Portland's Inequality Tax

http://www.victoryggw.com/

Here is a 12 Days of Christmas site for 2 of your stated interests.
Odd they have located in this tiny non affluent burg of 5000, but you will be blown away by some of the items.

They are burdening the child with certain death.

And yes there is a moral duty to take care of the child, and the assumption is that plenty, if not most, L’s would in fact take care of the child. Which is forcing the burden on them, because an immoral douchebag didn’t do what he signed up to do when pegging his lady friend.

Depends on the property, and location.

If it’s the house next to mine, and I don’t want to look at the eyesore, yes it’s my responsibility that was thrust upon me by another.

If I don’t mind my property values going down, comps in the toilet and looking at what is now essentially garbage in the lot next door… Sure I have no responsibility.

The biggest problems with L theory, and more so AnCaps etc is the reliance on the “essential good” and “moral” makeup of humans. It’s the same reason communism will no doubt fail every time it’s tried. People just really aren’t that good overall, and certain people very evil.

A lot of your issues with L philosophy are, at least in the end game, valid. You’re just using a really poor avenue to get to the end with the child example, because it doesn’t work. Again, had you taken the discrimination route, I would have still argued, because that’s what this is for, but you would have had more substance to chew on.

I’ve got too much to do this afternoon, lol. Damn it.

Which political philosophy can deal with the problem presented by a child with which no member of society wishes to be burdened?

I’m not sure why libertarianism must deal with problems no political philosophy can.

How would an abandoned child be dealt with in a libertarian society? Probably in much the same way which abandoned children have always been dealt with by societies.

Like countingbeans pointed out, libertarianism is concerned solely with the proper use of force(and holds that private property established by homesteading is legitimate). It holds that the initiation of force(to include fraud) is wrong.

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No, it works, it’s just that you’ve conflated and confused incentive with obligation. They aren’t the same.

And again, I think most libertarians think taking care your kids is a moral duty, but I’m not talking about libertarians generally - I’m talking about the NAP taken to its logical conclusion.

And the whole “well, you consent to have sex, so in the event of a pregnancy, intended or not, ergo conditionally you consent to raising a child” doesn’t square with the NAP and an individual’s absolute right under that theory to be free of obligations to other individuals without their consent. It just doesn’t.

I mean, of course there is a moral duty to take care of your child, everyone understands that - it’s just that that moral duty has to come from somewhere else outside the NAP’s moral architecture, because such a duty racially contradicts the NAP. Has to, for the reasons I’ve stated.

In any event.

Dude, you’re 100% wrong here.

I can’t even bother to continue to point this out. One obligates themselves to take care of the children they bring into the world. This fact blows your entire thought train away. You’re refusing to see this. The individual is signing, explicitly, the contract to take care of the child when they have sex that produces the child. This isn’t up for debate.

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That’s actually a problem for ALL political philosophies. All political philosophies rely on the good in human nature(libertarianism probably less so, in fact–although a purely libertarian society would still eventually end up right back where we are due to folks consolidating power in order to control others).

Back to abortion for a moment(and this is in no way directed at countingbeans): again, strange that “conservatives” often oppose libertarianism because it either permits or can’t conclusively answer the question of what to do about unwanted, unborn children. Guess what, conservatives? The system you love explicitly permits abortion. Yes, that’s right. A woman can have her unborn child killed and all you can do is whine about it, because to do otherwise could potentially(if needed) bring the full force of American political(military) power down on you. Congrats. At least you can’t sell unpasteurized milk to your friend in another state.

Libertarianism is a purely political philosophy, and the non-aggression principle just holds that it’s wrong to initiate violence against another. Do you want a human political philosophy to deal with morality?

A moral duty does not contradict(I’m not even sure what it means to “racially contradict”) the NAP. A moral duty MAY be beyond the scope of the NAP.

Should be “racially” - typo from autocorrect.

Human political philosophy deals with morality whether we like it or not. And for years, hardcore libertarians have been me libertarianism covers all of it, not just politics, because there can be no separation because liberty is the ultimate moral issue.

Yeah, we’ll have to agree to disagree. Pure strain libertarianism is a hot mess in the real world, and stuff just doesn’t add up.

Thank you. That was so kind. Sincerely.

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Please remove oven mitts before next post :smiling_imp:

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Oh I know! I wasn’t trying to call you to court over it. treco and you have agreed on quite a bit over the long haul, I was just surprised to see you switch gears on him (probably because i thought something different when I read his post…Interwebz sigh). Besides dude, I’ve gone skyrocketing on some people so I can’t even cast stones lol. You guys are both level.

Commies piss me off something bad.

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Bingo there. That’s for certain. People are not inherently “good” to the degree required for any of that.

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Our country has been pulling hard toward more government control and bigger government. If more Americans are having a bit of a libertarian moment, I’m going to be really happy about that. I’m still not at all sure that’s what we are seeing now. Things seem so upside down, but it’s always the people on the fringes that pull things that direction. If we can pull a bit toward an appreciation that “liberty is the ultimate moral issue,” I’d be thrilled. If there are maybe 6 different moral foundations, I’d just like more people to realize how fundamental this one is. Not to play on only that one string, but to at least put it in the song.

@ Moral Foundations - From moralfoundations.org

"Moral Foundations Theory was created by a group of social and cultural psychologists to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes. In brief, the theory proposes that several innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too. The five foundations for which we think the evidence is best are:

  1. Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.

  2. Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]

  3. Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it’s “one for all, and all for one.”

  4. Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.

  5. Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).

We think there are several other very good candidates for “foundationhood,” especially:

  1. Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor."
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How come every government in the world does it then (to different degrees)? I guess none of them read their economic like you.

Rofl, at this point you are not even ignoring one part of my response to try to make another part mean what you want and respond to this, you’re quoting one half of a sentence and ignoring the second half.

Anyway I am done, peace out lol.

Cool man, see ya :v:t2:

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Just reading through this thread this morning. Some of this really comes down to the effectiveness of two alternatives. Do you think that tax cuts or policies that change incentives produce more growth than government transfer payments? That’s it.

Unfortunately, votes on economic issues often have nothing to do with results, but have more to do with the where you fall on the list of moral foundations I listed above. This is an example of people who score very high on the care/harm and the fairness/ inequality aspect voting for their prime moral value. They hope that something that looks like it will help the poor, will really do what they think it will do. Good intentions and identity as a compassionate person.

A bit of a tangent - As I read it, this Portland law has absolutely nothing to do with treco deciding to pay his employees a fair or generous wage. It is a little complicated by the difference between publicly and privately held companies. If I own a hotel and am making a lot of money, there’s nothing stopping me from paying the women who clean the rooms really well. Maybe I want to pay them $70,000 per year if they are good employees. In fact, that would be awesome. We’ve seen some privately held companies do that, and I admire it. Sincerely. It’s not that simple with publicly held companies, where I now have a board telling me that I can’t because the share holder want to take profits.

In terms of people relocating business outside of Portland, the exodus of the entertainment industry from making films in CA is a good example. Or even the mostly liberal owned tech industry. These are industries mostly run by political progressives, but when you look at what they do in response to their own policies, you see them leave the CA “utopia” they’ve created. Apple money in Ireland, etc. They may not admit to self-interest but their identity/ self-ascribed values have nothing to do with economic reality. Why do people have such a hard time seeing that?

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But people ARE good enough for either a single person or a majority of people in a geographic area (no matter the size and diversity within that area) to be trusted with governing all?

Criticisms of libertarianism always apply to all other political theories.

A libertarian political system wouldn’t last for long, as I said, because people will always want to control others. Better to start at “no control over others”(or reset to that) than to start at(or continue from) “you can do what I(we) say.”

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I can agree with this, depending on where it limits itself. If this translates into more decentralization of social and economic issues, I think that would be a great development. If it is a movement that helps empower Congress to stand up to the Presidency as the co-equal branch it is (because of infusion of the libertarian spirit that rejects authoritarianism), also fantastic. If it helps people move past silly political correctness as well as retrograde prejudices, again, great. I’m all for those.

If it manifests itself as nothing more than cranky anti-government airheadedness, I’m not on board. I don’t think that will have a useful impact. And I think it’s why libertarianism has had so little impact up to now - so obsessed with philosophy and ideological purity, adherents can’t engage the real world to help solve problems.

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