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- A government imposes taxation on the citizens to fund the services the citizens are required to use for daily life.
Libertarians: "GOD THIS IS AN UNJUST TYRANNY TO ME AND ONLY ME"
- A corporation imposes a new service fee and increases the subcription charges, to fund their wallets and act like its better than it was before.
Libertarians: "This is normal and just, everyone is stupid except for me, I read Ayn Rand."
I'm down to talk out what is a just tax, what is unfair, what the taxes should go to once collected, but I think Libertarians are too hooked on think tank propaganda to decide something for themselves.
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It's even better: a lot of essential or close to it things are pretty much monopolies or cartels (for example, Internet access in most of the US) so people have no actual choice but to pay a specific entity whatever they chose to charge.
It's like tax but without the upside of taxes (which is that they're money that's supposed to entirely end up benefiting you, even if most of it indirectly) because when you buy a product or service from a monopoly or cartel only part of it goes to cover the cost of the actual product or service you're getting and a large fraction or even most of it goes to shareholder dividends, which has zero benefit for you.
I've taken to call these things Taxes Paid Directly To Private Companies.
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Corporations are fucked up. They will never allow the state to be abolished because they need to collect taxes in order to bail themselves out of trouble and in order to fight wars for them at the taxpayer expense so they can reap the profits... a corporation will never go to war alone. War is fucking expensive and is rarely directly profitable. They want to socialize expenses and privatize gain, which is impossible to do without a government of some kind.
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One is something you choose to pay, the other you get shot if you don't pay. There is a pretty big difference.
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One is something you choose to pay, the other you get shot if you don't pay.
Contract claims and property claims are ultimately enforceable by government force, as well. A "no trespassing" or "no loitering" sign, or a "Copyrighted work, all rights reserved" notice is enforceable by men with guns, too.
If taxation is theft, the same reasoning would extend to property being theft, too.
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Surprisingly, tyranny.com is for sale.
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Do you expect despots to shell out their own money for things like that?
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I promise that if I ever get elected Tyrant, I will pay for my own domain name out of pocket.
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I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me
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That was amazing. Please tell me there's more of this.
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This is better than Greentext.
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This is art.
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I went to elementary school when whitehouse.com was still a porn site. I remember a class in the computer lab where we were supposed to do research on the government. Our teacher was very clear about going to the .gov website and absolutely not the .com one.
Whatever adult content blocking they had set up did not work.
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The best short summary I’ve seen in a while
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I hate how the american version of “libertarianism” is what people think of instead of the original french left wing ideology.
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It's deliberate. Left-wing ideologies are basically "we don't really benefit from these traditional hierarchies and we'd be better off if we didn't concentrate resources in the hands of a small number of owners so much", which is hard to argue against.
So those who want to keep their power in the current system try to misdirect the debates themselves with "libertarianism" and "neo liberalism" which are both economically conservative ideologies that try to separate the idea of personal freedom from economic ones and ignore that any "freedom" in business is against a background of negotiation leverage, so more freedom in business gives more advantages to those with more leverage.
That first paragraph is also why conservatives put so much attention towards making it difficult to vote, get a good education, or find various supports. They know trying to argue that they should have control of most of the wealth is a losing argument so they go for confusing as many as possible or keeping them busy with their own survival.
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Most "Libertarians" grow up as soon as they read any political theory, I personally became an Anarcho-Syndicalist
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This kinda insult is just lazy. Right-wingers say "I used to be left wing then grew up when I read economics", left-wingers say the same in inverse. The real answer is just that you had views that were based on an intuition or something, then you read stuff interrogating those views, realized that may align more with your values and changed your mind. That doesn't mean that there aren't people with different values than you, or people who now disagree with you are all the same as you.
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You'll be even more baffled when you read some history!
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Yup, especially the histories of the FAI/CNT and how Spain could have been Anarcho-Syndicalist (for a time Catalonia was). In addition popular Syndicalist movements in France and the Anarchist black army in Ukraine could have gone very differently.
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I prefer tyranny.co.uk
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Monarchists 🙄
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The Redcoats are coming!
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Tranny.com is a shitty cam site.
Trust me. I thoroughly checked so you don't have to.
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What about .gov?
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🤷 didn't feel like it was necessary to check.
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Just $5/yr, up for grabs
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Sounds like a dessert
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It actually is, but I don't recommend it. It has a tendency to rule your lower digestive tract with an iron fist.
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Not left libertarians (typically). I'm trying to reclaim this term from the right-wing chuds who have taken it over.
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Best I can do is Libarbarians
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Just like how the American left wing is still right of center, it feels like American libertarians are still auth of center. Glad there's at least one maniac like me out there
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In my experience, right leaning Libertarians are just Republicans that are kinda indifferent with gays having legal rights.
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Yeah a lot of them don’t seem to be very committed to libertarian ideas unfortunately. The government isn’t the only force that can restrict liberty.
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I don't think you've ever watched a libertarian convention or rally, they're pro-immigration, pro-drug legalization, anti-war, etc.
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What is a leftibertarian in your opinion?
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From Wikipedia, not dunking on you, I just thought this was a very clear explanation of why right-wing libertarianism is the anomaly:
In the mid-19th century,[10] libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[11] especially social anarchists,[12] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists.[13][14]
These libertarians sought to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects to usufruct property norms, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property in the means of production as a barrier to freedom and liberty.[19] While all libertarians support some level of individual rights, left-libertarians differ by supporting an egalitarian redistribution of natural resources.[20] Left-libertarian[26] ideologies include anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist and New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school.[30]
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Similar to anarchism with a large overlap but I would say it includes other related ideologies as well. To be an anarchist I think you need to be very anti-capitalist and very anti-state. I think left libertarianism needs to be at minimum very skeptical of all authority structures but not necessarily opposed to them in all circumstances.
For myself, I’d like to get to anarchy long term but I see more of a gradual transition happening. So I am OK with retaining some state and capitalist structures as intermediate steps with the long-term goal of eliminating them once we develop superior social systems.
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Ha, a rare example of an accurate meme about libertarianism.
Though, to be fair, libertarianism doesn't necessarily advocate for a market devoid of regulation (regulation being paradoxically required to ensure consumer freedom), but, generally, libertarianism seeks to maximize market freedom within the confines of the desired level and flavor of consumer freedom.
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And yet every libertarian in practice just hates paying taxes and whines when potholes don’t get filled in despite them never reporting them. They’re sad and angry at the world and feel hyper-insecure about asking for, or even accepting, help.
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in despite them never reporting them.
To be fair this is problem everywhere.
Reminds me about RosYama project.
Buuuuut I think piblic transport should be funded first.
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And yet every libertarian in practice just hates paying taxes and whines when potholes don’t get filled in despite them never reporting them. They’re sad and angry at the world and feel hyper-insecure about asking for, or even accepting, help.
The absolutist language that you used in your comment reduces it to one large faulty generalization. It is impossible to know the beliefs of every single libertarian. Less absolutist language would still be rather dubious without any supportive studies.
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All this needs is the political compass overlaid & this is perfect TBH
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Honestly kind of works like a political compass lol
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I hate to say I misread the site name the first time.
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We don’t use that domain anymore
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Arrrg. I cant keep up with these constant domain changes!? Back in my day...
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Oh, so what domain do you use kow :-) ?
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tyranny.gov will become the preferred one the moment their favorite video game's sequel has an LGBTQ+ and/or PoC character in it (even if the OG already had it), to "not censor" it.
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Whose Ranny?
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I'd prefer no tyranny at all, but if I had to choose, I'd pick the tyranny of corporations because, at least, companies don't have a monopoly on violence.
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Tyrrany of corporations means that the state uses its monopoly on violence at the behest of the corporations though.
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They don't though. Private security, PMCs, and private prisons all operate here.
Hell, even the Pinkertons still quietly exist, and they specifically provide security and investigation services for corporations and are still used to investigate and intimidate union leaders.
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Private security, PMCs, and private prisons all operate here.
These are necessarily a problem themselves in existing. They all become problems when they are granted privileges above others because they act as entities of the state.
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Your Amazon Firing Squad subscription is about to expire. Remember to renew it soon.
Or else
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Yet
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Already.
Just off the top of my head, pepsi had one of the largest navies in the world at one point, and both coca-cola and nestle are known for hiring mercenaries to kill and threaten their own workers (union leaders and or striking workers). I don't doubt that's the very tiny tip of the corporate violence iceberg (beyond the inherent violence in slave or near slave labour).
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