Amy Coney Barrett

[Starlight]

Further to my last post, I think one way in which libertarianism fundamentally fails to promote freedom is in cases of where, by natural events, a person is not very free. e.g. let's consider a person who's sick and poor. They would like to go to work and earn money through hard labor, but can't. They would like to put in effort to support their family, but can't. All the personal responsibility in the world's not going to help them. They could be the greatest saint of personal responsibility ever to exist, and if they can't physically perform the actions they want, then they don't have meaningful freedom. And because they're poor, they can't pay for the healthcare they need to get better. So, lets imagine a benevolent government comes along, and provides healthcare that makes that person no longer sick. That person can then go out and work and provide for their family and have meaningful freedoms in their life. In New Zealand, our society does a very good job of maximizing the sum total freedom of all the citizens by creating conditions in which everyone in society is supported to the point they can make meaningful free choices in their lives. Each and every person can thus experience a high degree of meaningful free choice in their lives.

I think the libertarian system contrasts to this, because by making free choice an utter absolute, you do indeed increase it for a few individuals by a small amount, e.g. the healthy people who are working are perhaps no longer paying any taxes in your system, so their freedom to do as they please with their money is increased by a small amount, thus an increase in their individual freedom. But the price you pay for this is that other individuals in society lose almost all meaningful levels of freedom - the sick people, the poor people, etc and their families that depend on them, are no longer able to make as many meaningful choices in their lives because the support they would have gotten from a benevolent government is gone. You've increase the freedom by a tiny amount of the people who already had a lot of freedom, at the cost of stripping nearly all freedom from others in society. The result is that the total sum of freedom in your society becomes lower.

This is why the freest country in the world is going to be one that gives good freedoms to as many people as possible (i.e. New Zealand), rather than focusing overmuch on the idea of absolutely and utterly maximizing the freedom of some individuals that previously had a very high level of freedom at the cost of almost completely stripping others in society of their freedoms (i.e. the libertarian idea). Libertarianism sounds fine if you happen to be a relatively healthy well-off self-made person, because who doesn't like the idea of being even more free, but it sounds terrible if you're someone who's unhealthy or poor etc because the libertarian philosophy wants to take away all the things in society that support and help you and essentially leave you to die in a ditch along with your family if that's what the natural outcome of your illness and poverty might be.

New Zealand Police brutally attack young man in Auckland

As far as I can see this is a totally fake news headline - the video depicts not a single punch thrown by police, or any other act of physical violence by police (unless you could physical restraint as violence). The only possibly-objectionable thing done by police in the video was the sheer number of them simultaneously holding the suspect down, obviously such a large number isn't usual, and I don't know what the details of the case were that would have led to that situation. Perhaps drugged violence? Googling for the IPCA report on the subject gets me nothing, so not sure if they haven't finished the investigation yet or the person withdrew their complaint.

In any event, your argument-by-anecdotes isn't very helpful. In any system there are sometimes mistakes made, in any society there are some who are criminals. The difference between a crime-ridden country and a great society is not a difference of 'no crime at all' vs 'some crime', but a different in degree about the rates of crime, and how crime is dealt with. In that sense pointing to one incident isn't meaningful, you would have to show a statistical case that things were happening to the same degrees on a per capita basis.

[Ronson]

The Human Freedom Index that ranks New Zealand the freest country in the world (and USA #15) is compiled by a bunch of libertarian think-tanks, none of which are in New Zealand: The US Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute in Canada, and the Liberales Institut at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Germany.

As I said, I don't know enough about NZ to say much, but I've been all around this country, and to Britain and Canada. The US has more freedom. And Germany curtails free speech as Britain curtails freedom of the press and freedom to assemble.

As far as the Cato Institute, bully for them. Jo Jorgenson is now a candidate for the Libertarian Party and I think Donald Trump has more libertarian tendencies than she does. People and agencies evolve. I am not so concerned with labels because anyone can write one.

[Ronson]

As I mentioned, but which you seemingly skipped over, the British monarchy exercises in practice no authority in New Zealand, and has not done so for 150+ years. Supreme authority in New Zealand rests in practice in the democratically elected parliament.

There's occasional suggestions here that we should become a republic instead, but the trouble with that would be (1) cost, because we'd have to then have a President or something and that would cost money housing him or whatever, easier to let the British pay to house the queen in their country, and (2) the President would have to be appointed politically in some way, which would make them a political figure making them non-neutral in any emergency political dispute they had to rule on, better from the point of neutrality to have a person not appointed by political processes.

Political scientists who have studied Western democracies over the last 200 years seem to generally think New Zealand's style of government is optimal. That is to say, a single-house multi-party parliamentary democracy. Presidential systems appear to lead to problems, gridlocks, and collapses into dictatorships.

Google tells me he's some far-right UK crazy, so I stopped reading at that point.

You would do well to familiarize yourself with Robinson. He's not a "far-right extremist"; he is someone concerned about a pedophilia ring introduced by "immigrants" (refugees) in his country. And when he tried to report on that he was silenced by the government through the media, and ultimately jailed. And if they can label him a "far-right extremist" they know people like you will tune him out and not care that his civil rights have been violated.

[Ronson]

Lots of societies can have liberty to a greater or lesser degree. But insisting on absolute liberty as the core principle, equates to maximum selfishness, because you are saying under any and all circumstances you should be able to do as you feel like

That is not correct.

and that there can never be any society obligation or requirement on you, that society and others in it can never ask or demand anything of you.

That also is not correct. Society requires that I don't burn rubber in my fireplace, or have an open sewer in my yard, or speed on the highway, or refuse to pay my taxes, and on and on. You probably just draw your line of "obligation" much farther to the Left. I am not obligated to bow and scrape to organizations like BLM, which seems to be a Leftist obligation lately.

I am more than familiar with liberty. I live in what a libertarian think-tank says is the freest country in the world. I know all about freedom, probably vastly more that you guys in America in your 15th freest country. But we didn't get to be the freest country by prioritizing absolute freedom. We got to be the freest country by prioritizing fairness, as one American author who visited our country noticed. "Fairness", "kindness" and "being considerate of others" would be the dominant social values here, and those have what have produced a country that a libertarian think-tank thinks is the freest.

Your "poll" has already been covered. And your constant nationalist cheering sounds like someone who works for the NZ tourism board.

[Starlight]

You would do well to familiarize yourself with Robinson. He's not a "far-right extremist"

Wiki:

[he] served as a political advisor to former UKIP leader... He was a member of the neo-fascist and white nationalist British National Party (BNP)... Robinson's criminal record includes convictions for violence, financial and immigration frauds, drug possession and public order offences... He has served at least four separate terms of imprisonment: in 2005 for assault, in 2012 for using false travel documents to enter the United States, in 2014 for mortgage fraud...

Sounds like an all-round good guy! Assault, fraud, and extremist political party member. Apparently he's appeared on the fake-news websites InfoWars and Rebel News as well, just to round out the crazy.

Your view of him as a saint in the crusade against paedophilia is interesting, given that word, nor any variants I thought to search, doesn't occur even once on his lengthy wiki page (nor on the discussion about the edits on the page, so it's not like someone's trying to add that crucial information about him and being prevented). So it seems kinda like you are imagining sainthood on someone very underserving. While googling, I did however see the article Tommy Robinson ‘the martyr’ – how the far right builds its victim narrative, which I suspect applies to you given your praise of this awful man who doesn't seem to have done the good things you seem to think he has.

[Starlight]

And your constant nationalist cheering sounds like someone who works for the NZ tourism board.

LOL well you can't come visit cos the borders are closed to covid.

On the subject of nationalism, it's worth noting that unlike the US we don't do any kind of patriotic indoctrination in schools here, we absolutely never salute flag on the rare occasion there is ever a flag around, we don't repeat to ourselves that New Zealand is number one like Americans do, and we don't chant our country's name in sports matches. So if I've learned from studying the international data as an adult that New Zealand is a good international role model in many ways, or a good example of certain values being lived out, that's the view I've come to from the data, not something I was ever taught.

[Ronson]

Wiki:

[he] served as a political advisor to former UKIP leader... He was a member of the neo-fascist and white nationalist British National Party (BNP)... Robinson's criminal record includes convictions for violence, financial and immigration frauds, drug possession and public order offences... He has served at least four separate terms of imprisonment: in 2005 for assault, in 2012 for using false travel documents to enter the United States, in 2014 for mortgage fraud...

Sounds like an all-round good guy! Assault, fraud, and extremist political party member. Apparently he's appeared on the fake-news websites InfoWars and Rebel News as well, just to round out the crazy.

Your view of him as a saint in the crusade against paedophilia is interesting, given that word, nor any variants I thought to search, doesn't occur even once on his lengthy wiki page (nor on the discussion about the edits on the page, so it's not like someone's trying to add that crucial information about him and being prevented). So it seems kinda like you are imagining sainthood on someone very underserving. While googling, I did however see the article Tommy Robinson ‘the martyr’ – how the far right builds its victim narrative, which I suspect applies to you given your praise of this awful man who doesn't seem to have done the good things you seem to think he has.

The propaganda has obviously worked. You admit to knowing nothing about him previously, did a quick Google search and now base your knowledge of him now primarily on a wiki page. Brilliant research.

And your exaggeration is noted ("sainthood").

[firstfloor]

They are protesting in Poland. Americans will be doing the same in the near future.

Throughout the past week, protesters in many Polish cities took to the streets in opposition to the ban. Much of the ire was directed at Catholic churches. Videos show people entering churches during Mass, holding signs, and chanting at priests and congregants. In one notable instance, women dressed as handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, disrupted Mass and vandalized the Lodz Cathedral.

[Ronson]

Sounds like an all-round good guy!

[CivilDiscourse]

They are protesting in Poland. Americans will be doing the same in the near future.

Sounds like Poland has a religious bigotry problem.

[seer]

Finally proof that Amy Coney Barrett is a witch!

[Ronson]

Finally proof that Amy Coney Barrett is a witch!

The Babylon Bee was demonetized on Facebook (or was it Twitter) for copying lines from that scene for an article. It was accused of fomenting violence.

[Bill the Cat]

They are protesting in Poland. Americans will be doing the same in the near future.

Good. Let them protest. At least those unborn babies will be alive in the meantime...

[Bill the Cat]

LOL well you can't come visit cos the borders are closed to covid..

I'm sure your tourism industry is grateful...

[seer]

The Babylon Bee was demonetized on Facebook (or was it Twitter) for copying lines from that scene for an article. It was accused of fomenting violence.

That is where I got the idea!