Freedom is the ONLY thing that counts. I do acknowledge that Libertarians claim to want to pursue freedom.
However I believe that Libertarianism, will only replace tyrannical government with tyrannical rule by businesses.
The problem with governments no matter their political leaning is that most political ideologies lack any mechanism to deal with corruption and abuses of power. Libertarianism seeks to deal with this by removing government and instead hand the power to private companies.
Companies are usually small dictatorships or even tyrannies. Handing them the power over all of society will only benefit the owners of these companies. The rest of society will basically be reduced to the status of slaves as they have no say over the direction of the society they maintain through their 9to5s.
These companies already control governments around the world through favors, bribes or other means such as regulatory capture or even by influencing the media and thereby manipulating the public's opinion through the advertisement revenue.
Our problems would only get worse, all the ills of today's society, lack of freedom, lack of peace, lack of just basic human decency will be vastly aggravated if we hand the entirety of control to people like petur tihel and allen mosque.
Instead the way to go about this is MORE democracy not less of it. The solution is to give average citizens more influence over the fate of society rather than less. However for that to happen we all need to fight ignorance and promote the spread of education. It has to become cool again to read books (or .epub/.mobi's lol)
The best way to resolve the the corruption issue is to not allow any individual to hold power, instead having a distributed system.
More of a community-driven government. Sort of like these workers owned companies. We should not delegate away our decision-making power. We should ourselves make the decisions.
Although this post is in English it does neither concern the ASU nor KU or any other English speaking countries, in particular. It's a general post addressing a world wide phenomenon.
;)
Libertarian Police™ Department
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 for arresting him.
One of the best copy-pastas ever written. Gets me laughing every time.
It's also popular in libertarian circles because it's funny as fuck.
One of my favorite copypastas.
This is fucking gold