Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Hey. If he'd come up with an agenda on what he'd like to change based on his list, I might support a good deal of his agenda. But, no, he daydreams of a non-coercing utopia with no clear path to get there.

Again, I don't think you're listening.

(P.S. Can't one daydream and propose practical solutions?)

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

...
In most eras and locations, there will be far more cooperative individuals than miscreants. Not all societies will have the same mix.

I wouldn't mind some serious crime statistics comparisons. Thing is, most of us live in fairly complex mixed societies. Miscreants do exist in such real world societies. Perhaps fewer miscreants would exist if everyone shared the same values, the same ethnic identity, the same social status, the same economic status, the same political beliefs, etc...

But it isn't a trivial exercise to homogenize a culture. Even if it were possible, I don't know how much study has been done to plot social homogenization against miscreant density.

I do know that in the real world there are miscreants, and a need to subdue their activities. If there is a way to create a utopian community where there are no miscreants and thus no need to coerce, I'd like some clue how such a community might be brought about.

There's a political ideology that *asserts* (glares at haymarket martyr) ethnically homogeneous societies tend to enjoy greater social stability:
less crime
no race riots
no hurt feelings because one ethnic group has more $$$

Japan definitely fits this description and of course northern Europe is another.

I'm not saying this "technically proves" the assertion (I'd have to group 195 countries on this planet between ethnically diverse vs. homogeneous and look up the crime rates for each) and even then a person can be picky and cry correlation does not == causation......ha ha ha!

But, You have to admit it's an interesting theory eh?
//
but that's getting a bit off topic from Libertarianism

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Again, I don't think you're listening.

(P.S. Can't one daydream and propose practical solutions?)

I like quite a bit of your wish list.

from Fruitcake

There's a political ideology that *asserts* (glares at haymarket martyr) ethnically homogeneous societies tend to enjoy greater social stability:
less crime
no race riots
no hurt feelings because one ethnic group has more $$$

Glare all you want friend. You do realize that your post borders on outright sillyness. You on the one hand want to pat on the back ethnically homogeneous societies for their stability and as proof of this stability use the rubrics of less crime, no race riots and no hurt feelings because one ethnic group has more money.

The kids I used to teach would often say "duh" when another kid said something that was both stupid and painfully obvious.

Furitcake, answer me this please.... if a society has no other ethnic groups other than the one, how in the world could they have race riots without other races or hurt feelings from other ethnic groups when there are no other ethnic groups?

What you are doing here is the same thing as someone praising a kindergarten class because not one student in that class has gotten pregnant during the school year or been arrested for drunken driving. The situation pretty much precludes certain things from happening.

Please get real with your examples the next time you want to intellectually rationalize your own racial beliefs.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

Glare all you want friend. You do realize that your post borders on outright sillyness. You on the one hand want to pat on the back ethnically homogeneous societies for their stability and as proof of this stability use the rubrics of less crime, no race riots and no hurt feelings because one ethnic group has more money.

Well actually I think comparing different countries and trying to find a relationship between crime and ethnic diversity vs homogeneity may be like comparing apples an oranges. An argument can be made that other factors can more influence crime rates like the stability of government or lack thereof and of course that can vary widely between foreign nations. However we do know for a fact there are certain destabilizing events which cannot exist in a homogeneous society of which haymarket martyr has kindly volunteered to explain below.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

The kids I used to teach would often say "duh" when another kid said something that was both stupid and painfully obvious.

Furitcake, answer me this please.... if a society has no other ethnic groups other than the one, how in the world could they have race riots without other races or hurt feelings from other ethnic groups when there are no other ethnic groups?

Exactly that's the whole point.

Yes I know you're probably pulling your hair out in frustration and screaming, "that's like saying if I didn't have a car I wouldn't have to worry about the cost of car maintenance."
ahhh...but there is a flaw in your thinking.
You're making the assumption that multiculturalism / ethnic confers some type of advantage to a nation. That is not necessarily true.
A nation can be extremely rich economically and culturally but still be homogeneous.

Japan for example may admire our pop culture like (blue jeans and rock and roll) but they have ZERO interest in emulating American style multiculturalism.
Contrary to what the American education system has led us to believe MOST countries on this planet do not support multiculturalism. They make no apologies for trying to maintain their ethnic /cultural purity by severely limiting immigration.
you think I'm joking?
We've all heard this fact before, "The USA allows more immigrants in then the rest of the world combined." --> therefore other countries must really be clamping down
the proof is in the pudding

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

What you are doing here is the same thing as someone praising a kindergarten class because not one student in that class has gotten pregnant during the school year or been arrested for drunken driving. The situation pretty much precludes certain things from happening.

Please get real with your examples the next time you want to intellectually rationalize your own racial beliefs.

It's good to see that you have stopped yelling and screaming like a mad man. The last time we had a discussion you went totally out of control and the webmaster had to lock the thread down.

from Fruitcake

You're making the assumption that multiculturalism / ethnic confers some type of advantage to a nation. That is not necessarily true.

Where did I say this?
Please cite the post and quote me.
Things are what they are. Reality is what reality is. No more, no less.

It's good to see that you have stopped yelling and screaming like a mad man. The last time we had a discussion you went totally out of control and the webmaster had to lock the thread down.

Please cite the post and quote me where I was "totally out of control". I think you are a bald faced liar who makes thing up as they go along. In point of fact, it was you Fruitcake who threw around the F bomb and got the thread closed ... notice the webmaster specifically said it was profanity being used that got it closed. That profanity came for you. I was the one who said you owed an apoplogy to the person to whom you directed your profane tirade at.

the last post in the thread #171 from the webmaster

The level of profanity and vitriol has reached an unacceptable level. I am closing this thread.

If you want to use profanity to make your points, please consider going to another venue.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

One problem would be a wide disagreement about what various people would think a 'sufficiently limited government' would be.

Probably because we're very far away from it.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I'm not convinced that the resulting sufficiently limited government would necessarily be mistaken for anarchy save by someone who is creatively redefining the word 'anarchy'. We need more firm checks on jerks, not less. We need a stronger state in many respects, not a weaker one. That government which governs less does not necessarily govern best.

There's that Intervention Dial again . . . The impact of any added coercive institution is not necessarily detrimental. Coercion is a vector, not a scalar. Two wrongs may not make a right, but they can offset each other to some degree. As a result it's easy to view anarchy as a bad thing if you are unsure about the order in which coercive activity will be removed from society.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

That's a great synopsis of my POV. There is always coercion. The difference is who applies it, how it's applied and why. I don't prefer private coercion, and the historical record indicates that this is the result of too little public coercion. If there is a model that makes this not true, then I need to see it. So far it seems to be 'trust us', which should stop any rational thinking anarchist in his or her tracks.

I agree. To think coercion to be unnecessary is, frankly, naive.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Really, a lot of the dischord in anarchist-statist dialogue comes back to this point. A big chunk of the rest appears at base to derive from the (counter-historical/counter-factual) statist faith that the miscreant, rather than the cooperative, is the defining feature of persons.

As opposed to the ideological fantasy that everyone will act ethically if the evil, corrupting boogyman of the state were gone? All societies have coercive mechanisms to punish the miscreants that prey on the cooperative natures of others. Sociopaths being the archetypal example, sociopaths can be charming and superficially "nice", but they have no empathy, shame, guilt, or conscience.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

There are several statists (I forget what Kiff likes to be called instead -- apologies for any insult)

Call me a liberal democrat, that is, a supporter of liberal democracy.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

A big chunk of the rest appears at base to derive from the (counter-historical/counter-factual) statist faith that the miscreant, rather than the cooperative, is the defining feature of persons.

It doesn't matter which one of them is the "defining" feature of persons. What matters is which one will dominate to what extent under what circumstances.

In a lawless environment, the miscreant dominates, not because most people are miscreants, but because being a miscreant conveys competitive advantages that law is designed to counter. This is a more generalized version of the rule, easily observed in history, that business sinks to the level of depravity the law allows. Most business owners probably aren't scumbags under present conditions, but in a lawless environment the non-scumbag majority would be driven out of business (and/or out of life) by the scumbag minority. To the extent that scumbaggery is permitted under current law, which is far too great frankly, you can see the process in action today.

The problems we see in a governed society that have been ably documented by the anarchists in this thread (and are not in dispute) arise because of vestiges of lawlessness which are built into the system by the influence of scumbags. It is not an improvement to eliminate those good laws which do exist. It would make things worse.

Originally Posted by fruitcake

There's a political ideology that *asserts* (glares at haymarket martyr) ethnically homogeneous societies tend to enjoy greater social stability:
less crime
no race riots
no hurt feelings because one ethnic group has more $$$

Social polarization, a depraved mass culture, and the perception of unequal opportunity combine to create the pathologies that you lament.

A low crime rate

Japan definitely fits this description and of course northern Europe is another.

No -- I could compare Japan and Singapore for having one thing in common, and it isn't ethnic homogeneity. Both countries have harsh penal systems awaiting lawbreakers. Japan is a fair model of political and cultural freedom, but it is a bad place for a criminal. The conviction rate for accused offenders in the 1980s was higher than that in the Soviet Union at the time even without flagrant violations of human rights. The system uses mind control on criminal offenders; after time in the Japanese penal system crooks emerge broken. Japan has few repeat offenders. The Armed Services of the United States frequently make a case with a soldier who goes awry by turning the offender over to the Japanese civilian penal system, which proves harsher than the American military penal system. The harshest penal regime in America, outside the Supermax, is the military prison system.

If you want a contrast -- Iraq under Saddam Hussein had clear separation of ethnic minorities that rarely mixed socially (for good reason!). The official murder rate was one of the highest in the world -- and that doesn't account for the crimes of the government. Vendettas and lynchings were commonplace. Even without the gangster fascist dictatorship Iraq under Saddam was a very violent place.

If you want another contrast -- try Denmark. The penal system takes rehabilitation seriously even for murder. A Dane may go into the system that by most standards coddles an offender. That coddling implies that one gets vocational rehabilitation and extensive counseling so that one can live a normal life after release.

Much of our "crime problem" relates to the sordid fact that we have the worst of both worlds. Our prisons do nothing to reshape offenders except to break them to fit a hierarchy that allows no joys except for connections to the hierarchy. In some prisons the nastiest offenders become de facto bosses of other prisoners. Any claim that American prisons rehabilitate offenders is a travesty; an offender does his time, gets paroled, and is completely unprepared for the hedonistic temptations on the Outside. A harsh economy ensures that anyone with any disability -- moral as well as physical -- gets no mercy. An ex-offender often gets a little money, gets drunk or goes back on drugs, and does something stupid. Such is the common experience of many American offenders... and that has nothing to do with ethnicity.

I'm not saying this "technically proves" the assertion (I'd have to group 195 countries on this planet between ethnically diverse vs. homogeneous and look up the crime rates for each) and even then a person can be picky and cry correlation does not == causation......ha ha ha!

Our penal system is an absolute failure. All that it can do is take a young offender and turn him out older, weaker, and slower. Are we willing to coddle crooks while regulating their behavior in prison, as do the Danes -- or are we willing to go to mind control as do the Japanese?

This thread is not about race. Can we please stop feeding the troll?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by Haymarket Martyr

So the standard is perfection?
Originally Posted by haymarket martyr
So the standard is perfection?

That's not me saying that. It's the standard by which you statists make the claim that anarchism is bad. I merely turn your own standard against you.

No, the assertion of statists (note in passing: I use this word for myself in this context only because it really only applies in contrast to anarchists; I object to its use to decribe my position in contrast to libertarians but in contrast to anarchists it is correct, and describes libertarians equally well) is that anarchy would accomplish nothing of value and make things much worse than they are. It has nothing to do with perfection, unless one means a perfection of chaos. And in that sense the problem is that anarchy would impose perfection, not that it would not.

from pbrower

No -- I could compare Japan and Singapore for having one thing in common, and it isn't ethnic homogeneity. Both countries have harsh penal systems awaiting lawbreakers. Japan is a fair model of political and cultural freedom, but it is a bad place for a criminal. The conviction rate for accused offenders in the 1980s was higher than that in the Soviet Union at the time even without flagrant violations of human rights. The system uses mind control on criminal offenders; after time in the Japanese penal system crooks emerge broken. Japan has few repeat offenders. The Armed Services of the United States frequently make a case with a soldier who goes awry by turning the offender over to the Japanese civilian penal system, which proves harsher than the American military penal system. The harshest penal regime in America, outside the Supermax, is the military prison system.

An excellent point. Besides the very high conviction rate, almost everyone convicted of a crime does time in prison. The sentences tend to be shorter than ours are here but nearly every convicted person serves time... and its hard time not lifting weights and getting tattooed by the local gang. Sixty Minutes had a feature some years ago where they showed some prisoners in Japan who had been convicted of the most serious of crimes who had to kneel on a line in their cell for a certain amount of hours each day. That was part of their sentence.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

Please cite the post and quote me where I was "totally out of control". I think you are a bald faced liar who makes thing up as they go along.

intellectual dishonesty?
You forgot to mention that I stepped out of that thread early while it continued for over a page.
I was out of that thread for days when the webmaster finally decided to shut it down so don't look at me.

Furthermore let me refresh your memory by reminding that it was you who went on a rantfest that lasted for pages and accused me over and over again without citing a specific example of what I supposedly did wrong. It was only when another forum member, kia, that stepped in and suggested that you back up your assertion with a specific example that you finally did.

You seem to enjoy making *assertions* without backing them up.

Fruitcake... you seem to labor under the delusion that the webmaster here sits as a vigilant guardian over every post that is made in real time. That is not the case. Most of the time, actions such as shutting down a thread or suspending members are not taken for several days .... just like it was in this case.

There is nothing wrong or against and rules here when one member asks another to support their position with facts. evidence or analysis. That is not a "rantfest" as you call it. That is part of debate in the civilized world.

The thread was shut down for abusive profanity according to the webmaster. You were the guilty party. If you disagree with that it should be easy for you to look over the thread and show which parties were more guilty using abusive profanity that you were.

I did back up my assertions and you yourself just admitted it. Thank you.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Social polarization, a depraved mass culture, and the perception of unequal opportunity combine to create the pathologies that you lament.

To clarify a point before anybody here gets the wrong idea, I do NOT believe that some races have a genetic predisposition to intellectual superiority or anything along that lines.
but....
I do believe that some races subscribe to a self destructive culture that glorifies violences and does not value education.
This is why economically disadvantage minority groups like blacks and hispanics do poorly in the USA.
Notice that Asians do just fine.
Liberals like to cry discrimination.
I disagree.
//
here's a story:
In the USA we associate poor people especially minorities with violent crime.
My brother in law visited England and was walking through the "bad" part of London or the suburbs.
He was in for an extreme culture shock.
All the poor people around him carried themselves in a very respectable manner: how they dress, talk, walk, carry themselves.
He felt perfectly safe.
This completely destroys the myth that poverty == crime.
I think it has to do with culture.
//
add on:
This is not Trolling.
I am adding a point to a discussion that some myopic folks can't seem to see.
I'm sorry if your preconceived ideology does not wish to address all the possible points that can influence an outcome.

from Fruitcake

This is why economically disadvantage minority groups like blacks and hispanics do poorly in the USA.

Some members of minority groups do poorly in the USA in some areas because they are economically disadvantaged. That is how they begin in life and that is often how many go through life. Those were the cards dealt to them. They were not born into education, wealth, power and access and then rejected such things and ended up poor. Get the sequence correct please.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

from pbrower



An excellent point. Besides the very high conviction rate, almost everyone convicted of a crime does time in prison. The sentences tend to be shorter than ours are here but nearly every convicted person serves time... and its hard time not lifting weights and getting tattooed by the local gang. Sixty Minutes had a feature some years ago where they showed some prisoners in Japan who had been convicted of the most serious of crimes who had to kneel on a line in their cell for a certain amount of hours each day. That was part of their sentence.

Maybe Corrections/penology would be a good new thread -- and we might get some experts interested.

A system that powerfully deters recidivism itself stops crime. I figure that for an Alpha Male, an American prison can be the most congenial place possible. One can get drugs, alcohol, and sexual favors from fellow inmates that one can cow through intimidation -- things that they might not be able to get elsewhere. The hierarchy among convicts within prisons might be useful to guards and wardens, but I'd prefer that convicts be emasculated and regimented.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

There is nothing wrong or against and rules here when one member asks another to support their position with facts. evidence or analysis. That is not a "rantfest" as you call it. That is part of debate in the civilized world.

Intellectual dishonesty AGAIN.

You failed to mention that you could of simply just asked a question how long ago was it? 3 weeks ago when I first made my assertion about Mexico and it's immigration policy.
Instead you said nothing and waited 2 weeks later then went on a screaming rantfest.
Why didn't you simply just asked for back up info weeks before?
It is obvious.
You were simply looking for an excuse to go on a rantfest.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

The thread was shut down for abusive profanity according to the webmaster. You were the guilty party. If you disagree with that it should be easy for you to look over the thread and show which parties were more guilty using abusive profanity that you were.

Intellectual dishonesty AGAIN.
It was shut down because you and Brian kept on going off topic for how many pages was it? 3 or 4 or 5!!!

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

I did back up my assertions and you yourself just admitted it. Thank you.

Yeah 4 pages later

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

from Fruitcake



Some members of minority groups do poorly in the USA in some areas because they are economically disadvantaged. That is how they begin in life and that is often how many go through life. Those were the cards dealt to them. They were not born into education, wealth, power and access and then rejected such things and ended up poor. Get the sequence correct please.

Asians seem to be doing pretty good.
Median Asian family income is $10,000 higher than US average
no need to click on the link I think the title says enough
That's quite a step up from such humble beginnings only a few generations ago wouldn't you agree?

It seems that I'm doing a pretty good job of eviscerating your ideology.
I'm loving this.

Originally Posted by fruitcake

To clarify a point before anybody here gets the wrong idea, I do NOT believe that some races have a genetic predisposition to intellectual superiority or anything along that lines.
but....
I do believe that some races subscribe to a self destructive culture that glorifies violences and does not value education.

You aren't discussing the black middle class -- like the Obama family.

This is why economically disadvantage minority groups like blacks and hispanics do poorly in the USA.

Appalachian whites fare badly, too, so it isn't race. Jamaican-born blacks in America do better than whites on the average.

Notice that Asians do just fine.

Some do well; some don't. There's a huge difference between Japanese-Americans and Hmong in America.

Liberals like to cry discrimination.
I disagree.

Discriminatory practices used to be very harmful to blacks, and some still pay for it.

In the USA we associate poor people especially minorities with violent crime.

Or maybe we should associate the bourgeoisie with a rejection of personal violence.

A scientific study that treated murder as an issue of public health recognized that murder closely paralleled under-education and poverty even more than regional differences. Such was so strong that it showed the difference in murder rates between New England (where murder rates are low) and the Southeast, where they are high. That correlation also explained "racial" and "ethnic" differences.

One psychological test explained a cause: that kids from low-income families, when asked to draw a dollar bill, drew the dollar bill larger than real life. Non-poor kids drew it at or near normal size. For a poor person, a $20 loss is a genuine hardship that might cause anger that results in violence; for a non-poor person, it's not such a severe situation and has other remedies, like never seeing the culpable person again.

My brother in law visited England and was walking through the "bad" part of London or the suburbs.
He was in for an extreme culture shock.
All the poor people around him carried themselves in a very respectable manner: how they dress, talk, walk, carry themselves.

partly a delusion: almost anything British seems to have social clout in America. Second, the British poor are very poor in one thing that Americans are comparatively rich in: firearms. Guns may not kill people; ammo, anger, and a gun do. Britain has very tough gun laws.

Guns also cripple people.

Originally Posted by fruitcake

To clarify a point before anybody here gets the wrong idea, I do NOT believe that some races have a genetic predisposition to intellectual superiority or anything along that lines.
but....
I do believe that some races subscribe to a self destructive culture that glorifies violences and does not value education.
This is why economically disadvantage minority groups like blacks and hispanics do poorly in the USA.
Notice that Asians do just fine.
Liberals like to cry discrimination.
I disagree.

Are you at all familiar with the history of race relations and the concept of white privilege?

Check out Pat Hill Collins' metaphor of racism as a prison that breeds an intolerant, violent masculinity.

(P.S. Races do not 'subscribe' to a culture. If you're going to do class analysis, be careful with your wording. What a culture does is embrace certain values and create their own norms.)

Originally Posted by fruitcake

(to haymarket martyr) Intellectual dishonesty AGAIN.

You failed to mention that you could of simply just asked a question how long ago was it? 3 weeks ago when I first made my assertion about Mexico and it's immigration policy.
Instead you said nothing and waited 2 weeks later then went on a screaming rantfest.
Why didn't you simply just asked for back up info weeks before?
It is obvious.
You were simply looking for an excuse to go on a rantfest.

Intellectual dishonesty AGAIN.
It was shut down because you and Brian kept on going off topic for how many pages was it? 3 or 4 or 5!!!

Yeah 4 pages later

Wrong. You used a very bad word in addressing ME in the vilest context possible. You could have apologized, and you didn't. HM asked you to apologize; you could have done so -- or you could at least have modified your post to remove the offending word. A bit later someone else used a similar word to address ME.

I complained to the Webmaster, who finally closed that thread because of "profanity and vitriol" -- not because people went off topic.

Profanity is a good line for cutting people off -- because it's easier to do so at that line than to do so where greater damage is even likelier but harder to prevent.

This isn't the Jerry Springer Show.

Fruitcake
I have lost track of how many times I have asked you to support your assertions with evidence, facts or analysis. I am not he only one here who has mentioned this to you.

You are living in denial.

Intellectual dishonesty AGAIN.
It was shut down because you and Brian kept on going off topic for how many pages was it? 3 or 4 or 5!!!

You do read standard English and comprehend what you read? The webmaster posted his reason for shutting down the thread - abusive profanity. You attacking Brian or myself does not change the reason the webmaster gave the board for closing the thread.

Asking a person to support their posts is indeed on topic. Many people here have spoken about this to you. You can keep denying this all you want but it is now a matter of public record.

again, post #171 in the closed thread

The level of profanity and vitriol has reached an unacceptable level. I am closing this thread.

If you want to use profanity to make your points, please consider going to another venue.

Read. Comprehend. Understand. Accept. Move on.