On 29-Jun-06, at 12:23 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
Your problem is always that you're citing theory. Reality
unfortunately
doesn't follow textbooks, and idealized how-things-should-actually-
work
scenarios.
That's a meaningless objection. You do need valid abstract principles
(i.e. theory) in order to get anywhere, or think about things in the
real world.
In the real world there's no idealized vacuum or frictionless
surface, but that
doesn't mean one can't reason intelligently using these concepts. Or
that
results derived from reasoning with these abstractions are wrong in any
fundamental sense. Or that trying to achieve as close to a
frictionless surface
as possible (via polishing, mag-lev, etc.) is futile.
In fact this is a critical part of thinking in fundamentals, to
isolate the effects
of different forces and study them separately, rather than saying
"reality
is all a big mishmash, don't try to apply any theory to it."
How convenient, you don't have actually ever to prove your claims.
Whenever markets fail to deliver, you can always handwave that away,
because "they're not really free markets, you see".
OK then, where's the real free market that we can look at?
Looking at the various shades of gray, I think there's plenty of
evidence that
both individual and social prosperity are directly proportional to
economic
freedom and respect for individual rights.
Exactly. Corporations are opportunists, and while use anything
to their advantage. Ditto government bureaucracies.
So if either violates individual liberties, or an individual (many of
whom
are also opportunists) or any other group does, there should be a
social mechanism to stop them and punish them. What's wrong with
that?
Your problem is that you're a sheep who choose to trust a wolf
instead of
a bear. I trust neither.
You're wrong. No trust is necessary if you have working mechanisms
to protect individual rights (be they private or through a
voluntarily financed
minarchist state - though I think competition is healthy here too).
If you're in favor of giving a state legitimized power to violate
individual rights
(as in democracy unbounded by the primacy of individual rights)
you're the
sheep.
#!
