Well, I know a few that are also guilty of spamming, but as a general rule I agree wholeheartedly.
Glad to see we have some common ground.
Reality dictates that apples are apples and oranges are oranges. Corporations are considered people under the law these days, but they don't use those 'rights' the same way and they don't derive the same benefit as people do.
I'm not sure I understand what you're aiming at here. How do you feel that corporations figure in to the general discussion?
You do realize that in a stateless society there wouldn't BE any corporations, at least not as we know them, don't you? Limited liability and artificial personhood exist only by state edict. No state = no limited liability or artificial personhood.
These attempts to make the lives of millions childishly simple are appealing, but still don't inspire faith in me. If we're going to put this much effort into securing our freedom, we want it to last a minute--and we want something more pleasant than Somalia when we're done.
I disagree that anyone is attempting "to make the lives of millions childishly simple." But I do understand where you're coming from. In fact, I used to feel pretty much the same way.
I was basically raised in the so-called "freedom movement." My dad was a chapter leader for the John Birch Society when I was a kid, in the 1960s. Several meetings a month at our house, every month.
Most of my life, due to those kinds of influences, I'd been a strict constitutionalist and advocate of "limited constitutional government."
Over the years I've invested my own time and money in studying such topics as history, law (particularly constitutional law), economics, and more recently, philosophy.
Which is where the "problems" began. When one studies any of those subjects in greater depth than the average liberty advocate seems to have, one finds oneself running into a LOT of contradictions in their own belief system, as long as you're doing it with a relatively open mind, and in the hope of finding something that at least resembles "truth."
Like most people, I steadfastly resisted the implications of those discoveries for years, because to acknowledge them meant that my whole worldview had to change significantly. Recognizing the "truth" would also have meant that most of what I'd been doing so far was pretty much useless, and I didn't see, at the time, what COULD be done other than the usual political activism.
It wasn't until much later that I realized a couple of things that helped change my mind.
The first is that any argument that can be used against the establishment of a stateless society applies equally as well against the establishment of any form of minarchist/constitutionalist/limited government. In fact, in many cases those arguments apply even more so to the latter. After all, you're purposely establishing a power structure that those seeking to do evil can use to accomplish their ends, and you're maximizing their return if they manage to succeed.
It provides a HUGE incentive for EXACTLY what you don't want.
Secondly, the basic challenges that need to be overcome in order to establish a successful stateless society are EXACTLY THE SAME as those you need to overcome to establish a successful minarchist/constitutionalist society.
But, once again, in the case of a "limited" government, even more so.
In both cases you absolutely need to educate a certain percentage of people, and persuade them to change their pre-existing worldviews in accordance with that education. But in the case of "limited" government, they have to continue that education process basically forever, or they'll have no hope at all of keeping it "limited." (Just for the record, I don't believe that government CAN be kept "limited," but for the sake of this discussion I'll assume it's at least possible.)
In both cases you're asking people to accept full responsibility for their own lives and actions, to become self-sufficient to some reasonable extent. But in the case of "limited" government you're also demanding that they accept responsibilty for OTHER PEOPLE as well, namely those they've placed in positions of political power.
Once I realized these two facts (along with others I won't mention now), there was no rational reason to choose the IMMORAL position over the clearly and unarguably moral one.
In spite of the length of this post, this is a very brief and simplified summary of my thinking process at the time. I mention it mainly to show that I'm definitely not some doe eyed idealist kid who just came to this stuff recently. Where I'm at now is the result of a lifetime of study and crtical thinking.
Quite frankly, I don't expect anything I, or anyone else for that matter, say to change your mind. I fully realize that I CAN'T change your mind. Only YOU can do that.
All I ask is that you try to look at things as objectively as is possible for we humans, and try not to let your conclusions be colored by pre-existing belief systems that may not be appropriate.
Lastly, to paraphrase from your post, if we're going to put this much effort into securing our freedom, we certainly don't want our grandchildren, or great grandchildren to have to go through this same Hell again in another 200 years, at least *I* don't. Yet, it's almost a certainty that that IS what will happen if we squander our current opportunity by establishing (or re-establishing) some form of coercive government.
I say take the moral "high road."
