding the same is also important (lists, data, policy, inventory).  I have been through an experiment with a grassroots effort in Oklahoma via http://okgrassroots.com Under the about section there you will find a policy summary that may be helpful here.

I would love to see a way to decentralize into state demographics and teams - as I believe all politics is local and s/b grassroots rather than party based or corporately driven behind the scenes.

I was a big proponent of working through the Republican party in the past.  I am now evaluating becoming an Independent.  I believe the party system is what is keeping us divided and preventing the coalescing around less government and reduced spending of same.  The only thing I do not want to hurt in the next phase is those who have already taken slots in elective office.  It is not such an issue in open states, but is very much so in closed states.  Something for wise counsel on a state level as operational teams form...

A personal thanks to Bryan for his foresight, wisdom and all the time and treasure invested in keeping this place safe and secure and moving in the right direction in my opinion.  Thanks to all the moderators who day in and day out help us all to have a place to come and share ideas and important topics of the day.

Prayers for and blessings to all as we move forward,
Sandie

_Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty._

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## thoughtomator

Two things that I think would be a good part of this effort:

1) A timeline of major events in history that shaped the concept of human liberty
2) A list of significant works in philosophy, law, history, economics and fiction that form the intellectual pedigree for liberty

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## Bryan

Thank you very much for the kind words, Sandie.




> I agree on the clear definition of terms as a starting point.  We also need a clear basis for operational philosophy.  An understanding of who is in charge and how we operate is foundational to any group attempting to formulate and operate.  Funding is also key.  Knowledge of the assets and who makes decisions regarding the same is also important (lists, data, policy, inventory).


Exactly, this is the prerequisite goal. Much more on this is to come!

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## Bryan

> Two things that I think would be a good part of this effort:
> 
> 1) A timeline of major events in history that shaped the concept of human liberty
> 2) A list of significant works in philosophy, law, history, economics and fiction that form the intellectual pedigree for liberty


Excellent ideas which hadn't been considered. We can add this as a sub-point for goal 2, it would be the new goal 2c, while 2c becomes 2d.


How does this sound? 
2c) Conduct a study on significant historical elements that relate to our Mission in order to catalog and characterize them. Topics should include major world events and significant works in philosophy, law, history, economics and fiction that form the intellectual pedigree for our Mission.

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## The Northbreather

I agree with 100% with HVAC.

I have commented many times on the need to simplify the message and provide a basic explanation of key terms, similar to what happens before a debate. 

For example the phrase "The State". Though most Liberty lovers understand this concept the majority of the populace does not, if you ask, most will say "Arizona" or whichever state they call home.

How can we discuss ideas and solutions with others if they've never attempted to contemplate the system they exist in?

How does one discuss such ideas without first defining them?

How do you discuss the legality of taxes with a person who doesn't understand what a tax is?

I firmly believe that the definition,distribution and adoption of a few key terms will do more for the movement than any political opponent, including the office of the POTUS.

These terms in order of importance and interest to the newcomer:

Taxes
The State
Use of Force
Collectivism
Charity vs Welfare


Good job Bryan

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## The Northbreather

Also there are subjects that liberty lovers are still divided on, the major one, abortion. 

Other factions have used this topic to fracture and derail our movement.

I wonder if the best path is to suss out the final stance on this, or put it on the back burner untill more basic concepts are accepted and defined.

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## Cabal

> For example the phrase "the state". Though most Liberty lovers understand this concept the majority of the populace does not, if you ask, most will say "Arizona" or whichever state they call home.


A bit tangential... I tend to try to deliberately capitalize the State to distinguish my meaning for this very reason. But yes, a definition of terms, and rhetorical precision is certainly key in general.

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## The Northbreather

> A bit tangential... I tend to try to deliberately capitalize the State to distinguish my meaning for this very reason. But yes, a definition of terms, and rhetorical precision is certainly key in general.


Good catch. I'll fix it. Typing from a wounded phone here. Ugh.

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## r3volution 3.0

I'm working on a statement of libertarian ethics for the Knowledgebase, looking for feedback.

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## idiom

I think setting up a definition of liberty as hardcore anarchism will be the end of this project.

Principle 1: Voting is force and endorsement of violence.

Result: Stay home, let those who disagree and consent to centralized governance decide your futures for you.

End of program.



It needs to be embedded somewhere that our goals are to utilize democracy, improve the democratic process, and restrain the government to its constitutional mission.

One of these goals should be to seriously expand the size of representation, along the lines of http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ but starting at the state level.

Get in as GOP, take over a state, change the machinery of democracy, let a tonne of third parties spring up.

If politicians are much closer to their electorates, are replaced more easily, and the ballot access is reformed so small one issue parties get in easily, the then government can respond.

More discussion of that is here http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...ng-hard-enough

Rothbardian libertarianism is just the most recent and not the only philosophical base for it. Don't make it the only faction that counts.

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## Cabal

> Principle 1: Voting is force and endorsement of violence.


Straw man. In fact, many who promote non-participation or who simply do not promote the electoral process do not make this argument at all, and even discredit this as a valid argument against voting.

But if you want to alienate anti-statists over your own biases, feel free. I'm sure that helped Rand tons, too.

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## r3volution 3.0

I think we can all agree that both anarchists and minarchists need to be made welcome?

We need every hand on deck on if we're going to have a chance of success.

 Differences of opinion need to be _acknowledged_, but we have to be willing to agree to disagree and work toward common goals.

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## idiom

> Straw man. In fact, many who promote non-participation or who simply do not promote the electoral process do not make this argument at all, and even discredit this as a valid argument against voting.
> 
> But if you want to alienate anti-statists over your own biases, feel free. I'm sure that helped Rand tons, too.


What ever the argument is, promotion of non-participation results in .... less participation.




> I think we can all agree that both anarchists and minarchists need to be made welcome?
> 
> We need every hand on deck on if we're going to have a chance of success.
> 
>  Differences of opinion need to be _acknowledged_, but we have to be willing to agree to disagree and work toward common goals.


Those common goals likely need to be a lot simpler than any of us would like.

There are several participants on this forum who would like to execute people for collecting firewood during an arbitrary 24 period each week.

The big tent is pretty damn big.

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## Cabal

> What ever the argument is, promotion of non-participation results in .... less participation.


Less participation in an election? Maybe, though I'm not even sure that's the case. As far as I can tell, Rand's abysmal showing wasn't the result of a massive upswell in promotion of non-participation, which, if anything, has subsided substantially since 2012 seeing as how a large contingent of this forum's anti-statist demographic is no longer active here, thanks, at least in part, to attitudes like your own. 

But even if it is, resources are finite. Promotion of non-participation in an election isn't promotion of non-participation in general. I'd even hazard to say that those who might not promote electoral participation would probably still promote primary participation for a candidate that they could feel good about getting behind, if only to elevate them to nominee status, or whatever their personal reasons may be. This was very much the case with Ron Paul, it seems.

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## Bryan

> I think setting up a definition of liberty as hardcore anarchism will be the end of this project.


It won't. As r3volution 3.0 suggest, it will be open to all schools of thought. Key bedrock parts should be strictly objective however.





> It needs to be embedded somewhere that our goals are to utilize democracy, improve the democratic process


I would consider these points to be in-scope to our defined Mission Statement. Consider that democracy is just a group of people seeking common ground.





> Rothbardian libertarianism is just the most recent and not the only philosophical base for it. Don't make it the only faction that counts.


It won't be.

Thanks! Good input.

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## Bryan

> Also there are subjects that liberty lovers are still divided on, the major one, abortion. 
> 
> Other factions have used this topic to fracture and derail our movement.
> 
> I wonder if the best path is to suss out the final stance on this, or put it on the back burner untill more basic concepts are accepted and defined.


The most important effort on issues such as abortion is to develop logical arguments for all viewpoints and present them. From there we can characterize ways the issues can be practically managed within society and discuss the benefits and consequences of any course of action.

Thanks!

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## The Northbreather

The concept of sovereignty over ones consciousness is also fundamental and I believe it precedes many of the other "rights".

It would be easier imho to discuss ideas if everyone could recognize that one has complete ownership and Freedom in ones thoughts and emotions.

Every person is free to think about or believe it what he or she may without restriction.

A person has complete control of their state of mind,chemically enhanced or not, COMPLETE sovereignty.

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## idiom

On topics like Abortion the Ron Paul platform worked by giving it a huge PASS.

Ron Paul had a very definite personal position, but the political one was "Leave it to the States". Passing the buck on this and many issues maybe isn't as philosophically satisfying, but its better governance in the main.

If anything this devolution and decentralization of federal power is a more achievable and unifying goal than coming up with makes-everybody-happy objectives for the Federal government.

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## idiom

> The concept of sovereignty over ones consciousness is also fundamental and I believe it precedes many of the other "rights".
> 
> It would be easier imho to discuss ideas if everyone could recognize that one has complete ownership and Freedom in ones thoughts and emotions.
> 
> Every person is free to think about or believe it what he or she may without restriction.
> 
> A person has complete control of their state of mind,chemically enhanced or not, COMPLETE sovereignty.


So no jail?

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## The Northbreather

> So no jail?


No policing of thoughts or consciousness or altered consciousness?

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## Peace&Freedom

> On topics like Abortion the Ron Paul platform worked by giving it a huge PASS.
> 
> Ron Paul had a very definite personal position, but the political one was "Leave it to the States". Passing the buck on this and many issues maybe isn't as philosophically satisfying, but its better governance in the main.
> 
> If anything this devolution and decentralization of federal power is a more achievable and unifying goal than coming up with makes-everybody-happy objectives for the Federal government.


"Leave it to the states" is not passing the buck on abortion, it's restoring the issue back to where it belongs. Removing an issue as a centralizing concern is an excellent counter to the statist impulse. This devolution away from federalizing everything is indeed more unifying than the one-size-fits-all policymaking of monolithic philosophers.

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## idiom

> No policing of thoughts or consciousness or altered consciousness?


If the altered consciousness comes from physical inducements rather than say serious meditation, then you want personal physical sovereignty.

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## HVACTech

> I think we can all agree that both anarchists and minarchists need to be made welcome?
> 
> We need every hand on deck on if we're going to have a chance of success.
> 
>  Differences of opinion need to be _acknowledged_, but we have to be willing to agree to disagree and work toward common goals.


I am going to have to disagree here. lets define our terms. 

"anarchism (i.e., no state) versus minarchism (i.e., a minimal state)"

you are a smart guy. is it REALLY possible, for anarchy to stop. a "state" (government) from forming? 
are the terms "state" and "government" synonyms?  yes. they are. 
since the "state" is in fact, the main threat to Liberty... *how do anarchists propose to stop people from forming them?*  both now and in the future? 

the answer to this question. belongs in the foundational knowledgebase.  eh?

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## idiom

> I am going to have to disagree here. lets define our terms. 
> 
> "anarchism (i.e., no state) versus minarchism (i.e., a minimal state)"
> 
> you are a smart guy. is it REALLY possible, for anarchy to stop. a "state" (government) from forming? 
> are the terms "state" and "government" synonyms?  yes. they are. 
> since the "state" is in fact, the main threat to Liberty... *how do anarchists propose to stop people from forming them?*  both now and in the future? 
> 
> the answer to this question. belongs in the foundational knowledgebase.  eh?


This is exactly what we need to rope in. I think the An-cap theory base has huge holes, but if they want to make the federal government very very small and I want the same, then we need to be able to agree on that without the why of it blowing us apart.


However a bottom up local then state approach, which I think will be most effective, needs a more fleshed out platform, at least initially and can't pass the buck up to the Fed.

Does anybody here not support Devolution? Can we safely leave the execution of gays and babies to the states?

Second one up, does anyone not support increase representation at the state level? i.e. 1 state assembly person to 30,000 represented?

Both of these are structural reform ideas designed to decentralize power. That should make everyone here happy I hope.

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## VIDEODROME

Would it be simpler to pick an existing Political Party to get behind and just adopt their platform?  Just a thought this could save you time from trying to reinvent the wheel.  This place could just align with the Libertarian Party or perhaps the Constitution Party.  

Unless this will be about more than just backing candidates, but almost a research foundation?  Or how to achieve Liberty outside of politics like going 'Off Grid'?

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## Dr.3D

> I am going to have to disagree here. lets define our terms. 
> 
> "anarchism (i.e., no state) versus minarchism (i.e., a minimal state)"
> 
> you are a smart guy. is it REALLY possible, for anarchy to stop. a "state" (government) from forming? 
> are the terms "state" and "government" synonyms?  yes. they are. 
> since the "state" is in fact, the main threat to Liberty... *how do anarchists propose to stop people from forming them?*  both now and in the future? 
> 
> the answer to this question. belongs in the foundational knowledgebase.  eh?


Maybe the problem isn't as big as one might think it is.
Why don't you post a poll and ask what ideology those remaining here have?   Should be interesting to see what percentage of folks here are "anarchists."

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## Bryan

> Would it be simpler to pick an existing Political Party to get behind and just adopt their platform?  Just a thought this could save you time from trying to reinvent the wheel.  This place could just align with the Libertarian Party or perhaps the Constitution Party.


Backing a political party is a personal decision and it's not something that can be collectively pushed for. As well, the Mission of the site does not align with providing wholesale support to any party however we certainly do support members getting involved in parties.

The wheel that is being defined here has not been invented to within anything that I have ever seen (per outlined requirements and value). Scoping out a party platform is an entirely different effort with different objectives than the stated goals of this initiative. We can certainly learn from the platforms however.




> Unless this will be about more than just backing candidates, but almost a research foundation?  Or how to achieve Liberty outside of politics like going 'Off Grid'?


The three goals of this initiative are more about research to develop something as stated in the OP. There will be no bias to being inside or outside of politics, there is room for all sides.

Thanks! Good input.

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## Bryan

> the answer to this question. belongs in the foundational knowledgebase.  eh?


Exactly. Establishing a linguistics basis will be critical. We'll also have to make sure we state when words have been used to have different meaning outside of our scope.

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## idiom

> Would it be simpler to pick an existing Political Party to get behind and just adopt their platform?  Just a thought this could save you time from trying to reinvent the wheel.  This place could just align with the Libertarian Party or perhaps the Constitution Party.  
> 
> Unless this will be about more than just backing candidates, but almost a research foundation?  Or how to achieve Liberty outside of politics like going 'Off Grid'?


The machinery of 'democracy' in the US is heavily anti-third parties. The second problem is peoples experience getting thrashed as third party has left them burnt out, so even if it was easy a lot would not go over.

I suggest that by winning at the state level we can change the machinery a lot at the local level. Make it easy for small interests to get in and hard for big interest to corral.

1. Devolution > Power transferred to the states
2. Increased representation > target of 30-60k constituents per rep
3. De-embed party machinery. > States stop regulating primaries, remove voter party registration, ease ballot access for third parties and independents, remove Gop and Dem perks/funding

These are not platform items, they are keys to liberty. They weaken the shackles of government.

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## HVACTech

> Maybe the problem isn't as big as one might think it is.
> Why don't you post a poll and ask what ideology those remaining here have?   Should be interesting to see what percentage of folks here are "anarchists."


we are heading in a new direction. and seeking truth. 
in the grand scheme of things. anarchists are a very small demographic. 

"Liberty dies, when it is undefended"
HVACTech. 

if anarchy cannot propose a way to defend Liberty..
then it needs to be discarded as a viable approach.  it is an anachronism. 
that is the reason our founders discarded it.  eh?

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## Dr.3D

> we are heading in a new direction. and seeking truth. 
> in the grand scheme of things. anarchists are a very small demographic. 
> 
> "Liberty dies, when it is undefended"
> HVACTech. 
> 
> if anarchy cannot propose a way to defend Liberty..
> then it needs to be discarded as a viable approach.  it is an anachronism. 
> that is the reason our founders discarded it.  eh?


I anxiously await your POLL.    I know there are others here who would like to see the results.

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## r3volution 3.0

> is it REALLY possible, for anarchy to stop. a "state" (government) from forming?


Nope, the state's inevitable. 




> the answer to this question. belongs in the foundational knowledgebase.  eh?


Yup, both sides of the argument should be included (just like both sides on abortion, intellectual property, etc, etc).

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## ProIndividual

I don't agree the state is inevitable. No bad idea is inevitable. It is only through mass acceptance do things like chattel slavery and the state exist. So, the answer to the question of how to keep it from forming is largely to change hearts and minds to the position extortion (taxation) is never acceptable and mass murder (non-defensive killing on a mass scale, i.e. most wars) is never acceptable, and further limiting competition and tort liability in the markets by threatening non-consenting others with violence is never acceptable. Those things are what create the state to begin with. Order-followers aren't robots...you change enough hearts and minds, their minds also change in sufficient number to make the state impossible to maintain or recreate.

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## TNforPaul45

An ambitious initiative!

I would be careful when weighing what "other campaigns" did and how it led to success vs. what "we" did and how it led to failure. The posited idea is that the cause -> effect phenomenon in most of politics is largely unknowable, and real effects are due to behind-doors alliances, discussions, and non-public activities. That doesn't mean that all political actions are ineffective nor does it mean that we should attempt to primarily act behind-the-scenes. But the Framework Knowledge-base should include a discussion and evaluation on this topic, and understand the effects that this phenomenon's mere existence would have on political actions. 

Since we primarily act from the grassroots anyway, the above is a minor but substantive concern to at least be aware of and study to some extent. Our ultimate goal is to pull American politics out of the hands of the few and back into the hands of the many!

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## The Northbreather

> If the altered consciousness comes from physical inducements rather than say serious meditation, then you want personal physical sovereignty.


Ok both then but I would say that sovereignty over consciousness takes precedence and should be recognized as a "self evident truth" in as much as anything else is....

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## idiom

> I don't agree the state is inevitable. No bad idea is inevitable. It is only through mass acceptance do things like chattel slavery and the state exist. So, the answer to the question of how to keep it from forming is largely to change hearts and minds to the position extortion (taxation) is never acceptable and mass murder (non-defensive killing on a mass scale, i.e. most wars) is never acceptable, and further limiting competition and tort liability in the markets by threatening non-consenting others with violence is never acceptable. Those things are what create the state to begin with. Order-followers aren't robots...you change enough hearts and minds, their minds also change in sufficient number to make the state impossible to maintain or recreate.


That's going to get really really into the weeds.

Some people are just anti-tax and a self funding state wouldn't be a problem. For other people its implict consent that they can't accept and want to have to sign the constitution at 18 or be exiled, then nobody would be in the country without explicit voluntary consent.

It could walk and talk just like a government, but tweak it a little bit and suddenly its not violating the NAP at all.

There are even lots of disagreements about whether slavery or passive infanticide violates the NAP. This is a thing, Walter block got up at a rally and legit started talking about evictionalism like if enough people just heard about how kicking kids out was a moral thing to do then everyone would realize that Ron Paul should be elected.

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## CaptUSA

A few random thoughts...

People seem to be really hung up on labels, so it would seem instructive to present all of the "labels" that cross paths with the over-arching liberty movement.  Then, it would seem wise to somehow allow strategic alliances amongst these factions on differing issues.  In other words, let's focus on our agreements instead of our disagreements.  (I think this has been a major problem with the LP and the liberty movement in general.)  My naive hope would be that people would learn to ignore the labels altogether, but as long as we could learn to stop the infighting.  (In all honesty, I struggle with this as well.)

Next, I think we could use a dose or two of optimism.  It's very easy to post about things that are going wrong, but there are many things that go right.  Advances in education, technology, and individual liberty generally get short shrift, in favor of the things that piss us off.  But if we have liberty lovers who turn to this site for optimism and hope, perhaps it will trigger a new idea in them about how to reduce the influence of the State.

----------


## P3ter_Griffin

> we are heading in a new direction. and seeking truth. 
> in the grand scheme of things. anarchists are a very small demographic. 
> 
> "Liberty dies, when it is undefended"
> HVACTech. 
> 
> if anarchy cannot propose a way to defend Liberty..
> then it needs to be discarded as a viable approach.  it is an anachronism. 
> that is the reason our founders discarded it.  eh?


Undefended is quite different than unable to defend.  The coercive state suffers from the same possibility.

----------


## P3ter_Griffin

Regarding 10th amendment/devolution issue, without trying to touch on the veracity it is a political tool that could potentially help us defeat the tyranny that is before us today.  But this being a foundation of knowledge we should not look to skirt the issues we may solve with such tactics today.  It is either right or wrong to have an abortion, kill gays, regulate substances, regulate what otherwise would be voluntary contracts and associations in all it's different forms, so forth and so on.  Obviously decentralization is a big issue, but I don't think using it to justify moral relativism is the right approach.

----------


## The Northbreather

> A few random thoughts...
> 
> People seem to be really hung up on labels, so it would seem instructive to present all of the "labels" that cross paths with the over-arching liberty movement.  Then, it would seem wise to somehow allow strategic alliances amongst these factions on differing issues.  In other words, let's focus on our agreements instead of our disagreements.  (I think this has been a major problem with the LP and the liberty movement in general.)  My naive hope would be that people would learn to ignore the labels altogether, but as long as we could learn to stop the infighting.  (In all honesty, I struggle with this as well.)
> 
> Next, I think we could use a dose or two of optimism.  It's very easy to post about things that are going wrong, but there are many things that go right.  Advances in education, technology, and individual liberty generally get short shrift, in favor of the things that piss us off.  But if we have liberty lovers who turn to this site for optimism and hope, perhaps it will trigger a new idea in them about how to reduce the influence of the State.


Agree on the label issue, the label "conservative" comes to mind as far as being unclear and having many meanings to separate people.

When talk to some, I often get "what, are you a conservative or something?", to which I have to explain that yes, fiscally I am, and I also don't morally agree that terminating the life of an unborn child is a good thing, but as far as everything else goes I don't have a problem as long as it's not aggression against me or my family.

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> People seem to be really hung up on labels, so it would seem instructive to present all of the "labels" that cross paths with the over-arching liberty movement.  Then, it would seem wise to somehow allow strategic alliances amongst these factions on differing issues.  In other words, let's focus on our agreements instead of our disagreements.


I'd like to see some kind of graphic showing the overlap between different groups: Venn diagrams, network map, something like that.

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> Regarding 10th amendment/devolution issue, without trying to touch on the veracity it is a political tool that could potentially help us defeat the tyranny that is before us today.  But this being a foundation of knowledge we should not look to skirt the issues we may solve with such tactics today.  It is either right or wrong to have an abortion, kill gays, regulate substances, regulate what otherwise would be voluntary contracts and associations in all it's different forms, so forth and so on.  Obviously decentralization is a big issue, but I don't think using it to justify moral relativism is the right approach.


We should present each strain of libertarianism separately, rather than trying to produce a single milquetoast compromise that pleases nobody.

Seems to me we're pretty good at setting aside our differences to achieve common goals.

Where we get into the weeds is in debating who the "true" libertarians are.

----------


## Rothbardian Girl

On the surface this article (from 2014) seems to be quite tangential, but it offers some useful nuggets. I snipped some parts in the interest of conciseness. https://c4ss.org/content/27365




> In a post at the Students For Liberty (SFL) blog, (“Between Radicalism and Revolution: The Cautionary Tale of Students for a Democratic Society,” May 6), Clark Ruper uses the example of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) as a warning against factionalism and division within the libertarian movement. The libertarian movement, he says, should be united on a broad common agenda that appeals to as many people as possible — one that focuses on the “most important” issues like fighting corporatism and foreign interventionism and protecting civil liberties. [...]
> 
> Some argue that “real” libertarianism or an improved libertarianism must also include anarchism, or progressivism, or critical race theory, or any number of perspectives….
> 
> For us today, it often seems that libertarianism is not enough; what we really need is left-anarchism or thick libertarianism or non-brutalist libertarianism or any number of camps out there.
> 
> In response Jeff Ricketson at the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) (“Radicalism as Revolution: A Call for a Fractal Libertarianism,” May 18) has challenged Ruper’s call for monolithic unity and instead praised fractalism as a positive good:
> 
> *What he should have called for is a libertarianism united under the common banner of freedom, with passionate, friendly discussion on the issues therein, and a fractal nesting of smaller, more specialized groups.
> ...

----------


## P3ter_Griffin

> We should present each strain of libertarianism separately, rather than trying to produce a single milquetoast compromise that pleases nobody.
> 
> Seems to me we're pretty good at setting aside our differences to achieve common goals.
> 
> Where we get into the weeds is in debating who the "true" libertarians are.


I think that is plenty agreeable.  I think ways highlighted to deal with this have been good.  A 'subjective' section (we will of course *know* that it is not subjective, and that one side is actually right and the other wrong) sounds like a good cure.  I'm just saying when it comes to these issues the information given should not be 'States rights'.  And further, we need to make sure there is room for advocates of liberty in their different forms, but we should not act like we don't have brains to ensure minimal butthurtness either.  I have no segment in mind, just speaking in general.

----------


## idiom

> On the surface this article (from 2014) seems to be quite tangential, but it offers some useful nuggets. I snipped some parts in the interest of conciseness. https://c4ss.org/content/27365





> Had they done so, Occupy would have been another flash-in-the-pan movement that disappeared from the news in a few days.


What did Occupy achieve? They made a lot of noise... but?




> A 'subjective' section (we will of course *know* that it is not subjective, and that one side is actually right and the other wrong) sounds like a good cure.


Starting to sound like an Objectivist.

Where the $#@! have all the Randians gone to anyways? This place used to be crawling with them.

----------


## Rothbardian Girl

> What did Occupy achieve? They made a lot of noise... but?


I do think Carson was being too charitable by using Occupy as a specific example; however, I don't think the point is really Occupy's success or failure (also, Occupy was in the media for quite a while; not just a few days), but rather the fact that it was a symbolic movement. Different factions that at first didn't appear to have much in common could pick and choose elements of Occupy's imagery/brand in order to signal their shared opposition to the structure of the US economy. Carson does give other, arguably more successful examples (Wikipedia, Al Qaeda) in order to suggest that adopting a common political platform (in other words, a compromise) is not always the best strategy. 

If we as a forum are going to undertake this project, Carson is suggesting that it isn't even necessary (though it may be useful and interesting) to hash out the differences between minarchists and anarchists, pro- vs anti-abortionists, strict individualists vs. identity politics strategizers, etc. We can all coexist and collaborate on some things without trying to convince others of the superiority of a particular strain of libertarianism. Of course, the only issue I can foresee is that this forum's active member base just isn't large enough and thus doesn't incorporate enough possible perspectives.

----------


## HVACTech

> Undefended is quite different than unable to defend.  The coercive state suffers from the same possibility.


*Liberty is a lady.* why have you NOT noticed this depiction sir? 
have you EVER seen her depicted otherwise? 

why would you not want to protect her?

----------


## Bryan

> An ambitious initiative!
> 
> I would be careful when weighing what "other campaigns" did and how it led to success vs. what "we" did and how it led to failure. The posited idea is that the cause -> effect phenomenon in most of politics is largely unknowable, and real effects are due to behind-doors alliances, discussions, and non-public activities. That doesn't mean that all political actions are ineffective nor does it mean that we should attempt to primarily act behind-the-scenes. But the Framework Knowledge-base should include a discussion and evaluation on this topic, and understand the effects that this phenomenon's mere existence would have on political actions. 
> 
> Since we primarily act from the grassroots anyway, the above is a minor but substantive concern to at least be aware of and study to some extent. Our ultimate goal is to pull American politics out of the hands of the few and back into the hands of the many!


Excellent points and post, which go to the operating parameters of the effort. These will be hashed out more as part of the prerequisite goal, so we'll address this again soon.

Thanks!

----------


## Tinnuhana

> ...marketing and human physiology.


Do you mean "human psychology"?
This is pretty exciting stuff. Maybe if everyone offering their "two cents" here would go up to the top, click on "Contribute" and help Bryan get this project off the ground...? (Oh, man, I just flashed back to The Blimp. )

----------


## Bryan

> A few random thoughts...
> 
> People seem to be really hung up on labels, so it would seem instructive to present all of the "labels" that cross paths with the over-arching liberty movement.  Then, it would seem wise to somehow allow strategic alliances amongst these factions on differing issues.  In other words, let's focus on our agreements instead of our disagreements.  (I think this has been a major problem with the LP and the liberty movement in general.)  My naive hope would be that people would learn to ignore the labels altogether, but as long as we could learn to stop the infighting.  (In all honesty, I struggle with this as well.)
> 
> Next, I think we could use a dose or two of optimism.  It's very easy to post about things that are going wrong, but there are many things that go right.  Advances in education, technology, and individual liberty generally get short shrift, in favor of the things that piss us off.  But if we have liberty lovers who turn to this site for optimism and hope, perhaps it will trigger a new idea in them about how to reduce the influence of the State.


Good point on the optimism, that's something that we can all take to heart. 

While there are arguments that there is value in alliances, this effort will not attempt to build collations to support specific issues.

Thanks!

----------


## Bryan

> Do you mean "human psychology"?
> This is pretty exciting stuff. Maybe if everyone offering their "two cents" here would go up to the top, click on "Contribute" and help Bryan get this project off the ground...? (Oh, man, I just flashed back to The Blimp. )


LOL. Good catch. Fixed. Thanks!!

----------


## Bryan

> But this being a foundation of knowledge we should not look to skirt the issues we may solve with such tactics today.  It is either right or wrong to have an abortion, kill gays, regulate substances, regulate what otherwise would be voluntary contracts and associations in all it's different forms, so forth and so on.  Obviously decentralization is a big issue, but I don't think using it to justify moral relativism is the right approach.


I don't think we need to skirt issues, it will come down to what we can logically develop vs. not. For example, it's not hard to develop a case around the issues of slavery. These are all good discussion points for the prerequisite goal that we'll dive into.

----------


## Bryan

> On the surface this article (from 2014) seems to be quite tangential, but it offers some useful nuggets. I snipped some parts in the interest of conciseness. https://c4ss.org/content/27365


A good analysis of the use of tactics. This is what we need more of. 

Thanks for sharing!

----------


## Bryan

> I do think Carson was being too charitable by using Occupy as a specific example; however, I don't think the point is really Occupy's success or failure (also, Occupy was in the media for quite a while; not just a few days), but rather the fact that it was a symbolic movement. Different factions that at first didn't appear to have much in common could pick and choose elements of Occupy's imagery/brand in order to signal their shared opposition to the structure of the US economy. Carson does give other, arguably more successful examples (Wikipedia, Al Qaeda) in order to suggest that adopting a common political platform (in other words, a compromise) is not always the best strategy. 
> 
> If we as a forum are going to undertake this project, Carson is suggesting that it isn't even necessary (though it may be useful and interesting) to hash out the differences between minarchists and anarchists, pro- vs anti-abortionists, strict individualists vs. identity politics strategizers, etc. We can all coexist and collaborate on some things without trying to convince others of the superiority of a particular strain of libertarianism. Of course, the only issue I can foresee is that this forum's active member base just isn't large enough and thus doesn't incorporate enough possible perspectives.


I agree with this but would add: part of the value of Goal #1 would be to help drive knowledge for all interested, while that doesn't change what we choose to do it does impact how we engage with people we are trying to win over. 

Dealing with resource limitations (ie: user base limitations) are good points for the prerequisite goal discussion.

Thanks!

----------


## ChristianAnarchist

Okay, but this sounds like when "Campaign For Liberty" started.  Ron Paul himself started that one and although I still support him in that effort it really has limited success...

I really don't know what direction should be taken but can't we just put it off until after the convention??

----------


## BUTSRSLY

WHY ARE YOU REINVENTING THE WHEEL.

THE FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGBASE = MY BRAAIN

OBJECTIVELY SPEAKING, WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT:

MORE GOVERNMENT = LESS FREEDOM
LESS FREEDOM = LESS GOOD
LESS GOOD = AMERICAN CITIZEN'S CHOSEN CIRCUMSTANCES

----------


## Liberty's Landing

I'm a little late to this thread, but could I suggest as a starting point for developing a definition of "liberty" Hayek's definition in the first chapter of "The Constitution of Liberty"?  I just started reading it and he goes to great lengths to establish it logically, as well as the definition of "coercion" and probably more  I'm only into it a few chapters).  It is kind of a dry read for anyone who isn't practically infatuated with understanding the philosophy of liberty, but I'm enjoying it.

----------


## Bryan

> Okay, but this sounds like when "Campaign For Liberty" started.  Ron Paul himself started that one and although I still support him in that effort it really has limited success...


Yes, it can be argued that CFL has have very limited success, some analysis on the failure of this tactic seems of value -- for another thread of course. The 3 initial goals here are not really related to CFL other than we both support a similar mission.




> I really don't know what direction should be taken but can't we just put it off until after the convention??


I don't see enough justification for that - I understand some members are going to try and go the distance with the conventions but the majority is not so a new engagement can be of value. 

Thank you!

----------


## Bryan

> I'm a little late to this thread, but could I suggest as a starting point for developing a definition of "liberty" Hayek's definition in the first chapter of "The Constitution of Liberty"?  I just started reading it and he goes to great lengths to establish it logically, as well as the definition of "coercion" and probably more  I'm only into it a few chapters).  It is kind of a dry read for anyone who isn't practically infatuated with understanding the philosophy of liberty, but I'm enjoying it.


Yes, this would be a part of goal #1. 

BTW, it's never too late for this thread--  more to come soon.

Thanks!

----------


## Tinnuhana

I was active with C4L before joining RPFs. It changed to an issues related site later.  I don't have a problem with that, per se, but back in the day, I really enjoyed PM'ing people in different areas of the world. We had our own APO/FPO section that I used to send bumper stickers, etc. to some guys in Korea and mainland Japan. I corresponded with a person in the middle east ("southeast asia"). The networking was good.

----------


## Xerographica

And again.... I suppose I'll be the only one who mentions the value of prices to the liberty movement.  This time I'll be lazy and try and put Hayek to good use...




> Fundamentally, in a system in which the knowledge of the relevant facts is dispersed among many people, prices can act to cordinate the separate actions of different people in the same way as subjective values help the individual to cordinate the parts of his plan. It is worth contemplating for a moment a very simple and commonplace instance of the action of the price system to see what precisely it accomplishes. Assume that somewhere in the world a new opportunity for the use of some raw material, say, tin, has arisen, or that one of the sources of supply of tin has been eliminated. It does not matter for our purposeand it is very significant that it does not matterwhich of these two causes has made tin more scarce. All that the users of tin need to know is that some of the tin they used to consume is now more profitably employed elsewhere and that, in consequence, they must economize tin. There is no need for the great majority of them even to know where the more urgent need has arisen, or in favor of what other needs they ought to husband the supply. If only some of them know directly of the new demand, and switch resources over to it, and if the people who are aware of the new gap thus created in turn fill it from still other sources, the effect will rapidly spread throughout the whole economic system and influence not only all the uses of tin but also those of its substitutes and the substitutes of these substitutes, the supply of all the things made of tin, and their substitutes, and so on; and all this without the great majority of those instrumental in bringing about these substitutions knowing anything at all about the original cause of these changes. The whole acts as one market, not because any of its members survey the whole field, but because their limited individual fields of vision sufficiently overlap so that through many intermediaries the relevant information is communicated to all. The mere fact that there is one price for any commodityor rather that local prices are connected in a manner determined by the cost of transport, etc.brings about the solution which (it is just conceptually possible) might have been arrived at by one single mind possessing all the information which is in fact dispersed among all the people involved in the process.
> 
> We must look at the price system as such a mechanism for communicating information if we want to understand its real functiona function which, of course, it fulfils less perfectly as prices grow more rigid. (Even when quoted prices have become quite rigid, however, the forces which would operate through changes in price still operate to a considerable extent through changes in the other terms of the contract.) The most significant fact about this system is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on and passed on only to those concerned. It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movement. -  Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society


For those of you who don't realize this... Hayek's Nobel prize essay was the inspiration for Wikipedia.   Except.... Wikipedia's founder clearly missed the real point of Hayek's essay.  As you can tell in the quote that I shared... the real point of Hayek's essay was about the essential role that prices play in the rapid and widespread transmission/dissemination of the most relevant information.  Wikipedia obviously doesn't have prices.  Here's the Wikipedia article on Friedrich Hayek.  Do you see a price tag on that page?  Nope.  Can you discern, at a quick glance, just how much that article is worth to society?  Nope.  This is because you are not given the opportunity to spend your money on that article.  Nobody is.  Yet... editors are somehow supposed to efficiently allocate their time/effort to improving Wikipedia pages without actually knowing how much the pages are worth to society.  

It's all kinds of super painful irony that the liberty movement has completely failed to take advantage of Hayek's brilliant insight.  As I mentioned in the previous thread... one way to take advantage of Hayek's insight would be to make a list of pro-liberty websites and allow members to use their cash to help determine how the websites are ordered.   Right now we don't know which pro-liberty website is most valuable to the liberty movement.  Of course there are plenty of other ways to utilize Hayek's insight to our advantage.  

If the liberty movement fails to take advantage of Hayek's insight... *then nothing that we do will ever be substantially better than what our opponents do*.

----------


## The Rebel Poet

> Straw man. In fact, many who promote non-participation or who simply do not promote the electoral process do not make this argument at all, and even discredit this as a valid argument against voting.
> 
> But if you want to alienate anti-statists over your own biases, feel free. I'm sure that helped Rand tons, too.


I have been told that before by anarchists. That may not be the only point of view, but it seems to be a very strong minority or even majority. One anarchist told me on DP that voting for Ron Paul was violence, but that he was justified in doing so because it was violence in self-defense. It is absolutely not a straw man.

----------


## ChristianAnarchist

> And again.... I suppose I'll be the only one who mentions the value of prices to the liberty movement.  This time I'll be lazy and try and put Hayek to good use...
> 
> 
> 
> For those of you who don't realize this... Hayek's Nobel prize essay was the inspiration for Wikipedia.   Except.... Wikipedia's founder clearly missed the real point of Hayek's essay.  As you can tell in the quote that I shared... the real point of Hayek's essay was about the essential role that prices play in the rapid and widespread transmission/dissemination of the most relevant information.  Wikipedia obviously doesn't have prices.  Here's the Wikipedia article on Friedrich Hayek.  Do you see a price tag on that page?  Nope.  Can you discern, at a quick glance, just how much that article is worth to society?  Nope.  This is because you are not given the opportunity to spend your money on that article.  Nobody is.  Yet... editors are somehow supposed to efficiently allocate their time/effort to improving Wikipedia pages without actually knowing how much the pages are worth to society.  
> 
> It's all kinds of super painful irony that the liberty movement has completely failed to take advantage of Hayek's brilliant insight.  As I mentioned in the previous thread... one way to take advantage of Hayek's insight would be to make a list of pro-liberty websites and allow members to use their cash to help determine how the websites are ordered.   Right now we don't know which pro-liberty website is most valuable to the liberty movement.  Of course there are plenty of other ways to utilize Hayek's insight to our advantage.  
> 
> If the liberty movement fails to take advantage of Hayek's insight... *then nothing that we do will ever be substantially better than what our opponents do*.


This is an interesting idea.  Since there is no method in place for $$$ to transfer to the best liberty web sites or activists, maybe a "liberty fund" of some sort that we can all donate to or pay dues to that will give "grants" to liberty projects.  Just a thought...

----------


## Cabal

> I have been told that before by anarchists. That may not be the only point of view, but it seems to be a very strong minority or even majority. One anarchist told me on DP that voting for Ron Paul was violence, but that he was justified in doing so because it was violence in self-defense. It is absolutely not a straw man.


It is a straw man because it's not a principle, it's a preference.

----------


## Xerographica

> This is an interesting idea.  Since there is no method in place for $$$ to transfer to the best liberty web sites or activists, maybe a "liberty fund" of some sort that we can all donate to or pay dues to that will give "grants" to liberty projects.  Just a thought...


Yeah... I like that.  The goal would be to make it as easy as possible to donate money to the most valuable activities/activists.  Amazon, for example, makes it stupid easy to spend your money.  Patreon is a possible model to consider.  But you can't use Patreon to give money to an activist that isn't on Patreon.  

Here's a subreddit that I created on Reddit before I was shadowbanned...

https://www.reddit.com/r/InvisibleHand/

Anybody can submit links and vote the links up or down.  It's basically a democracy.  The more upvotes a link receives... the more _popular_ it is... the higher up it's displayed on the page.  It would be infinitely better if spending, rather than voting, was used to determine a link's ranking.  So the more money a link receives... the more _valuable_ it is... the higher up it's displayed on the page.

Imagine a website just like Reddit but created by Bryan and the liberty movement.  You could submit a link to Cafe Hayek...

http://cafehayek.com/

I value Cafe Hayek!  So rather than simply upvoting the link... I would be able to spend money, say a dollar, to improve its rank.  Bryan would take a reasonable percentage of my dollar and give the rest to Cafe Hayek.  

Members of the liberty movement would essentially be able to use their money to... 

1. bring valuable websites to the attention of other members and the general public
2. help support valuable websites

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> I really don't know what direction should be taken but can't we just put it off until after the convention??


What else is there to do between now and the convention (other than throw things at the television)?

----------


## idiom

> What else is there to do between now and the convention (other than throw things at the television)?


Forget the Presidency.

What other races can we be working on right now? You have a local race that could benefit from a Senator coming to visit?

----------


## The Rebel Poet

> It is a straw man because it's not a principle, it's a preference.


I'm not sure what this sentence means. What is preferential about saying "Voting is violence," "Either voting is violence or it's meaningless," and "Voting is always violence"?

----------


## The Rebel Poet

> A few random thoughts...
> 
> People seem to be really hung up on labels, so it would seem instructive to present all of the "labels" that cross paths with the over-arching liberty movement.  Then, it would seem wise to somehow allow strategic alliances amongst these factions on differing issues.  In other words, let's focus on our agreements instead of our disagreements.  (I think this has been a major problem with the LP and the liberty movement in general.)  My naive hope would be that people would learn to ignore the labels altogether, but as long as we could learn to stop the infighting.  (In all honesty, I struggle with this as well.)


I couldn't agree with this more. We need to find the areas we can get broad support for so we can move forward at least some.

----------


## Bryan

> And again.... I suppose I'll be the only one who mentions the value of prices to the liberty movement.  This time I'll be lazy and try and put Hayek to good use...
> 
> 
> 
> For those of you who don't realize this... Hayek's Nobel prize essay was the inspiration for Wikipedia.   Except.... Wikipedia's founder clearly missed the real point of Hayek's essay.  As you can tell in the quote that I shared... the real point of Hayek's essay was about the essential role that prices play in the rapid and widespread transmission/dissemination of the most relevant information.  Wikipedia obviously doesn't have prices.  Here's the Wikipedia article on Friedrich Hayek.  Do you see a price tag on that page?  Nope.  Can you discern, at a quick glance, just how much that article is worth to society?  Nope.  This is because you are not given the opportunity to spend your money on that article.  Nobody is.  Yet... editors are somehow supposed to efficiently allocate their time/effort to improving Wikipedia pages without actually knowing how much the pages are worth to society.  
> 
> It's all kinds of super painful irony that the liberty movement has completely failed to take advantage of Hayek's brilliant insight.  As I mentioned in the previous thread... one way to take advantage of Hayek's insight would be to make a list of pro-liberty websites and allow members to use their cash to help determine how the websites are ordered.   Right now we don't know which pro-liberty website is most valuable to the liberty movement.  Of course there are plenty of other ways to utilize Hayek's insight to our advantage.  
> 
> If the liberty movement fails to take advantage of Hayek's insight... *then nothing that we do will ever be substantially better than what our opponents do*.


Thanks.  Hayek is spot on, of course, but this focus in just on a commercial / business perspective. This scope does not consider elements such as charity in which exchanges of goods and information are done without a tangible market price consideration. Wikipedia operates on a different model, editors allocate their time/effort to improve Wikipedia pages because they see value in what the platform offers. No one is “supposed to” do this work for Wikipedia, people voluntarily choose to do so because of the value of doing so. The same would apply to this effort, people may choose to provide value to it or not based on the value it offers. It’s really not much different than the message you just posted, you chose to voluntarily do it since it provided value but there was no price involved just the like millions of other messages posted here. What this project does is just offer a vehicle to better structure information to make it more usable.

To be certain, there is no obligation for anyone to participate in this effort.

Thank you for the post!

----------


## Bryan

The second release is out!

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...ment-Framework

----------


## The Rebel Poet

> Exactly. Establishing a linguistics basis will be critical. We'll also have to make sure we state when words have been used to have different meaning outside of our scope.


To the highest degree possible, we need to avoid jargon and use the common definitions of words so as to be easily accessible to newcomers and seekers. All groups tend to develop in-crowd jargon, but this creates a lot of equivocation (both intentional and unintentional).

As a specific example, the NAP is touted as fundamental to many libertarians, but is not always defined. What is aggression? Assuming we got down to a precise definition of the word _for our usage_, it might conflict with or be more limited than the usual meaning in normal English. Then we can think of aggression as having a limited meaning, while others might think it means something else. Now given this issue, is it easier to make up definitions for libertarianeese and constantly having to explain our definitions to newcomers/outsiders, or is it easier to just use a different word? The answer to that question depends on the individual circumstances. Off hand, I can't think of a better word for "aggression" in the NAP, but avoiding the use of "state," which many people think means a political district within a country, is really easy enough by using "government."

----------


## ChristianAnarchist

> I'm not sure what this sentence means. What is preferential about saying "Voting is violence," "Either voting is violence or it's meaningless," and "Voting is always violence"?


Oh I absolutely agree that voting is violence.  I only participate in this method of violence when I use it to promote someone who wants to fight for liberty among the "wolves".  I figure it's justified as a move in "self-defense"...

"Violence can be used for good..." V in V For Vendetta...

----------


## HVACTech

> *Oh I absolutely agree that voting is violence.*  I only participate in this method of violence when I use it to promote someone who wants to fight for liberty among the "wolves".  I figure it's justified as a move in "self-defense"...
> 
> "Violence can be used for good..." V in V For Vendetta...


good god man, have you never designed something?   
voting  was integrated as a negative feedback loop.  

in this context, it is a signal. 
the founders did not have access to how a servo works.  but YOU do. 




> A *servomechanism,* sometimes shortened to servo, is an automatic device that uses error-sensing negative feedback to correct the performance of a mechanism *and is defined by its function*.


the intent of including the Democratic PROCESS  (voting) into our Republic,  was for the expression of the will of the people. (negative feedback)

to suggest that a signalling... feature. 
built into a complex system... designed to protect Liberty..
  can somehow be conflated with violence is...   "special"!    

riddle me this.. can Liberty protect itself? 

if we are to promote Liberty... this is an essential question.

peace.

----------


## Ender

One thing that I see necessary in a strong Freedom movement is the actual understanding of Capitalism.

What we have today and what most call capitalism is not even close. The monetary system rules the world and without a real knowledge of the facts, and that liberty and freedom have been shackled in the existing money-game, is a complete destroyer of attaining liberty. 

Some education in the gold standard, fractionalized banking, and the FED, is very necessary in the quest for freedom.

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> One thing that I see necessary in a strong Freedom movement is the actual understanding of Capitalism.
> 
> What we have today and what most call capitalism is not even close. The monetary system rules the world and without a real knowledge of the facts, and that liberty and freedom have been shackled in the existing money-game, is a complete destroyer of attaining liberty. 
> 
> Some education in the gold standard, fractionalized banking, and the FED, is very necessary in the quest for freedom.


Agreed, I think economics is really the core of libertarianism.

It's not a coincidence that the founder of modern libertarianism was an economist.

----------


## T.hill

If this forum were to make a Wiki, then I think it would be a good idea to make different portals that discuss major themes -- the same way that Wikipedia connects individual articles. If you were to look up 'Liberalism in the United States', Wikipedia will reference to the overarching theme of the idea of liberalism in general by creating a liberalism sidebar at the top of the page that links to a whole page or portal dedicated to that theme.

----------


## T.hill

For example, if you were to read an article on the NAP, then you might have a sidebar at top referencing to Deontological ethics or deontology. This way it will give people, especially beginners, a way to easily navigate through different libertarian-oriented ideas and allow them to understand how they relate to each other.

Edit: I suppose that Bryan meant something similar when he said that the material should "Be massively hyperlinked to allow for easy navigation from subject to subject and to navigate up and down subject matter details."

----------


## Cabal

> I'm not sure what this sentence means. What is preferential about saying "Voting is violence," "Either voting is violence or it's meaningless," and "Voting is always violence"?


It's not a principle of anarchism. It was presented as a principle of anarchism, and then used to make an argument against anarchism in its entirety. Ergo, straw man. I don't know how else to explain this to you. That anarchists may _prefer_ to interpret voting as an act of violence does not make it a principle of anarchism.

----------


## DamianTV

> One thing that I see necessary in a strong Freedom movement is the actual understanding of Capitalism.
> 
> What we have today and what most call capitalism is not even close. The monetary system rules the world and without a real knowledge of the facts, and that liberty and freedom have been shackled in the existing money-game, is a complete destroyer of attaining liberty. 
> 
> Some education in the gold standard, fractionalized banking, and the FED, is very necessary in the quest for freedom.


Absolutely completely agree a full solid 100%.  +Rep

I think that a big part of the Education, or, Re-eduation really needs to start with the most basic of foundational principles of economics.  The easy stuff that is not taught in public school.  Such as using gold as money.  What is it about gold that makes it so precious?  Its just a metal that comes out of the ground, and beyond that, it has some limited applications as far as physical usefulness.  What is it that gives gold its value other than simply being unable to "print" more gold?  I think that value comes because it is representative of the work people do.  Work to both produce and sell products.  But it seems that using gold as a form of money, much like paper with numbers drawn on it or a digital bank acct with numbers in them, it is and has always been Work that gives all forms of money its value.

For every Positive, there is an equal and opposite Negative.  Not just in physics but in nearly every aspect of life.  So there is a Positive and Negative form of the Idea of sound money also.  Latter discussions need to illustrate both how sound money works, and how other forms of money fail.  Identify the difference between real money and currency.  True / Sound / Honest Money does not lose its value.  Currency inheritly loses its value over time, which means that the Work any person does is worth less and less.  In order to prevent the thieves from stealing the value of money, we must teach ourselves how to steal without actually stealing.  Then and only then can we prevent the evaporation of our efforts that are collected by the hands of the masters of money and currency manipulation.

*points finger at Ben Bernanke saying that Gold is not a form of money*

---

----------


## Xerographica

> Thanks.  Hayek is spot on, of course, but this focus in just on a commercial / business perspective. This scope does not consider elements such as charity in which exchanges of goods and information are done without a tangible market price consideration. Wikipedia operates on a different model, editors allocate their time/effort to improve Wikipedia pages because they see value in what the platform offers. No one is supposed to do this work for Wikipedia, people voluntarily choose to do so because of the value of doing so. The same would apply to this effort, people may choose to provide value to it or not based on the value it offers. Its really not much different than the message you just posted, you chose to voluntarily do it since it provided value but there was no price involved just the like millions of other messages posted here. What this project does is just offer a vehicle to better structure information to make it more usable.
> 
> To be certain, there is no obligation for anyone to participate in this effort.
> 
> Thank you for the post!


The message that I previously posted was a guess.  This post is a guess.  I'm a producer making a guess!  That's all producers can do is make guesses.  This is true whether we're talking about market economies or command economies.  The difference is... in a market economy... consumers can use their money to communicate just how good a producer's guess was.  Consumers don't have this freedom in command economies.  Which is why command economies tend to fail.

The reason that producers can only make guesses is because they aren't omniscient.  They aren't mind-readers.  You wrote to me, "Thank you for the post!"  Your words sure seem to indicate that you appreciate the time, energy, knowledge and thought that I put into my post.  Then again... it seems like you said, "Thank you for the post!" to pretty much everybody who posted in this thread.  And, to be honest, it seems highly unlikely that you valued all our posts equally.  

I sure don't equally value everybody's posts in this thread!  So it seems unlikely that everybody equally values my posts in this thread.  I have some evidence of this because ChristianAnarchist is the only person who gave me positive rep for one of my posts.  Thanks ChristianAnarchist!  I guess?  Not to look a gift horse in the mouth... but... I'm not exactly sure what a positive rep is worth.   Is a positive rep worth a penny?  If it's worth less than a penny then it's not a very big gift horse.  

You're right that this forum has millions of messages posted here.   But you don't seem to really appreciate that...

1. some of these messages are more valuable than other messages
2. it would be extremely valuable to know the value of each and every message
3. spending would allow us to clarify the value of each and every message
4. it would be infinitely valuable to be able to sort messages by their value




> What this project does is just offer a vehicle to better structure information to make it more usable.


Free-market.   Those are the Google search results for the term "free-market".  What Google does is organize the world's information.   What Google does not do is _efficiently_ organize the world's information.   This is because the results are sorted by voting (number/weight of income links) rather than by spending.  In other words... the results are sorted by popularity rather than by value.  

To be honest... I'm not quite sure what you mean by "a vehicle to better structure information to make it more usable."  But what I do know is that everybody's time is limited.  Therefore... the optimal structure will serve consumers the most valuable information in the least amount of time possible.  But the only way that this can happen is if you make it stupid easy for consumers to use their cash to communicate their valuation of all the information that you're sharing.  

This is an important topic so I'll try and hedge my bets.  Have you read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations?  I sure have.  It's an awesome book.  I really love it.  But I sure don't equally love all the different parts of the book.  Some parts are exceedingly tedious and/or no longer relevant.  Of course there are numerous parts that are painfully relevant.  It's almost like most people haven't even read them!!!

Now imagine that you went on Reddit and created a subreddit called "WealthOfNations".  Everybody could use that subreddit to share/upvote their favorite passages from the Wealth of Nations.  Voting/democracy would allow the most popular passages from Smith's book to rise to the top of subreddit.  This would allow people who haven't read the Wealth of Nations to easily/quickly find and read the most popular passages.  

As I have already mentioned though... spending is infinitely superior to voting.  So it would be infinitely better if people could spent their money on their favorite passages from Smith's book.  Then the most valuable passages from the Wealth of Nations would be at the top of the subreddit.  

What I'm describing is simply a market.  Your project, as you've described it, is not a market.  This means that your project is going to organize information... it might even organize a lot of information... but it's not going to _efficiently_ organize information.  

This post of mine contains information.  And everybody will have access to this information.  Which is all kinds of awesome!  But what everybody will not have access to is everybody else's valuation of this information.  You're going to know how much you value this information.... but you're not going to know how much everybody else values this information.  Nobody will have access to the most important information about this information.  Which is all kinds of awful.    

I'll hedge my bets even more.  Do you have Netflix?  I do.  It's pretty great because it provides quite a bit of content.  And, just like on this forum, I really don't equally value all the content on Netflix.  A while back there was an awesome movie on Netflix called The Man From Earth.  I really valued it!  And I knew how much I valued it... but I didn't know how much everybody else valued it.  This is because Netflix users can't allocate their fees to their favorite content.  In other words.... Netflix, just like this forum, is not a market.  

Does it matter that producers don't know everybody's valuation of The Man From Earth?  Does it matter that producers don't have the most important information about The Man From Earth?  Of course it matters.  Because they can't make the most informed guesses without the most important information.




> The management of a socialist community would be in a position like that of a ship captain who had to cross the ocean with the stars shrouded by a fog and without the aid of a compass or other equipment of nautical orientation. - Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government


You think that this rule has exceptions.... such as this forum, Wikipedia and your project.  But it really doesn't.  Markets should be everywhere and in everything.

----------


## idiom

> It's not a principle of anarchism. It was presented as a principle of anarchism, and then used to make an argument against anarchism in its entirety. Ergo, straw man. I don't know how else to explain this to you. That anarchists may _prefer_ to interpret voting as an act of violence does not make it a principle of anarchism.


The joy of the NAP it that it is 100% about interpretation. It is an incredibly jargon heavy term with each word defined beyond common usage and loaded with meaning. In fact most of my issues with anarcho-capitalism stem from how greatly advocates can differ over the meanings of terms and act like its nothing. If proponents can be at such odds over the terms then clearly it invalidates the premise that they are self-evident.

That voting is violence is perhaps not a core principle of anarcho-capitalism. The principles of Anarcho-capitalism do however rapidly construct arguments that are compellingly hostile to participation. However very few an-caps wish to admit consenting to the continued existence of the current system. I don't think voting is consent, I think continuing to hold citizenship or to live within the borders of a system is consent.

The simplest way to reconcile this, I think, is to float the premise that working within the current system is the most effective and least self-defeating option. I think the smaller the system gets, the closer we get to not violating peoples rights. It is possible to want the system to actually evolve in hostility and to burn itself to the ground. It is often expressed that this may happen soon. I don't think people understand just how many generations the status quo could hold up for.

I don't want to alienate anyone. I want as many people on board, reducing the scale and scope of public governance, and thinking critically about how they live their lives.

----------


## idiom

> You think that this rule has exceptions.... such as this forum, Wikipedia and your project.  But it really doesn't.  Markets should be everywhere and in everything.


That market has a cost. The cost of running a reddit-esque database far exceeds vBulletin as the data is far more dynamic.

The Wealth of nations exists with structure. If one wishes to read the whole of Adam Smiths arguments in a coherent order, reading popular excerpts doesn't help. If the wealth of Nations existed *only* as a sub-reddit it would be a much more difficult text to make sense of.

Most peoples understanding of Nietzsche is almost entirely backwards dues to the reading of popular excerpts.

The effectiveness of reddits structure is the speed and volume of trivial information that it processes and evaluates every day. Markets are amazing for that.

Entities like encylopaedias have more value the stronger the expertise of their editorial is.

Netflix really does have very very good information. They know exactly how many people watched more than the first five minutes of _The Man From Earth_. They know exactly where people got bored of it.

Time is more valuable than fees. People through money at steam like crazy because of simply marketing tricks and human nature. However 30% of Steam games are never even installed. Some games that cost the same amount regularly get 2000 hours invested in them. Completely free and fluid markets sometimes give results that are pretty random.

Most good sub-reddits have side bars and *stickied* topics, because there is some information the market doesn't deem valuable enough to keep at the top on an ongoing basis. The regular users get bored of constantly upvoting things or spending reddit gold on old familiar topics.

Markets establish the market value of a thing in whatever currency that market operates in. They do not establish moral values or abstract values.

Would Netflix users benefit more from watching _The Man From Earth_ than 95% of the rest of NetFlix' content? Yes. Does it make business sense for them to keep it even if people could pay them specifically to keep it? Probably not. I am pretty sure there would be far more places that fees get sent and the fee signal would reflect the time signal nearly 1:1. Netflix outperforms cable networks with users even though cable users *can* direct their fees. NetFlix has much better market information because it tracks time information leaps and bounds better than cable companies can even though cable companies have much more granular fee information.

Fortunately since it all comes off a database, one could switch views between a Reddit system, a Usenet system, a standard forum system, or any system on might like. I often view sub-reddits through imgur because it is a lot swifter and simpler. Yay technology.

----------


## Bryan

> One thing that I see necessary in a strong Freedom movement is the actual understanding of Capitalism.
> 
> What we have today and what most call capitalism is not even close. The monetary system rules the world and without a real knowledge of the facts, and that liberty and freedom have been shackled in the existing money-game, is a complete destroyer of attaining liberty. 
> 
> Some education in the gold standard, fractionalized banking, and the FED, is very necessary in the quest for freedom.


Excellent points, lets be sure to address this in Step 5. Thanks!

----------


## Bryan

> For example, if you were to read an article on the NAP, then you might have a sidebar at top referencing to Deontological ethics or deontology. This way it will give people, especially beginners, a way to easily navigate through different libertarian-oriented ideas and allow them to understand how they relate to each other.
> 
> Edit: I suppose that Bryan meant something similar when he said that the material should "Be massively hyperlinked to allow for easy navigation from subject to subject and to navigate up and down subject matter details."


Agreed on your posts, and yes, that was I what I meant. We can get into the nuts and bolts of this in Step 3.

----------


## Bryan

> The message.....
> 
> (Cut) 
> 
> Does it matter that producers don't know everybody's valuation of The Man From Earth?  Does it matter that producers don't have the most important information about The Man From Earth?  Of course it matters.  Because they can't make the most informed guesses without the most important information.
> 
> 
> 
> You think that this rule has exceptions.... such as this forum, Wikipedia and your project.  But it really doesn't.  Markets should be everywhere and in everything.


Fantastic, I see your point and it is a good one. Certainly there are some well-established techniques for how information can be retrieved, such as by navigation, searching and voting, but I had not considered a donation viewpoint. That is an excellent proposition and something that should be incorporated into the plans. Well cover this more in Step 3, Ill add in your point to the initial proposal and provide you credit. Lets cover it more then. Thank you!

----------


## Xerographica

> That market has a cost. The cost of running a reddit-esque database far exceeds vBulletin as the data is far more dynamic.


Storing information (votes/value) about information means the addition of another table in the database.  The issue is whether the cost of storing this additional data is worth the benefit of having it.  I'm pretty sure it's worth the cost.  




> The Wealth of nations exists with structure. If one wishes to read the whole of Adam Smiths arguments in a coherent order, reading popular excerpts doesn't help. If the wealth of Nations existed *only* as a sub-reddit it would be a much more difficult text to make sense of.


I'm hardly arguing that we should entirely abolish the Wealth of Nations (WON) in its current format.  What I'm proposing is a completely decentralized Easter Egg hunt.  Everybody can search in WON for "Easter Eggs" (relevant/important passages).  They could then share the Easter Eggs in the dedicated subreddit... and then participants could upvote the best Easter Eggs.  Like I mentioned though... it would be infinitely better if people could use their money, rather than their votes, to communicate their valuation of the different Easter Eggs.  

"We" could do the same thing with the Ron Paul Forums (I can't because I'm shadowbanned).   So you, for example, could create a subreddit called "RonPaulForums".  Members of that subreddit could search this forum for Easter Eggs (the best threads/posts).  Then they could share the links in the subreddit.  All the members of that subreddit would then be able to upvote their favorite threads.  At a glance... anybody would be able to see which threads in the Ron Paul Forums are the most _popular_.

It's simply a decentralized treasure hunt.  People dig for buried treasure.  When they find it... they share it with others... who can then use their votes to communicate whether the discovery is trash or treasure.  Again... to be clear... voting is infinitely inferior to spending as a means of accurately communicating your valuation of things.  But voting is certainly better than nothing.    




> Most peoples understanding of Nietzsche is almost entirely backwards dues to the reading of popular excerpts.


So voting isn't better than nothing?  

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Creative Destruction.  Guess who added the quote from Nietzsche.  




> The effectiveness of reddits structure is the speed and volume of trivial information that it processes and evaluates every day. Markets are amazing for that.


Reddit is _not_ a market.  It's a democracy.  People vote... they do not spend.   Or... democracy is a _really_ crappy market.  Which would mean that Reddit is a really crappy market.  




> Entities like encylopaedias have more value the stronger the expertise of their editorial is.


Encyclopedias would have more value if consumers could use their money to communicate their valuation of the entries.  Just how important to society is the concept of creative destruction?  We don't know because society can't allocate its money to the Wikipedia entry on creative destruction.  




> Netflix really does have very very good information. They know exactly how many people watched more than the first five minutes of _The Man From Earth_. They know exactly where people got bored of it.


Knowing how many people "exit".... and when, exactly, they exited... *really* is not the same thing as knowing how much value the "stayers" derived from watching the entire movie.  

Clearly I watched the entire movie.  So... can you guess how much of my Netflix fees I would have allocated to The Man From Earth if I had been free to do so?  Seriously... please try and guess.  

I read your entire post.  I didn't exit/quit halfway through your post.  Therefore... what?  Therefore you know how much value I derived from your post?  Everybody now knows how much value I derived from your post?  

There's content that I'll consume for "free"... and then there's content that I'll actually be wiling to pay for after I consumed it.  

To be fair... this is a tricky concept.  Even my favorite living economist.... Alex Tabarrok... struggles with it.  

Prices vs ChipsHeaven's Going To Burn Your EyesCrazy Cable Confusion: Costless Content Creation

In that last entry I shared this bottom line up front...




> Creating content that consumers _are not_ willing to pay for shrinks the pool of resources available for the creation of content that consumers _are_ willing to pay for.

----------


## idiom

> Storing information (votes/value) about information means the addition of another table in the database.  The issue is whether the cost of storing this additional data is worth the benefit of having it.  I'm pretty sure it's worth the cost.


Every time a thread on reddit is viewed it has to be constructed anew as all the posts can change order willy nilly. It is a higher processing cost.




> Reddit is _not_ a market.  It's a democracy.  People vote... they do not spend.   Or... democracy is a _really_ crappy market.  Which would mean that Reddit is a really crappy market.


https://www.reddit.com/gold/about/




> Clearly I watched the entire movie. So... can you guess how much of my Netflix fees I would have allocated to The Man From Earth if I had been free to do so? Seriously... please try and guess.


How much would you have allocated to people finding you similar content, or new content production, or expansion into other countries, or bandwidth upgrades?

Why don't you run a company sometime where every internal business decision is made by customers?

As Ford said, you would have allocated all of his resources to breeding faster horses.

The cost to Netflix is the same no matter how much value you derive from it. They might prefer you actually leave their service and move to a service where you can allocate your fee to particular movies. Customers spending their time leads to them continuing to spend their money. Your personal preferences may have no bearing whatsoever on their core demographics.




> Reddit is _not_ a market.  It's a democracy.  People vote... they do not spend.   Or... democracy is a _really_ crappy market.  Which would mean that Reddit is a really crappy market.


Back to this, dollars are not the only currency in existence. Democracy is a market. It can be quite a free market. If everyone had $1 to give to a politician to do the job, would it be more meaningful to them than 1 vote?

----------


## Cabal

> The joy of the NAP it that it is 100% about interpretation.


What is there to interpret about NAP? The only issues that may present a problem to NAP is property right disputes, in which case, this is a matter of determining the more valid property rights claim where competing claims are in contention. This isn't a problem with interpretation of NAP. NAP is simple, and clear. Abortion is a good example of this--the issue isn't with 'interpretation' of NAP, it's with the dispute between the property rights claim of the mother vs. the property rights claim of the fetus.

If your argument is about what is more open to interpretation though, I'd say that presents a fairly significant problem to the position you're promoting, given that the Constitution is a complete and demonstrable failure with regard to interpretive problems.

----------


## HVACTech

> What is there to interpret about NAP? The only issues that may present a problem to NAP is property right disputes, in which case, this is a matter of determining the more valid property rights claim where competing claims are in contention. This isn't a problem with interpretation of NAP. NAP is simple, and clear. Abortion is a good example of this--the issue isn't with 'interpretation' of NAP, it's with the dispute between the property rights claim of the mother vs. the property rights claim of the fetus.
> 
> If your argument is about what is more* open to interpretation though*, I'd say that presents a fairly significant problem to the position you're promoting, *given that the Constitution is a complete and demonstrable failure with regard to interpretive problems*.




can I give you another word for  "interpretive problems"

----------


## idiom

> What is there to interpret about NAP? The only issues that may present a problem to NAP is property right disputes, in which case, this is a matter of determining the more valid property rights claim where competing claims are in contention.


What is property? Who can own it? Both of these are essentially arbitrary in their definition and lead to most of the schisms between advocates.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> The joy of the NAP it that it is 100% about interpretation. [...]


 Of course it is. So what? There is not nor can there be any ethical precept about which this is not true.




> Originally Posted by Cabal
> 
> 
> What is there to interpret about NAP? [...]
> 
> 
> What is property? Who can own it? Both of these are essentially arbitrary in their definition and lead to most of the schisms between advocates.


The NAP is corollary, not "primary" - i.e., application of the NAP necessarily presupposes answers to questions such as "what is property and how can it be acquired?" and "what is violence and when may it be used?" But the fact that there are disagreements among exponents of the NAP concerning the answers to such questions does not stand as a sensible criticism of the NAP _per se_. All socio-political "isms" (not just those that incorporate the NAP) must address such questions - and proponents of those "isms" are just as prone to "internal" disagreements over the answers. Socialists, for example, may dispute among themselves over what is "capital" and what is not ... or Constitutionalists may dispute among themselves over who is a "natural-born citizen" and who is not ... or etc., etc., etc. Any "ism" that does not exhibit such so-called "schisms" is either very small or very sterile or both ...

----------


## idiom

> Of course it is. So what? There is not nor can there be any ethical precept about which this is not true.


When claiming objective moral truth that one could kill to defend based on self-evidence, it really should be self evident.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> When claiming objective moral truth that one could kill to defend based on self-evidence, it really should be self evident.


*shrug* I agree - when claiming _anything_ based on something being X, that something really should be X. (I dare even say that this is "self-evident.")

On numerous occasions you have made allegations of claims of "self-evidence" (just as you have done here and in post #91), but I do not recall your having cited any specific sources of such. You may have done so, but I am not aware of it (perhaps I have missed them). If you will  identify a particular one, I will gladly join you in critiquing it.

Neither the NAP nor its applications are "self-evident" in the sense of being obviously indisputable primaries - as I previously  stated, they are corollary upon  presuppositions about which  reasonable people may disagree. However, it is important to understand that a claim that a propostion is "self-evident" is not necessarily intended to mean that the proposition is an obviously indisputable primary. It _might_ be intended to mean that - or it might merely be intended to mean that the proposition is clearly and obviously derivable from presuppositions that have been assumed to be true within the context of the presentation.

For example, given presuppositional statements A, B and C, and given a clear and obvious derivation of proposition D from A and B, and given a clear and obvious derivation of propostion E from B and C, it is not unreasonable to say that D and E are "self-evident." Of course, one may dispute whether any of A, B and C are actually "true" (or "correct" or "desirable" or whatever other term may be appropriate), but that in no way invalidates the claim that the derivations of D and E from A, B and C are "self-evident." To illustrate: if all green things are made of cheese, and if the moon is green, then within the context of those premises, it can be said to be obvious - i.e., "self-evident" - that the moon must be made of cheese. Or for a "real world" illustration, consider this from Herbert Spencer (bold emphasis added):

*As a corollary to the proposition* that all institutions must be  subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the  right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. *If  every man has* freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not  the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection  with the state - to relinquish its protection and to refuse paying  toward its support. *It is self-evident that* in so behaving he in no way  trenches upon the liberty of others, for his position is a passive one,  and while passive he cannot become an aggressor. *It is equally  self-evident that* he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political  corporation without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship  involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property  against his will is an infringement of his rights.
It is clear from this that Spencer's assertions of "self-evidence" are made within the context of "a corollary to the proposition" he identifies, and that they are also contingent upon the specified condition "if every man has ..." being true. Spencer is not asserting that his "self-evident" claims are obviously indisputable primaries.

Thus, from your post #91, which I mentioned in an earlier parenthetical:



> If proponents [of the NAP] can be at such odds over  the terms then clearly it invalidates the premise that they are  self-evident.


Given the above considerations, whether this statement by you is true is contingent upon the context in which those ostensibly "self-evident" propositions are proffered. If and when they are presented as obviously indisputable primaries, then you are correct, and the fact that they are disputed over clearly does render false any assertions of "self-evidence." But if and when they are presented as being "self-evidently" corollary to presuppositions over which reasonable people might disagree, your statement is true only if you can demonstrate that they are not obviously derivable from the relevant presuppositions (and this may involve subjective assessments of what is or is not "obvious"). Furthermore, in either of these cases, even if you were able to demonstrate a lack of "self-evidence," this would serve only to show that the quality of being "self-evident" is absent from the relevant propositions - i.e., it would not serve to show that those propositions are invalid or false, but merely that they are not "self-evident."

----------


## BUTSRSLY

DOOD.

VALUE IS SUBJECTiVE. THEREFORE INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.
HARM IS BAD FOR IT CAUSES SUFFERING, THEREFORE JURIES.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT SYRIA?

1. IS IT A WAR?  IF YES, DON'T DO IT.  BECAUSE HARM IS BAD

WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT FOOD STAMPS?

2. DOES IT PLACE VALUE OUTSIDE OF THE HANDS OF AN INDIVIDUAL?  IF YES (YES) DON'T DO IT, BECAUSE VALUE IS SUBJECTIVE

THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT STUFF

----------


## Gumba of Liberty

We need core principles in an easy to read, understandable format for the masses. Along with our message of ending the wars (War on Terror & War on Drugs) we need a list of principles that appeals to both red team and blue team. Here is my attempt:

_The Five Steps to a Free Country_

1. *Fight Corporate Privilege.* End limited liability protections and corporate personhood. Hold shareholders accountable for the actions and crimes of their corporations. End corporate welfare by abolishing subsidies and restoring market competition. _In a free country, corporations do not have more power than individuals._

2. *Fight the Wall Street Banking Cartel.* End the Fed and the Fractional-Reserve Banking system that causes the boom-bust cycle while enriching the 1%. Allow currencies to compete by recognizing the Right of all free people to choose the currencies they trade and save in. Remove all legal tender laws and taxes on commodities restoring a true free-market to our money. _In a free country, banks and governments cannot print money from thin air._

3. *Return Justice to the Justice System.* Recognize the Right of defense attorneys and the accused to use all evidence and testimony available to them in their defense, including arguments based on Natural Law. Restore the Right of Jury Nullification which allows the jury to protect people from unconstitutional laws that violate their Natural Rights and set them free. _In a free country, only citizens send criminals to jail, never government employees._

4. *Protect the Environment by Protecting your Environment.* Allow landowners to sue anyone, including corporations, who pollute their air, water or soil. Remove property taxes & regulations so people can truly own their land, pass it to their children, invest in making improvements and create an incentive toward sustainability for the long-term. Redefine land ownership to allow all neglected public and private land to be settled and claimed by individuals which make improvements to the land without fees or taxes. The term "improvement" shall be defined in court by a jury of peers. _In a free country, land is only owned when used._

5. *Reestablish the Right to Choose your Government.* The Declaration of Independence is right when it states that A. All men are created equal B. All men have Natural Rights C. The governments role is to protect your Natural Rights D. If the government does not protect your Natural Rights, you have the Right to alter or abolish your government. Any group of people, anywhere and in any number, that demands independence from their country has the Right to declare independence and attempt to make their own way in the world and just maybe, through trial and error, make a better world for their children. _In a free country, you have the right to declare independence, at any time for any reason._

Say these five points over and over and over...

And I don't think we can lose.

----------


## osan

> The following describes a new long-term site initiative! Much more detail is to come!
> 
> 
> *Forward*
> I have been formulating ideas and plans on how gain liberty since 2007, these ideas keep getting reprocessed and rethought over and over to continue to refine the best path forward towards liberty. I have acted on a variety of points and ideas but there was still a larger set of ideas that have not been put into motion yet. I purchased RPFs in 2013 with the hopes of acting upon these rough ideas; I spent a good amount of time and effort in 2013-2015 to continue to refine a path and worked to reshape the website to achieve these goals. Almost all of the changes I have made to the site have been calculated to this vision to which I am dedicated.
> 
> As these efforts started to come together more I decided it would be best to defer the involvement of others until after the conclusion of Rands campaign to prevent any interference with his campaign on the site. As Rands campaign is now in the past, I am moving forward. 
> 
> I have tentatively referred to the plan under consideration simply as the Mission Advancement Framework (MAF) and have broken down the efforts to deploy the MAF into different phases. This introduction you are now reading just focuses on the initial goals of the framework; the phases of actual effort to implement the MAF will be forthcoming.
> ...


Laudable.

However, you are missing a key element: Philosophical underpinnings.

Without an understanding of the philosophical basis driving the other goals, the chances of longer term failure (even generations down the road) are high because people will not know why they are where they are in terms of being free.  This, in turn, leaves them ill-equipped to deal with the usual carpet-bagger sorts like the regressives who label themselves "progressive".  Why were the hippies so effective as useful idiots to the regressives?  Largely because the people whom they attacked were not of the right mind to put them in their proper places when they came forward with their blank-check iconoclasm.  What may have begun as a reasonable questioning of who we were and where we were headed was rapidly coopted by the left and perverted, the targets of the regressive debauchery too ignorant and naïve to understand what was being done to them; how they were being manipulated.

Without a very well thought out, correct, complete, and clear philosophical framework showing WHY we are inherently free and why it is the best state of living possible, future generations will be unequipped to resist the snake-oil salesmen who will tempt the non-achievers with the very same notions the regressives used on the same class of youngsters, and which are employed with such catastrophic effect even today, playing upon feelings of inadequacy, justification, envy, hatred, fear, avarice, and so forth.  It was a perfect strategy to target the lowest men on the totem, telling them that they were as good as the rest and that it simply wasn't fair and that "the system" was evil and had to be destroyed in order that the corrupt ill-adepts would stand shoulder to shoulder with the achievers.

That aside, the philosophical foundation is needed not only to convince people of the validity and desirability of real freedom, it also DEFINES it such that people understand exactly what it is for which they would strive and why they should do so, as well as the reasons some would reject proper freedom.  Words and notions are all too often thrown around willy-nilly without rigorous understanding.  That cannot be the case here.  It simply CANNOT be allowed because that will lead to failure.

For hypothetical example: imagine a general civil war broke out today and "we" slaughtered "Themme" to the man.  Just as with VJ-Day, there might be great celebrations.  But then what?  With what is the old regime replaced?  THAT is the greater problem.  Why?  Because in a nation of 300 million people, you would have at least 300,000,001 opinions on the matter.  Consider what happened after we cleaned up in Eye-Rack - we had no exit strategy and no vision for what we were to accomplish there, aside from kicking the local tyrant's ass, which we did.  Now what? Between Bush and Obama, many thumbs resided in many sphincters, the only people having a real clue of what to do being concerns such as Haliburton who were there to suck the American taxpayer's dry.  The military at least knew that there was a problem, but the nitwits in DC kept waving the penises around, shouting loudly that they had it all under control and condemning anyone who questioned their methods.

There was NO PLAN because there was no understanding of the situation beyond the actual military operations.  The POLITICAL goal was almost nonexistent beyond putting Hussein and al Qaeda out of business.  The situation reminded me of the episode of South Park with the underpants gnomes where on their black board they had "Steal Under Pants --> ???? --> Profit".  It is the classic "and then a miracle occurs" situation, as was the "mission" in Eye-Rack in terms of politics.  There WAS no real mission because there was no plan because there was no understanding.

And so it would be in the wake of this hypothetical civil war, part deux.  Because there would be no clear and sufficiently broad philosophical basis for understanding that for which we had fought - because all we would know is that we had fought for "freedom" with no knowledge of what that really means - there would instantly arise faction up faction with differing opinions.  There would survive those even on the "winning" side who would want "socialism" because they were too damned pig-ignorant and corrupt to realize that it is one of the worst possible solutions - a "non-solution", in fact.  Even barring that, you would have a million differing visions of what post-war America should be and that would likely result in more fighting.  Taken to its logically absurd conclusion, the day would come when the last two cavemen would find themselves on opposite sides of the fire, eyeballing each other nervously and getting no sleep at all.

You cannot even begin to take this journey with any rational hope of achieving anything worthy of good note without being armed with a fully framed philosophical skeleton upon which to pin your strategy and the attendant tactics.  Without this framework, I daresay you are doomed to failure.

To that end, I offer as a starting point items such as the Canon Of Proper Human Relations, which IMO should be based upon a philosophical proof of the absolute equality of all human rights.  It's all there in the Canon as it now exists, but methinks a restructuring would be in order for the sake of rigor, clarity, completeness, and proven correctness.  I am not suggesting that it need become a work of ultimate philosophical rigor right up front, for that could take years and endless volumes of tiresome language, analysis, and synthesis to produce.  That is a task for philosophers to take up if they so choose.  What I would seek and suggest it a work that is intuitively proven to a 6-sigma standard such that any challenge to its validity could be crushed by any semi-dull sixth-grader having been gifted with an understanding of the basic principles in question.  Having that basis would go a very long way toward "standardizing" the philosophical world-view, thereby making it broadly accessible to the people of the nation and ultimately the world.  With such broad dissemination of the knowledge of the principles, people of all ages and backgrounds would be able to engage in intelligent discourse on the matter, based upon facts in evidence, reason, and logic in favor of the current trend to wild, flailing emotionalism being allowed to damn fact and reason to hell, no matter how insanely destructive to self and others.

Whatever your basis, you must have this if you intend on avoiding the same failure points that have sunk men's efforts to get out from under the tyrant's thumb for centuries.  Less ignorance is what it needed, not more; but the quality of the principled basis and definition must be better than it has ever before been such that the philosophy cannot be credibly defeated by ignorants and other malefactors.  It allows for the questioning of itself, saying "prove me invalid and I will leave of my own free will", so to speak.  I do believe I have contrived the basis for this impermeability: the Cardinal Postulate which says that all men are equally endowed (or gifted) with life.  The whole strategy I have in mind revolves around getting challengers to accept it as axiomatically and apodictically true.  Once that happens, their ships of argumentation are sunk, leaving them nowhere to go but to brunch with Davey Jones.

Let me know if you want to proceed.

----------


## osan

> "Leave it to the states" is not passing the buck on abortion, it's restoring the issue back to where it belongs. Removing an issue as a centralizing concern is an excellent counter to the statist impulse. This devolution away from federalizing everything is indeed more unifying than the one-size-fits-all policymaking of monolithic philosophers.


Absolutely incorrect.  It is by all means passing the buck.  The issue is NOT validly determinable in randomly differing ways from one state to the next.  This issue is a REALLY big deal, especially when it is considered murder.  Given that potential, this is one of those core issues that must have IDENTICAL valence and treatment across all state lines.  One doesn't have women in NYC running about to get hoovered with impunity while Louisiana sends them to prison for doing the same.  This "states rights" argument is so hopelessly failed in all its dimensions as to boggle the mind of thinking men when others raise it as some sort of grand political virtue.  The very thought that KneeGrows could validly be forced to the back of the bus once again in New Jersey as a matter of "state's rights" is absurd on its face.  No state holds valid power to violate the rights of men.  PERIOD.

----------


## osan

> Nope, the state's inevitable.


Only if people are corrupt.

----------


## Bryan

> Laudable.
> 
> However, you are missing a key element: Philosophical underpinnings.
> 
> Without an understanding of the philosophical basis driving the other goals, the chances of longer term failure (even generations down the road) are high because people will not know why they are where they are in terms of being free.  This, in turn, leaves them ill-equipped to deal with the usual carpet-bagger sorts like the regressives who label themselves "progressive".  Why were the hippies so effective as useful idiots to the regressives?  Largely because the people whom they attacked were not of the right mind to put them in their proper places when they came forward with their blank-check iconoclasm.  What may have begun as a reasonable questioning of who we were and where we were headed was rapidly coopted by the left and perverted, the targets of the regressive debauchery too ignorant and naïve to understand what was being done to them; how they were being manipulated.
> 
> Without a very well thought out, correct, complete, and clear philosophical framework showing WHY we are inherently free and why it is the best state of living possible, future generations will be unequipped to resist the snake-oil salesmen who will tempt the non-achievers with the very same notions the regressives used on the same class of youngsters, and which are employed with such catastrophic effect even today, playing upon feelings of inadequacy, justification, envy, hatred, fear, avarice, and so forth.  It was a perfect strategy to target the lowest men on the totem, telling them that they were as good as the rest and that it simply wasn't fair and that "the system" was evil and had to be destroyed in order that the corrupt ill-adepts would stand shoulder to shoulder with the achievers.
> 
> That aside, the philosophical foundation is needed not only to convince people of the validity and desirability of real freedom, it also DEFINES it such that people understand exactly what it is for which they would strive and why they should do so, as well as the reasons some would reject proper freedom.  Words and notions are all too often thrown around willy-nilly without rigorous understanding.  That cannot be the case here.  It simply CANNOT be allowed because that will lead to failure.


You are absolutely correct, and I acknowledge that this intro was short on details to make it more readable.  To get an idea of how these issues are being addressed, I refer you to the following threads (in order):

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...cal-Philosophy
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...nd-Assumptions
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...il-Advancement
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...ase-Dictionary





> For hypothetical example: imagine a general civil war broke out today and "we" slaughtered "Themme" to the man.  Just as with VJ-Day, there might be great celebrations.  But then what?  With what is the old regime replaced?  THAT is the greater problem.  Why?  Because in a nation of 300 million people, you would have at least 300,000,001 opinions on the matter.  Consider what happened after we cleaned up in Eye-Rack - we had no exit strategy and no vision for what we were to accomplish there, aside from kicking the local tyrant's ass, which we did.  Now what? Between Bush and Obama, many thumbs resided in many sphincters, the only people having a real clue of what to do being concerns such as Haliburton who were there to suck the American taxpayer's dry.  The military at least knew that there was a problem, but the nitwits in DC kept waving the penises around, shouting loudly that they had it all under control and condemning anyone who questioned their methods.
> 
> There was NO PLAN because there was no understanding of the situation beyond the actual military operations.  The POLITICAL goal was almost nonexistent beyond putting Hussein and al Qaeda out of business.  The situation reminded me of the episode of South Park with the underpants gnomes where on their black board they had "Steal Under Pants --> ???? --> Profit".  It is the classic "and then a miracle occurs" situation, as was the "mission" in Eye-Rack in terms of politics.  There WAS no real mission because there was no plan because there was no understanding.


I completely agree, this is an issue that needs to be addressed. In a large regard, I consider this a two part problem. The first is to make sure that people are philosophical aligned on the ideas of liberty. The second is a somewhat different issues, in that we need the define structures on how to best defend liberty, be it with a state or not (which is somewhat immaterial). Defining liberty is a complete philosophical process; determining how to defend it requires some concrete decisions to be made that are full of pros and cons. I did not address this element here, but did within the Liberty Blueprint:

7. a) Organizational structure plans needed to preserve liberty. b) Execution of the plans.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...sion-a-new-era




> And so it would be in the wake of this hypothetical civil war, part deux.  Because there would be no clear and sufficiently broad philosophical basis for understanding that for which we had fought - because all we would know is that we had fought for "freedom" with no knowledge of what that really means - there would instantly arise faction up faction with differing opinions.  There would survive those even on the "winning" side who would want "socialism" because they were too damned pig-ignorant and corrupt to realize that it is one of the worst possible solutions - a "non-solution", in fact.  Even barring that, you would have a million differing visions of what post-war America should be and that would likely result in more fighting.  Taken to its logically absurd conclusion, the day would come when the last two cavemen would find themselves on opposite sides of the fire, eyeballing each other nervously and getting no sleep at all.
> 
> You cannot even begin to take this journey with any rational hope of achieving anything worthy of good note without being armed with a fully framed philosophical skeleton upon which to pin your strategy and the attendant tactics.  Without this framework, I daresay you are doomed to failure.
> 
> To that end, I offer as a starting point items such as the Canon Of Proper Human Relations, which IMO should be based upon a philosophical proof of the absolute equality of all human rights.  It's all there in the Canon as it now exists, but methinks a restructuring would be in order for the sake of rigor, clarity, completeness, and proven correctness.


Upon reflection, and past discussions, I think we are defining the same concept with two different terms, you with "Canon Of Proper Human Relations" and me with "Civil Advancement". This is something we can get into more later.




> I am not suggesting that it need become a work of ultimate philosophical rigor right up front, for that could take years and endless volumes of tiresome language, analysis, and synthesis to produce.


Agreed, that is why I am suggesting a long form and a short forum of the knowledgebase. The goal will be to cover a lot of ground building out the short form and filling in the long form later.




> That is a task for philosophers to take up if they so choose.  What I would seek and suggest it a work that is intuitively proven to a 6-sigma standard such that any challenge to its validity could be crushed by any semi-dull sixth-grader having been gifted with an understanding of the basic principles in question.  Having that basis would go a very long way toward "standardizing" the philosophical world-view, thereby making it broadly accessible to the people of the nation and ultimately the world.


This is the exact goal of the knowledgebase, completely air-tight logic. 





> With such broad dissemination of the knowledge of the principles, people of all ages and backgrounds would be able to engage in intelligent discourse on the matter, based upon facts in evidence, reason, and logic in favor of the current trend to wild, flailing emotionalism being allowed to damn fact and reason to hell, no matter how insanely destructive to self and others.


Exactly, a main benefit of the knowledgebase. It also keep one from having to repeat the same arguments over and over. So debates on the internet could be effectively ended by posting one link to the knowledgebase.





> Whatever your basis, you must have this if you intend on avoiding the same failure points that have sunk men's efforts to get out from under the tyrant's thumb for centuries.  Less ignorance is what it needed, not more; but the quality of the principled basis and definition must be better than it has ever before been such that the philosophy cannot be credibly defeated by ignorants and other malefactors.


Completely agreed.





> It allows for the questioning of itself, saying "prove me invalid and I will leave of my own free will", so to speak.  I do believe I have contrived the basis for this impermeability: the Cardinal Postulate which says that all men are equally endowed (or gifted) with life.  The whole strategy I have in mind revolves around getting challengers to accept it as axiomatically and apodictically true.  Once that happens, their ships of argumentation are sunk, leaving them nowhere to go but to brunch with Davey Jones.
> 
> Let me know if you want to proceed.


Let's continue to discuss. Be sure to review the 4 linked threads. I am very committed to this effort, some has been slow going of recent due to other site issues but this is a long term project.

----------


## Peace&Freedom

> Absolutely incorrect.  It is by all means passing the buck.  The issue is NOT validly determinable in randomly differing ways from one state to the next.  This issue is a REALLY big deal, especially when it is considered murder.  Given that potential, this is one of those core issues that must have IDENTICAL valence and treatment across all state lines.


Homicide itself, not even considering abortion, is a _state_ crime that is differently determined and treated across the 50 states. And the differences are not random, they were determined by the separate deliberative procedures and laws developed by the representative processes of each state. At the start of the country on federal level, only three offenses---treason, counterfeiting and piracy---were considered within its jurisdiction, all else was understood to be the province of the states to determine or prosecute. State's rights is relevant because it accordingly decentralizes government, and thereby makes it easier to correct or reverse its centralizing abuses, on this or other subjects.

----------


## osan

> Homicide itself, not even considering abortion, is a _state_ crime that is differently determined and treated across the 50 states. And the differences are not random, they were determined by the separate deliberative procedures and laws developed by the representative processes of each state. At the start of the country on federal level, only three offenses---treason, counterfeiting and piracy---were considered within its jurisdiction, all else was understood to be the province of the states to determine or prosecute.


You seem to be under the common and false impression that the Constitution does not apply to "states".  Even if that had been the Framers' original intention, it is wrong.

The United States is a club of sorts, made up of individual territories that at one time claimed sovereignty.  They did each in turn "apply" for membership (original 13 colonies were a bit different, but not so much so that we could not say the same of them in the relevant senses) and were granted it on the proviso that they accepted certain conditions and rules.  One of them, the most important one by a vast margin, was the Bill of Rights, which enumerated certain key rights of men, recognizing and holding them sacrosanct, as well as acknowledging the innumerable rights of all free men (Amendment IX and, lesser, X).  The BoR could actually have served as the body of the Constitution, the rest of it being left on the cutting room floor for all I could have cared, because it remains the ONLY thing that keeps those last manacles from being clapped on to our wrists and ankles.

To suggest that the 1A applies only to the fedgov, the direct and unavoidable implication being that "states" hold the 10A right to establish mandatory state religions and silence the speech of free men is absurd and beneath contempt on its face.  The idea that "states" are empowered to disarm their respective populations, to deny due process, to quarter military or police in others' homes at will, to employ cruel and unusual punishments (including torture to extract confessions in subversion- or arbitrary redefinition-of due process, is equally abhorrent even in the face of the least critical scrutiny.

The BoR was an addition that says, "if you want to be in this club, here are the rules by which you shall comport yourselves, and the fedgov SHALL have the power to enforce these rules of comport upon you because those edicts are the Law of the Land.  PERIOD."  There is no other interpretation that even makes sense on this issue.  The "states rights" interpretations basically say that free speech is only defensible against arbitrary violation by the fedgov, but that states are free to silence their people.  Must I point out how revolting and abhorrent this notion actually is on its face?




> State's rights is relevant because it accordingly decentralizes government, and thereby makes it easier to correct or reverse its centralizing abuses, on this or other subjects.


That is the theory, but we see how well it has worked in practice.  

Firstly, there is no such thing as a "state".  The term itself is an abstract construct of shorthand speech, a mere linguistic convenience that points to nothing possessing a reality of its own above and beyond that of a group of people acting in accord with a script.  That is IT.  When one conducts a noiseless analysis of the notion of "the state", we see there are nothing but vapors and people.  Yet those people would have the rest believe that the vaporous shades are stone and steel.  This is lies, deceit, and grotesque ignorance at play.  It is idiocy of the first order and of such danger that it claimed 200+ million lives in the course of a single, miserable century of humanity run wildly insane behind ideas so lacking in validity that the fact that so many people accepted them as true and sound "law" constitutes proof of how quietly deranged the human race has become.  Or would you argue that the notions and pursuant actions of the likes of Stalin and Mao were sound, valid "law" in action?

The 10A is a horrible stain upon the face of the BoR and ought to be either excised or rewritten for clarity, completeness, and correctness.  

Secondly, a "state", being a non-extistent entity (or at the very least a non-living one) cannot have _RIGHTS_.  A right is a claim.  Can my '32 Ford three-window coupe make claims to anything, even leaded, high-octane fuels?  Short of ingesting a very stiff dose of LSD, I am unable to see how it could; and even then.  Can your kitchen sink lay a claim of any sort, even to its own existence?  No.  Then how can a "state"?  Short answer: it cannot because even if we grant that it has an existence of its own, which it does not, it is nonetheless _INANIMATE_.  Therefore, "states" have no rights of which to speak.  Being non-existent, they really do not even have powers, but that is a discussion for another day.

Our Constitution is a study in the grand political short-shrift.  But once again I voice my forgiveness to the Framers and assume their best intentions, rather than that of ensnaring the people with pretty words ( a BIG assumption, I admit, but valid for the purpose of this discussion).  As I have pointed out at least once before, they were children of Empire, monarchy no less, raised on basic assumptions so deeply seated, such as the king being a given in the world, that the fact that they wandered far enough off the plantation to conceive of this in-hindsight weak mishmash of specifications for a free nation, is something of a miracle.  But that miracle of the day, which still holds a greatness in its bosom as valid now as ever before, comes under need of clarification such that it may be better and more broadly understood by people, more deeply respected and valued through the lens of one's own precious and rightly esteemed freedoms, and either edited, replaced, or at least viewed with different eyes such that the people will no longer be vulnerable to the brands of abuse to which they have acceded since the earliest days of the Republic, in main due to the understandable absence of certain perspectives that we have been privileged to acquire through the agency of many decades of said abuses and the horrors of the Twentieth Century's mass-mechanization of oppression and murder.


Decentralization is not the issue in question here - I am fully on board with that notion, more so than most.  It is the question of a "state's" valid powers I take to task and assert that they have few, if any, and that the shorthand of "state" is dangerous and should be excised from general usage.  Forsake "state" as a deceptive term, as well as that of "government", their validity being near zero, the dangers they carry nearly without limit.  Replace it with gover_nance,_ which is what we should all be doing in order to keep one another on the right paths of behavior at the margins of our rightful prerogatives as individuals.  Dispense with the lousy notion of the "state" and the "government", which corrupt and dangerously ignorant men have employed to justify their outrages against their fellows, and come back to plain language not of _things_ but of _deeds_ or_ functions_.  Think not in terms of what the "state/government" _is_, but what it is supposed to _do_.  Form v. _function_.  In truth, so-called "government" is should be nothing other than people guaranteeing and protecting each others' rights, and nothing more.  

There are no "state interests", "states' rights", and so forth as the courts and other dangerous malefactors have asserted in the past.  To assert that the "state" has a "compelling interest in..." is definitive proof at the very minimum of an ignorance so deeply dangerous that the person uttering such blathering nonsense should be shunned by all such that he becomes an exile _in situo_, his ability to negatively effect the lives of others staunched off in fullest measure, at least until such time as he comes to a better understanding of truth and propriety in proper human relations.  I would not, in fact, be completely opposed to caning or horse-whipping such men when such grotesque mis-pronouncements and other abuses of sacred language are made in their official capacities as guardians of freedom - and that is precisely what ALL politicians are supposed to be: sentinels and protectors of the inborn freedoms of all men.

----------


## osan

> The joy of the NAP it that it is 100% about interpretation. It is an incredibly jargon heavy term with each word defined beyond common usage and loaded with meaning. In fact most of my issues with anarcho-capitalism stem from how greatly advocates can differ over the meanings of terms and act like its nothing. If proponents can be at such odds over the terms then clearly it invalidates the premise that they are self-evident.


Perhaps if you did a semantic analysis of the NAP and presented it here, we would be able to, a: confirm or refute your claim and, b: contrive something more rigorous, rigor being the true key in these matters as the first line of defense against trespass by malefactors whose intentions are irrelevant.




> The principles of Anarcho-capitalism do however rapidly construct arguments that are compellingly hostile to participation.


How so?  I am not an ancap and do not really know the details of that particular position, or whether there is even that much formal structure to it.




> I don't think voting is consent, I think continuing to hold citizenship or to live within the borders of a system is consent.


How do you reason this?  I am afraid I do not see it.




> The simplest way to reconcile this, I think, is to float the premise that working within the current system is the most effective and least self-defeating option.


Now THIS you have to explain.  It makes little sense at the margins where the "system" is so corrupted that there is no hope of accomplishing anything "good".




> I think the smaller the system gets, the closer we get to not violating peoples rights.


This certainly makes intuitive sense to me.  This would seem the natural tendency when everyone knows each other on a first-name basis, especially.

----------


## acptulsa

> Laudable.
> 
> However, you are missing a key element: Philosophical underpinnings.
> 
> Without an understanding of the philosophical basis driving the other goals, the chances of longer term failure (even generations down the road) are high because people will not know why they are where they are in terms of being free.  This, in turn, leaves them ill-equipped to deal with the usual carpet-bagger sorts like the regressives who label themselves "progressive".  Why were the hippies so effective as useful idiots to the regressives?  Largely because the people whom they attacked were not of the right mind to put them in their proper places when they came forward with their blank-check iconoclasm.





> Absolutely incorrect.  It is by all means passing the buck.  The issue is NOT validly determinable in randomly differing ways from one state to the next.  This issue is a REALLY big deal, especially when it is considered murder.  Given that potential, this is one of those core issues that must have IDENTICAL valence and treatment across all state lines.  One doesn't have women in NYC running about to get hoovered with impunity while Louisiana sends them to prison for doing the same.  This "states rights" argument is so hopelessly failed in all its dimensions as to boggle the mind of thinking men when others raise it as some sort of grand political virtue.  The very thought that KneeGrows could validly be forced to the back of the bus once again in New Jersey as a matter of "state's rights" is absurd on its face.  No state holds valid power to violate the rights of men.  PERIOD.


osan, my principled and erudite friend, do you not see how completely you resemble your own remarks, how thoroughly you fall into the trap you so correctly warn against, how one of your principles knocks over another, equal or superior conviction?

You do _not_ leave abortion law to the localities because one region can exist in so different a universe as to make basic right and wrong change places there.  You leave it to the localities because, as Jefferson said and time has proven, if the instance comes to pass of the central government micromismanaging every little thing about this nation, it would be the most corrupt government on the face of the earth.

This principle trumps your principle that right is right and that is that.  The right thing is to let each locality determine that for themselves, so that the corrupt central government cannot outgrow itself, and that is that.

Obviously you were not of the right mind to put them in their proper places when they came forward with their blank-check iconoclasm.  And I must laud you for demonstrating the principle so convincingly.  But not even when we all agree wholeheartedly all across the land what does and what does not constitute murder is it the right thing to let the central government define and condemn it, because the right thing to do is to force the central government to defer in all things which can be done at a local level--and clearly this can be done at the local level.

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## osan

> osan, my principled and erudite friend, do you not see how completely you resemble your own remarks, how thoroughly you fall into the trap you so correctly warn against, how one of your principles knocks over another, equal or superior conviction?
> 
> You do _not_ leave abortion law to the localities because one region can exist in so different a universe as to make basic right and wrong change places there.  You leave it to the localities because, as Jefferson said and time has proven, if the instance comes to pass of the central government micromismanaging every little thing about this nation, it would be the most corrupt government on the face of the earth.
> 
> This principle trumps your principle that right is right and that is that.  The right thing is to let each locality determine that for themselves, so that the corrupt central government cannot outgrow itself, and that is that.
> 
> Obviously you were not of the right mind to put them in their proper places when they came forward with their blank-check iconoclasm.  And I must laud you for demonstrating the principle so convincingly.  But not even when we all agree wholeheartedly all across the land what does and what does not constitute murder is it the right thing to let the central government define and condemn it, because the right thing to do is to force the central government to defer in all things which can be done at a local level--and clearly this can be done at the local level.


I see what you are saying here, but methinks we are speaking in two differing contexts; I in the principled and you in the real-world.  What is right is right, regardless of where we choose to consider an issue.  Am I right to rape just because in some middle-eastern nations it is OK, for all practical purposes and I just happen to be vacationing there?

Your argument can be reversed on the localities.  Tyranny does not arise solely from large central hubs of violation.  We see it at the lowest levels of government.  Cops and sheriffs murdering people with impunity.  Townships and counties arbitrarily reassessing real-estate values upward because they want more money for whatever God-forsaken idiocy they have vomited forth from the bowels of their demented brains.  Meter maids writing false tickets, knowing the courts are going to make the suckers pay, or worse still, having your vehicle towed.

I fear the tyranny of the grasses every bit as much as that of the large predatory cats.  People are the root everywhere.

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## acptulsa

> I fear the tyranny of the grasses every bit as much as that of the large predatory cats.  People are the root everywhere.


Then give yourself an out.  Stand by the principle that all politics should be kept as local as possible, and try to keep the tyranny contained.  That way, if this community loses their collective minds, you have somewhere to run.

No matter how strongly you feel that an evil is a universal evil, do not call for some kind of national or international or worldwide or universal body of power to combat it on a larger scale.  Say, every locality should condemn it but it isn't necessary to open Pandora's Box to do so.

This federal tyranny has grown up around us one rational step at a time.  This is so evil it's evil not to pass a federal law against it, even though that federal law is an evil in and of itself because it violates the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  So every step of the growth of this federal tyranny has been, and you have done us the favor of demonstrating just how strong that temptation is at each step.  We say the federal government has no business in education, and the progs say we're against education.  This is how it works.  We feel so strongly about this evil that we will commit that evil to fight it--without even stopping to ask if that's necessary.

If there's a fundamental principle that libertarianism can offer the world that will do the world a world of good, it's this:  Thou shalt not have one ounce of government on one tiny bit larger a scale than absolutely possible.  That could even be more important than the non-aggression principle.

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## osan

> No matter how strongly you feel that an evil is a universal evil, do not call for some kind of national or international or worldwide or universal body of power to combat it on a larger scale.


I do not recall having made such a call.  The Constitution structures things a certain way and so long as that is what we have, I say that the so-called "states" are obliged to toe the line of the BoR.





> This federal tyranny has grown up around us one rational step at a time.


And in very much the same way, the smaller tyrannies have done the same thing.  The Sullivan law of 1911 is a New York City phenomenon, not federal.  Long before the feds began attacking the 2A in some earnest, the scoundrels in Manhattan were busily trampling on the rights of its residents.




> This is so evil it's evil not to pass a federal law against it, even though that federal law is an evil in and of itself because it violates the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.


You seem to be arguing that the federal tyranny is somehow worse than those of the localities.  I cannot agree.  Its scope is broader, but in many cases the local tyrannies are in fact far and away worse, Sullivan being a case in point.

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## acptulsa

> I do not recall having made such a call.  The Constitution structures things a certain way and so long as that is what we have, I say that the so-called "states" are obliged to toe the line of the BoR.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And in very much the same way, the smaller tyrannies have done the same thing.  The Sullivan law of 1911 is a New York City phenomenon, not federal.  Long before the feds began attacking the 2A in some earnest, the scoundrels in Manhattan were busily trampling on the rights of its residents.
> 
> 
> 
> You seem to be arguing that the federal tyranny is somehow worse than those of the localities.  I cannot agree.  Its scope is broader, but in many cases the local tyrannies are in fact far and away worse, Sullivan being a case in point.


Nooooo, I'm saying that so long as your pet peeve is so damned important that there ought to not only be a law, but a federal law, against it, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the B of R you hold so dear be damned, then those same tyrants of New York who hold so many of the wolf votes in this democracy can get their little pet peeves passed on a federal scale, too.  It's called precedent.  And there is plenty of precedent for big cities clamping down and that fact being used to export tyranny to the whole countryside, where it is neither wanted nor needed.  If we say, oh murder is so reprehensible we are evil if we don't pass every law against it we can, on every level we have, even in the federal legislature where such a law is in violation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, then we have given the people of New York who elect tyrants for their local offices, and tyrants with names like Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton to federal office, precedent to pass their own pet federal laws over the objections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  And we have given them precedent to ignore any part of the Bill of Rights when they find it inconvenient to obey it.

That is how these local tyrannies get enlarged and exported, and wind up ruining a whole country.  Because someone says, well, this law doesn't need to be a  federal law, but the thing it outlaws is so horrible what harm can it do?  How can I fight this law just on the grounds that it shouldn't and doesn't need to be a federal law?  Wouldn't stupid people then think I am in favor of the reprehensible act it bans?

This is the fuzzy edge that tyranny always uses to loosen the Constitution's grip on the guarantors of our liberty just a bit--just a little bit.

And it goes back to the thread topic, too.  The principle is free speech, so obviously hordes of paid trolls should be allowed to overrun and spam the site, because the amount of money that can be poured into paid speech to enable it to drown out the free speech of individuals is theoretically irrelevant, right?  You carve a basic tenet in stone, after months or years of crafting it just so, and a million seekers-after-loopholes will always find ways to chip away at its edges by getting everyone to agree that this exception and that exception are all for good cause, setting precedent, while another million seekers-after-loopholes will try to keep certain basic tenets carved in stone so long as they can use them to subvert their actual purpose.

Let's face it.  If you're going to create the perfect system and carve it in stone, and then make an exception every time someone makes a reasonable request to ban at the wrong level a reprehensible practice, you are a damned fool.  If a lack of a federal law banning murder is all that is standing between you and New York exporting their local tyranny and creating a federal tyranny, then someone ought to tell you that you're a damned fool for banning murder on a federal level.  And if the someone who warns you of that cannot be heard because New Yorkers are utilizing their free speech rights to drown the wise person out, you're liable to make a critical mistake.

You said you were standing in the principled world and I in the real world.  I say you stood in neither when you advocated for a federal law against a reprehensible thing, not because of but in spite of the Ninth and Tenth parts of the Bill of Rights.  If our principles don't produce desirable results, what fracking good are they?

If our principles don't produce desirable results, what fracking good are they?  What yardstick do _you_ use to measure principles?  You claimed to stand in the real world, and seemed to relegate me to meaningless principle, when you saw no harm in passing a federal law banning a reprehensible thing.  But if an exception can be made to the Bill of Rights, then what good is it?

I got banned from this place for answering something Bryan said to me in a PM in a public thread.  I did not copy what he said in the PM, but only revealed it's gist through answering it.  That was overturned, with a little help from my friends, and I started a thread addressing some concerns I have about this site.  In that thread, LibertyEagle repeatedly accused me of a sin she is far more often guilty of and thoughtomator repeatedly implied that I was a child rapist.  Bryan utilized my thread to apologize to them for some nameless past alleged transgression and repeatedly said that it was okay that thoughtomator was violating forum guidelines in my thread with his false and reprehensible implications because he was merely trying to make a point.

And anyone who wishes to form their own opinion of what went down is welcome to do so.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...ce-Upon-a-Time
Anyone who figures out why Bryan was apologizing in my thread to the rude people who were trying to hijack my thread is also invited to let me know, because I have no clue.

Of course, his point was false.  He was accusing me of something I was not because he was mad at me for pointing out that certain people were things that those certain people actually were--specifically that I refuse to be shy about pointing out that people who spam Trump are Trump spammers.  So, he was making no point at all, he was merely trying to say his implied lies and my clearly stated truths were the same sort of thing.  So, here we have a principle disregarded for a seemingly good cause because we're all adults here and can have this conversation, and all that accomplished was to equate implied lies with clearly stated truths--an 'accomplishment' only to a propagandist.

So, on the one hand we have the quest for the perfect set of rules that covers every contingency, which has a structure of principle and real world savvy so perfect that it covers every contingency.  And then we have an arrogance that says we can find real world, adult reasons to disregard even the Bill of Rights.  What were you saying about foolish people again...?

If your system is perfect then there are no harmless exceptions.  If your system is perfect then exceptions are never necessary.  If you need to make an exception to your principles, they're imperfect, and if you don't have the fortitude to stand by them even when they're working, then they're worthless.

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## osan

> Nooooo, I'm saying that so long as your pet peeve is so damned important that there ought to not only be a law, but a federal law, against it, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the B of R you hold so dear be damned


Whoa there young fella... That is NOT what I have been saying.  Not sure how you came to that inference.  The BoR speaks to universal human rights, and therefore ALL states are obliged to respect them.  That is part of what it means to be one of the "states" in "united states".  I can see no possible argument that might credibly refute this.




> , then those same tyrants of New York who hold so many of the wolf votes in this democracy can get their little pet peeves passed on a federal scale, too.  It's called precedent.


I think I see what you are saying, but do not see the relevance whether it comes from on high or down low to those affected by the tyrant's whim.  OK sure, it sucks more to have a given tyranny spread farther, but it ought not be happening at all and that is why the BoR applies to all states, IMO.  

What we have here is a two-edged sword.  When the mandate is viewed as "good", everyone has a woodie, dances in the street, kisses dental assistants in Times Square, and so forth.  When deemed "bad", they complain, kick their dogs, and on occasion start insurrections.




> And there is plenty of precedent for big cities clamping down and that fact being used to export tyranny to the whole countryside, where it is neither wanted nor needed.  If we say, oh murder is so reprehensible we are evil if we don't pass every law against it we can, on every level we have, even in the federal legislature where such a law is in violation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, then we have given the people of New York who elect tyrants for their local offices, and tyrants with names like Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton to federal office, precedent to pass their own pet federal laws over the objections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  And we have given them precedent to ignore any part of the Bill of Rights when they find it inconvenient to obey it.


Well and good and agreed, but I still don't know what I wrote to precipitate this because this isn't even on the same planet as me.  Given my druthers, America would be an anarchy yesterday, come what may.  But IF we are going pretend to have this idiocy called "the state", then yes, there should be certain codifications in place that it be clear what Theye can and cannot do.  It's shyte as far as I am concerned, but it is better than not having it because without it Theye claim whatever dominion suits them and with which they think they can get away.




> That is how these local tyrannies get enlarged and exported, and wind up ruining a whole country.  Because someone says, well, this law doesn't need to be a  federal law, but the thing it outlaws is so horrible what harm can it do?  How can I fight this law just on the grounds that it shouldn't and doesn't need to be a federal law?  Wouldn't stupid people then think I am in favor of the reprehensible act it bans?


Let us be clear that _I_ am not saying that.  At all.




> You said you were standing in the principled world and I in the real world. I say you stood in neither when *you advocated for a federal law against a reprehensible thing*, not because of but in spite of the Ninth and Tenth parts of the Bill of Rights. If our principles don't produce desirable results, what fracking good are they?


BuhWHO?  Where did I do this?  If I did, I must have just put a sentence together poorly, or you somehow misinterpreted my meaning because this is not how I roll.  It is 180* out pf phase with my basic world view.




> If our principles don't produce desirable results, what fracking good are they?


Doesn't necessarily mean the principles are bad, but just that the people are not up to living by them.  




> What yardstick do you use to measure principles?


That of freedom, which has been well defined here more than once.




> You claimed to stand in the real world


I did?  I thought I'd proposed that perhaps it was YOU who were in the practical world whereas I stood in that of theory.  Either you are pulling my leg or I am losing my mind because I am not recalling having expressed myself this way.  The latter is by no means the less likely possibility.




> , and seemed to relegate me to meaningless principle, when you saw no harm in passing a federal law banning a reprehensible thing. But if an exception can be made to the Bill of Rights, then what good is it?


You really need to point this out because I feel like I've fallen into a crack between two worlds.

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## acptulsa

> You really need to point this out because I feel like I've fallen into a crack between two worlds.


I did.  In post 113.

I feel that the principle of local control is completely vital to libertarian principle.  I think it as vital as the non-aggression principle, and that it should stand right beside it, or even above it in the basic basics of libertarian thought.  In a sense, it belongs beneath the non-aggression principle, because it derives from it--what Washington is doing to us today is just as aggressive as what Moscow did to the USSR.  In another sense, I think it belongs above the NAP, because those who would go to battle against certain forms of aggression naturally want to do it on as federal--as universal--a level as possible.  But to make a federal law which does not need to be federal is to do harm while doing good.

Some principles must come first, and to me, the principle of local control is that principle.  It is first even among equals.  I wouldn't have made it the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  Knowing what I know now I'd have made it the First and Second.

Not that I came to this conclusion without help...




> still should the whole body of New England3 continue in opposition to these principles of government, either knowingly or through delusion, our government will be a very uneasy one. it can never be harmonious & solid, while so respectable a portion of it’s citizens support principles which go directly to a change of the federal constitution, to sink the state governments, consolidate them into one, and to monarchize that. our country is too large to have all it’s affairs directed by a single government. public servants at such a distance, & from under the eye of their constituents, will, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer & overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizen; and the same circumstance by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder & waste: and I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail4 of a common law being in force in the US. (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government) it would become the most corrupt government on the face of the earth. you have seen the practices by which the public servants have been able to cover their conduct, or, where that could not be done, the5 delusions by which they have varnished it for the eye of their constituents. what an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building & office hunting, would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government. the true theory of our constitution is surely the wisest & best, that the states are independant as to every thing within themselves, & united as to every thing respecting foreign nations. let the general government be once reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage6 for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, & a very unexpensive one: a few plain7 duties to be performed by a few servants.

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## osan

> I did.  In post 113.
> 
> I feel that the principle of local control is completely vital to libertarian principle.


Methinks it the better choice to dispense with labels such as "libertarian" and stick with the primitives such as "freedom".  The former serve mostly to cloud the more vital issues.  Complementary to noiseless analysis is noisless synthesis.  I believe that that is what we need, moving forward.

I cannot answer in greater detail at the moment because I am in the back of my mother's car, driving around Linden NJ in the wake of a truly forgettable Chinese buffet.  Someone please call an ambulance.

CONTINUING, NOW THAT I'M ESCAPED FROM NJ...




> I think it as vital as the non-aggression principle, and that it should stand right beside it, or even above it in the basic basics of libertarian thought.  In a sense, it belongs beneath the non-aggression principle, because it derives from it--what Washington is doing to us today is just as aggressive as what Moscow did to the USSR.  In another sense, I think it belongs above the NAP, because those who would go to battle against certain forms of aggression naturally want to do it on as federal--as universal--a level as possible.  But to make a federal law which does not need to be federal is to do harm while doing good.
> 
> Some principles must come first, and to me, the principle of local control is that principle.  It is first even among equals.  I wouldn't have made it the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  Knowing what I know now I'd have made it the First and Second.
> 
> Not that I came to this conclusion without help...


Your implicit assumption is that all federal law is wrong, simply because it is federal.  This doesn't cut muster.  Local law can be as bad, or as good.  If law is right, then it matters no whit whence it issued.  If it is bad, the same applies.

If the fedgov adopted as a matter of the law of the land the principles of proper human relations and governed in stern and competent accord with them, would you still prefer to see corrupt localities exercising their perfidies on their direct constituents?

What counts in my book is the what and not the who or where.  A proper foundation and implementation of governance is a good thing no matter who contrives the architecture.

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## osan

> I'm shadowbanned


Is that anything like this?

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## osan

> The joy of the NAP it that it is 100% about interpretation. [...]





> Of course it is. So what? There is not nor can there be any ethical precept about which this is not true.


As is the case for all human verbal activity.  Interpretation is the very essence of language.





> The NAP is corollary, not "primary" - i.e., application of the NAP necessarily presupposes answers to questions such as "what is property and how can it be acquired?" and "what is violence and when may it be used?" But the fact that there are disagreements among exponents of the NAP concerning the answers to such questions does not stand as a sensible criticism of the NAP _per se_. All socio-political "isms" (not just those that incorporate the NAP) must address such questions - and proponents of those "isms" are just as prone to "internal" disagreements over the answers. Socialists, for example, may dispute among themselves over what is "capital" and what is not ... or Constitutionalists may dispute among themselves over who is a "natural-born citizen" and who is not ... or etc., etc., etc. Any "ism" that does not exhibit such so-called "schisms" is either very small or very sterile or both ...


Sort, sweet, and brilliantly expressed.

Cough up the rep, you stingy bastards.  This one's worth the expenditure.

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## osan

> We need core principles in an easy to read, understandable format for the masses. Along with our message of ending the wars (War on Terror & War on Drugs) we need a list of principles that appeals to both red team and blue team. Here is my attempt:
> 
> _The Five Steps to a Free Country_
> 
> 1. *Fight Corporate Privilege.* End limited liability protections and corporate personhood. Hold shareholders accountable for the actions and crimes of their corporations. End corporate welfare by abolishing subsidies and restoring market competition. _In a free country, corporations do not have more power than individuals._
> 
> 2. *Fight the Wall Street Banking Cartel.* End the Fed and the Fractional-Reserve Banking system that causes the boom-bust cycle while enriching the 1%. Allow currencies to compete by recognizing the Right of all free people to choose the currencies they trade and save in. Remove all legal tender laws and taxes on commodities restoring a true free-market to our money. _In a free country, banks and governments cannot print money from thin air._
> 
> 3. *Return Justice to the Justice System.* Recognize the Right of defense attorneys and the accused to use all evidence and testimony available to them in their defense, including arguments based on Natural Law. Restore the Right of Jury Nullification which allows the jury to protect people from unconstitutional laws that violate their Natural Rights and set them free. _In a free country, only citizens send criminals to jail, never government employees._
> ...


One step to a free land: understand, accept, and respect human rights.

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## idiom

> As is the case for all human verbal activity.  Interpretation is the very essence of language.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sort, sweet, and brilliantly expressed.
> 
> Cough up the rep, you stingy bastards.  This one's worth the expenditure.


The differences are massive and the language is very precise. The differences are quite different in nature and explain a lot of why libertarians cannot agree on anything.

Under Rothbardian definitions most so called "rights" disappear. Not right to travel, no right to privacy, no IP, no right to self-defense, and no right to life. There is a right to retaliation against a very limited set of offenses against a very limited set of personal property. However there isn't even a clear natural right to retaliate for murder.

Beyond that it tries to be a complete moral code and an incomplete moral code depending on which conversation it is having. Even Rothbard admitted it only makes sense in the context of mid-western christian culture, yet the system claims to be the arbiter of right and wrong, giving one permission to kill for its beliefs and only for its beliefs among other extremely strong claims.

It is non-sensical and self-contradictory in a lot of ways. Which side of a contradiction one chooses is a big driver of the disagreements.

It is very much a naive moral theory which has as its main support theoretical economic outcomes. Its an attempt at moral philosophy by free-market economists who largely missed the strength of the claims they were making and took a vast set of principles as given, even though it was really part of hodgepodge of religious and cultural tradition.

You see this revert in a lot of discussion. Defense of an argument melts down to "common sense" or "common law" or something else from history or tradition despite claims that everything springs from deep and solid "axioms".

Fraud is somehow definitely BAD under the NAP yet never clearly gets shown to spring from the axioms. Most fraud is based in information, but information isn't a category of property.

Even trademarks aren't a thing. If it is permissible to borrow the entire identity of someone else, trade as them and represent your products as theirs, then how does any normal notion of fraud exist?

Murder is one of the more interesting difficulties, in that as soon as a person is dead, the victim no longer exists. No victim, no crime. There are volumes of work trying to weasel out of this one, but it never really works.

This is before all the ridiculous added moral duties that show up despite all the claims that others can't have moral claims on you or your property. Hoarding unused or unwanted property is a common one. Advocates claim you have to advertise and actively give access to potential property that you are not using. The donut theory of land use. There is no right to travel unless somebody isn't using their land enough, then they have a moral duty to inform you and let you get to it???

The concepts around water rights and other things are equally nonsensical. I like to illustrate this with thought experiment of a prospector in space who sets up shop harvesting unused photons being emitted by the Sun. If the prospector harvests all the photons that would otherwise reach Earth before they do so, he or she is interacting only with unclaimed photons. The Earth freezes and everyone on it dies without the NAP once being violated. I am yet to see an explanation by anyone as to how fresh photons in deep space have had work mixed with them in any way before they reach Earth.

The NAP is an interesting rule of thumb, but comes apart when taken seriously or literally.

----------

