Jon Stewart's 19 Tough Questions for Libertarians! Video response to Jon questions to Ron

ClayTrainor said:
What would be your best response to these questions and statements:
  1. Is government the antithesis of liberty?

    Depends on the definitions of "government" and "liberty". Without definitions specific to the question at hand, the question has no meaning whatsoever.
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  2. One of the things that enhances freedoms are roads. Infrastructure enhances freedom. A social safety net enhances freedom.

    Is there a question in this? It seems like three eminently arguable assertions, once again devoid of any definitions.
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  3. What should we do with the losers that are picked by the free market?

    The question presupposes that "the free market" in fact chooses. The question as formulated betrays the ignorance and/or dishonesty by whoever it was that wrote it. But let is answer in any case.

    If one examines what a free market actually is, it becomes clear that it is incapable of choosing anything. People choose, not so much winners and losers per se, but those goods and services in which they wish to purchase and partake. If we define "the market" as the population of people buying and selling, we may then say that it chooses some goods and services over others. This tells us that PEOPLE prefer one thing over another. Those making and selling that thing are more likely to succeed, all else equal, than those making and selling things that people do not want. If by this we mean "loser", then the answer to the question is "nothing". Let us put it to a hypothetical example to make it a bit more conceptually concrete: if someone make candies flavored like ear-wax and it proves unpopular with "the market", what do we propose should happen to the proprietors of this business? It would seem to me that the only proper thing is to let them take their lumps, make a decision either to learn or not learn from the experience, and move on by either starting a new business, choosing perhaps a better flavor for their candy, getting a 9-5 job punching a clock, or go live under a bridge. The choice is theirs.

    Businesses fail for all sorts of reasons. Most often it is due to errors in management. Some fail due to damages incurred at the hands of third parties. That is what our courts are for - to restore equity in such matters. In these, the free markets and the courts, we have all that we needto offer opportunity and to protect rights. Nothing else is necessary, save perhaps a return to action based on correct principles of human interaction - something many of us have abandoned in favor of their personal visions of pretty tyranny which they delude themselves into believing to be freedom.
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  4. Do we live in a society or don't we? Are we a collective? Everybody's success is predicated on the hard work of all of us; nobody gets there on their own. Why should it be that the people who lose are hung out to dry? For a group that doesn't believe in evolution, it's awfully Darwinian.

    There are several questions here. If we define "society" as a group of individuals living in some proximity to one another and interacting and nothing more, then yes. "Society" is nothing more than a concept and a circumstance. "Society" does not hold any of the individual human characteristics so often attributed to it such as "rights", "desires", "plans". Those are all attributes of individual human beings and not collections thereof. Putting a bunch of them together in a city in no way amplifies the rights of the individual such that the collection comes to miraculously possess "super rights" or "superior rights" to those of each solitary person comprising the group, travelers passing through it, or those living at or near its fringes.

    The trivial but highly illustrative case of a population of three is most useful here. Imagine an island with three in habitants, Tom, Dick, and Harry. They live there and they have, until this morning, always respected the rights of the others. They have lived as true equals. This morning, however, Tom and Dick have decided that because Harry always brings home more food than either Tom or Dick, that they are going to "tax" Harry, citing it is his "civil duty" to help Tom and Dick because they are not nearly as good at acquiring food. They have also made Harry aware that they are willing to enforce their edict with physical violence if Harry fails to comply. Has the fact that the majority (Tom and Dick) "mandated" this taxation make Harry morally obliged to comply?

    As to a collective - what does the question mean? Once again, the definitions of terms is absent, rendering the question meaningless. But a common sense of "collective" carries with it the same erroneously assumed qualities and characteristics as "society" - that it has desires and rights per sé, and all that nonsensical tripe. In that sense, which is likely very close to that meant in the question, the answer would have to be an unequivocal and resounding "no".

    Not everyone's success is directly dependent on the work of others. This is so demonstrably untrue as to bring the intelligence or the motives of those asking it into some serious question.

    Regarding "hung out to dry", this is a presupposition that has not been supported in any way or degree. Prior to answering, it would have to be demonstrated apodictically that this is in fact the case in general.

    The comment about "evolution" is preposterously dishonest in its presumption about libertarians. It reveals much about the character of the person asking, none of it particularly good.
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  5. In a representative democracy, we are the government. We have work to do, and we have a business to run, and we have children to raise.. We elect you as our representatives to look after our interests within a democratic system.

    The United States of America is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic. The two are fundamentally different and when one looks at them through learned lenses rather than those of rank ignorance it becomes painfully clear just how impossible it is to mistake the one for the other.
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  6. Is government inherently evil?

    Is government fundamentally good? The question is irrelevant and almost certainly intended to lead some poor lamb to slaughter in a disingenuous fashion. The relevant question is "are people inherently free?" To that the answer is an unequivocal "yes". This answer may be arrived upon through unbreakable logic, for which I suspect Stewart has no appetite at all.
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  7. Sometimes to protect the greater liberty you have to do things like form an army, or gather a group together to build a wall or levy.

    This is eminently arguable, but if we show uncommon charity in granting this for argument's sake, the question then arises whether one set of men are morally authorized to enslave another for the sake of the "greater good". If so, who are these men and whence issues their authority to enslave others, regardless of how mildly so the case may be? How do they arrive at the decision of what constitutes the "greater good"? What is the process, the standard, and whence issues the moral authority? Why can John tell me what to do, yet I cannot tell John what to do? Why is his idea of the greater good better than mine? Why is the very notion of a "greater good" valid above and beyond that of individual rights and liberty? Who says so and by what authority to they impose it against will?
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  8. As soon as you've built an army, you've now said government isn't always inherently evil because we need it to help us sometimes, so now.. it's that old joke: Would you sleep with me for a million dollars? How about a dollar? -Who do you think I am?- We already decided who you are, now we're just negotiating.

    Once again, where is the question?
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  9. You say: government which governs least governments best. But that were the Articles of Confederation. We tried that for 8 years, it didn't work, and went to the Constitution.

    Where's the question? All I see is are the unsubstantiated assertions of a wannabe tirade.
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  10. You give money to the IRS because you think they're gonna hire a bunch of people, that if your house catches on fire, will come there with water.


    We have now entered the realm of the incoherent.
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  11. Why is it that libertarians trust a corporation, in certain matters, more than they trust representatives that are accountable to voters? The idea that I would give up my liberty to an insurance company, as opposed to my representative, seems insane.

    Once again the question presupposes facts not in evidence. Until a proper question is formulated you will have to be ignored.
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  12. Why is it that with competition, we have such difficulty with our health care system? ..and there arechoices within the educational system.

    This presupposes a causal link between competition and the "difficulty". That link has not been established in even the most remotely plausible manner. Until that happens, the question merits no response.
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  13. Would you go back to 1890?

    More disingenuous crap. How is this in any way relevant? Typical of the sarcastic tone of dismissal that is brought to bear when one has no other way of arguing against what is a clearly superior position.
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  14. If we didn't have government, we'd all be in hovercrafts, and nobody would have cancer, and broccoli would be ice-cream?

    Impossible to know. The continuing signal of your failed position as made clear in the persistent tone of sarcasm is, however, noted.
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  15. Unregulated markets have been tried. The 80’s and the 90’s were the robber baron age. These regulations didn't come out of an interest in restricting liberty. What they did is came out of an interest in helping those that had been victimized by a system that they couldn't fight back against.

    Baloney. Much of the regulatory framework that arose served the purposes of large corporate interests while masquerading as controls. Such controls served, more than anything else, to erect high barriers of entry for competition.
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  16. Why do you think workers that worked in the mines unionized?

    Because they felt entitled to the jobs and were, therefore, entitled by extension to strong arm the management of privately held operations into forking over that to which they were not, in fact, entitled. This is commonly called "theft". In a free society, if you do not like the job you have, find another or start your own business. Nothing in life is guaranteed and law will not save you from earthquakes. Freedom entails risk and responsibility.
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  17. Without the government there are no labor unions, because they would be smashed by Pinkerton agencies or people hired, or even sometimes the government.

    No question. More ranting nonsense.

    Note the rank contradiction of wanting to don the knee pads in praise of "government" on the one hand, and on the other of being ready to fire up the chain saw when the same beloved government seeks to "smash" his even more beloved labor unions. Not only a hypocrite, but not even cleverly so, what with these rankly amateurish attempts at claiming some vaguely implied moral high ground without so much as even the most thinly convincing hint of intellectual musculature.

    The fact that Stewart has not the sense or decency to hide his face from public display for the sheer embarrassment of his performance thus far tells one all that is needed about the quality of his character.
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  18. Would the free market have desegregated restaurants in the South, or would the free market have done away with miscegenation, if it had been allowed to? Would Marten Luther King have been less effective than the free market? Those laws sprung up out of a majority sense of, in that time, that blacks should not.. The free market there would not have supported integrated lunch counters.

    The same "majority sense" made it legal to lynch Negroes. The same sense gave rise to Jim Crow. Where is your complaint about these? Were they not the products of "government"? Were they not "the law"?

    And once again the questions presuppose facts not in evidence such as the universal propriety and desirability of the elimination of "segregation". By this reasoning, that is, the universal evil that some propose segregation to be, why should anyone be disbarred from any venue or event for any reason? The basis of the arguments against segregation where private affairs are concerned are purely arbitrary. A white business may not "discriminate" against blacks by not admitting them, but it is perfectly alright for a "black" college to bar whites from attending. Rank, stinking, arbitrary hypocrisy.
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  19. Government is necessary but must be held accountable for its decisions.

    I see no question here, either. The interviewer has an unusual sense of "question".
Click to expand...

I note the dishonest, leading, and largely irrelevant nature of the questions. Jon Stewart is not worth five minutes of my time. He would have his hands full were he to attempt to tangle with me on these issues. He thinks he is slick and righteous, but to be honest all I ever see is a rank amateur that much of the intellectually stunted public has taken to be one of the best and brightest.

Shoot, he isn't even funny.
 
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mcgraw_wv said:
Government is required to enforce property rights in a lawful way. Yes, we can kill and hang anyone who emposes their will on them, but I don't think that's what we are looking for. We are asking our government to enforce property rights, and the respect of that is a facet of liberty.
Click to expand...

Anarchy literally means "without ruler".
There have been multiple rulerless societies - which, for better or worse I (and others here) expand to mean stateless societies - where property rights have been enforced in a lawful way.
Also, I am not anti "government" because the word does not imply a state.
I was taking issue with a very narrow part of your statement: that law is not possible in anarchy.
That is incorrect.
I apologize for being vague.
 
Did John Stewart really write this crap? Libertarians don't believe in evolution? Federal income taxes go to firefighters? The free market would not have supported integrated lunch counters, even though sit-ins and boycotts (the free market) caused many businesses to abandon segregation? Instead of writing questions this person needs to learn basic facts first.
 
fletcher said:
Did John Stewart really write this crap? Libertarians don't believe in evolution? Federal income taxes go to firefighters? The free market would not have supported integrated lunch counters, even though sit-ins and boycotts (the free market) caused many businesses to abandon segregation? Instead of writing questions this person needs to learn basic facts first.
Click to expand...

Jon Stewart is in it for sound bites and entertainment, not facts.
 
fletcher said:
Did John Stewart really write this crap? Libertarians don't believe in evolution? Federal income taxes go to firefighters? The free market would not have supported integrated lunch counters, even though sit-ins and boycotts (the free market) caused many businesses to abandon segregation? Instead of writing questions this person needs to learn basic facts first.
Click to expand...

He's a moron, but he does give Ron Paul and gave the Judge some respect on his TV show.
 
sgt150 said:
He's a moron, but he does give Ron Paul and gave the Judge some respect on his TV show.
Click to expand...

Mainly because it gets better ratings and more viewers when he talks about it. The questions show that he has no philosophical or intellectual capacity that Paul or the Judge have.
 
Vessol said:
Mainly because it gets better ratings and more viewers when he talks about it. The questions show that he has no philosophical or intellectual capacity that Paul or the Judge have.
Click to expand...

I don't think he needs the viewers as he has an extremely popular show. Agreed that he is a mental midget in comparison to the Judge, Ron Paul or really any halfway informed libertarian or constitutionalist.
 
mcgraw_wv said:
Based on your links, all they are doing is creating a government to showcase their "non use of government" to enforce law. If we group together to enforce... and ill stop right there because you just created a form of government...
Click to expand...

When we are talking about government, we are talking about monopolies that initiate coercion in order to exist. If your group that you form is voluntary (i.e. non coercive), then you have not created a government.

fisharmor said:
This statement is factually incorrect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0TBE-pcEi0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZi45Mf6jYY&feature=related
Click to expand...

What he is basically saying here is that monopolistic (governmental) legal systems are not necessary for the provision of law, and he is right.

Medieval Iceland and the Absence of Government by Thomas Whiston

The Mild, Mild West by John Tierney

An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West by Terry L. Anderson and P.J. Hill

Ireland's Success with the Free Market and Anarchism

Property Rights In Celtic Irish Law by Joseph R. Peden

Pennsylvania's Anarchist Experiment: 1681-1690 by Murray Rothbard

The Jurisprudence Of Polycentric Law by Tom W. Bell (includes Historical examples of polycentric legal systems)

Law Prior to the State (Polycentric Law) by Tom W. Bell

Customary Legal Systems with Voluntary Enforcement & The Rise of Authoritarian Law by Bruce L. Benson (from The Enterprise of Law)

Voluntaryism and Protective Agencies in Historical Perspective by Carl Watner

The English Experience With Private Protection by Roderick T. Long


The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, including classical Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.
 
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