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Old 04-04-2018, 10:34 PM   #120
sebastian_dangerfield
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Re: We are all Slave now.

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What you mean is, it appeals to people who don't want to pay taxes for redistribution and/or government services that they can just buy private alternatives to. In other words, rich people.
That's not what I mean at all. I mean, if you create a system where people vote themselves benefits, they'll do so until the system collapses. We're seeing a variant of that right now in the 1-10%'s capture of the system. People will take until there's nothing left to take. True democracy doesn't empower the aggregate underclasses. It allows more people to vote themselves wealth transfers in smaller increments.

Rich, poor, middle - you can't allow people to grab economic benefits at the ballot box without causing dysfunctions and warped allocations.

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One of the rules of libertarian self-interest is to cloak it in some high-minded principle. Like, "democracy would be a disaster," rather than "democracy would be a disaster for me."
True democracy is a universal disaster. No exceptions. Do I think smarter redistribution would lift more boats over the long term than this short term rentier/crony/financial engineering economy we have right now? Yes. That's why I'm not a serious libertarian. I think universal income is a solid economic/society-preserving idea. Libertarians who'd rather see us turn into Brazil demonstrate the limits of the ideology.

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The sort of majestic fairness that lets both rich and poor sleep under bridges, and leaves us all free to have armed guards who will shoot those who climb into our gated compounds.
As opposed to the affluent Democrat ideal of redistributing so long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line? Say what you will of Rockefeller Republicans; they never felt the need to plead charitable bona fides while protecting their revenue streams. And Libertarians, of course, just don't give a fuck.

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"broader" in the sense of, "entirely different"
If you're telling someone what you believe they should do, and trying to pass rules to make him do it, for any reason, you've authoritarian tendencies. That you're a micro tin pot variety inflicting his will by encouraging others to vote a certain way just means you've less power and effectiveness than an actual one. If put in power, you'd try to compel people to act as you like. And that's on a continuum with Trump.

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I don't really think there are that many people who believe they think they know best for their fellow man and therefore think they have the right to enforce rules against them. I think people have complex ideas about what harms them, and seek to use politics to address what they see as externalities. For lefty environmentalists, they worry about pollution and seek to use government regulation to reduce it. For right-wing pro-lifers, they worry about modern culture's degradation of the traditional role of women and its endorsement by the government, and seek to use government regulation to outlaw abortion. In either case, they really think they are at risk of harm and are trying to use the government to protect themselves. If you don't care about the environment and are not sympathetic to environmentalists, then you discount the harms they see and complain that they are trying to control your life. If you don't care for traditional gender roles and want to treat women as equal to men, then you are not at all sympathetic to the harm seen by many social conservatives.
Sure there are. This place is littered with them. I even fall into it. Are you serious?

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That, and you want the state to protect your money and and ability to use it to preserve a variety of benefits you have that others don't. Which seems like such a natural state of affairs to you that you don't even see it as an open question.
I'd trade it all to see true creative destruction of the kind we prevented in 2008. And I mean that with every fiber of my being. The stretch from 2008 through 2010, when it was seriously hairy, was the most fascinating set of events. That's how the system is supposed to clear out the dead weight. That should have been a reset that gave the little guys a chance. Instead, we allowed it to more aggressively entrench a very fragile and cynical system no one trusts anymore. Hence, populism.

Wait 'till it goes next time. Will you argue for fairness then, or will you do what so many charitable Democrats and Republicans do in those circumstances: Plead for the fix that protects your retirement?
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