Trump: The Third Year

How does the “relationship between individuals and the American government” get credit for things produced by…individuals? For familial relationships within the U.S.? For friendships within the U.S.?

Subsidizing industries
Lower crime rates
Stable economy (relatively)
Safety from attack (relatively)
Social safety nets
Roads are nice

Nothing says “producing things of value” like the need for subsidization.

I can see giving a government credit for “higher arrest rate” or something, but not this.

Agree to disagree.

I guess a demonstrated willingness to use nuclear weapons against civilians probably helps with this, but I’d give some credit to location.

Truly unsure how this contributes to production of goods.

Truly an impossible task for the market and citizens.

I think it’s more of a commentary on the limitations of the free market irt the ‘common good’

Sure, as long as you don’t think laws do anything to prevent crime from occuring.

Happy to hear any society in history that successfully pulled off libertarian ideology, but yes definitely agree to disagree.

Europe seems relatively safe compared to Central Africa, but to your point I haven’t personally visited either location

You should brush up on basic economics and the functions within society. It’ll fill in the gaps for you insanely quickly

Feel free to bring up a functional non govt alternative at any point in recorded human history. Happy to go 12 rounds on it

Dat racism, tho!

Individuals who were taught by a public school system, drove on public roads, read in libraries, were kept safe from public police, etc? Who came to enjoy a certain lifestyle in a mixed market economy?

I wouldn’t give it all the credit by any means but it would be pointless to ignore its impact.

The main point still stands: Those people didn’t leave. So maybe life with this government isn’t really all that bad? Again other options exist.

Anarchotopia is out there. We can build it. You just have to believe in it enough. It’s like the tooth fairy if you don’t put the effort to place the tooth under the pillow you get nothing

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Europe and Africa are continents.

Those aren’t the names of white and black people (although I guess they certainly could be)

They did pretty good in the book lord of the flies initially.

https://i.imgur.com/z7D8iVV.jpg

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That bad? I guess not. Our new standard is, is it so bad that you are willing to give up much of your property and your family/friends to leave it?

Good talk. I share your low expectations for government.

Feel free to start a new standard. All it would take is to name a single successful society running off libertarian methodology in the entire history of mankind.

I really do feel for libertarians. Much like socialism, it’s a great concept on paper.

If human nature and the existence of societies weren’t a thing, libertarianism would be a slam dunk.

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Ancient Ireland was supposed to be. I don’t know enough of the history to be sure(libertarians have to be economists, historians, educators, etc., but I am none of those). It’s much easier to say, “Here’s the thing, and here are conditions. Thing because of conditions.”

Please explain it to me. I would’ve thought basic economics would say that a safety net(paying people for not working) will encourage people not to work.

Except socialism kills itself. Libertarianism is forced out.

Why? Surely it wouldn’t be hard to convince those people how awful existence is and to come move with someone to anarchotopia. After all you wouldn’t want your friends and family missing out on a government free life.

Property? Surprised anyone has any with the jackbooted thugs of the government. Either way we will have tons of it once that pesky government is out of the way. Cars, roads, bridges, power lines, sewage will just be a brief bit when the individuals of anarchotopia work together to build them. I’m sure we will have high speed Internet to brag to the statists about in no time!

But this thread is about trump and I’ll move back towards discussion about him. We can start an ac thread if wanted.

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Not gonna lie, I stopped clicking links after the first few all seemed the same. Sure is a great example of success though.

Basic economics says a social safety net has insane ripple effects to every aspect of the economy, allowing it to function as well as it does. Like, very basic. If this is our starting point I’d be bowing out. I don’t have time to give you a 6th grade economics lesson and move on from.

Also, welfare is not the entirety of the social safety net concept. It’s not even a majority piece of the pie.

Is this supposed to be in conflict with what I said? It doesn’t seem to be.

Totally acknowledging they’re both useless due to human nature and societies, but for technically different reasons.

They’re a VA based think thank and their twitter has around 2k followers. I’m pretty sure they’re not “helping” Africans per se, but instead lobbying for some outlandish foreign policy experiment.

Also, this link below is pure gold.To the citizens of some of the poorest countries in the world, plagued by HIV, endemic violence, strife, brutal wars and tribalism they’re attempting to explain what are the real problems.

Sure, the Hutu paramilitaries hacked your parents to death, but you know what’s holding you down? Ban on alcohol sales before 5pm

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I don’t laugh out loud at the Internet often but that’s amazing loppar. Clean drinking water is how those statists get ya. Sucker you in with modern plumbing and next thing you know you can’t see porn on regular tv!

Shit I just remembered we don’t have tv! Damn you big government!

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I couldn’t make myself go through the whole thing. Is there a lesson at the end? The only libertarian-ish message I can imagine taking away from that is, regulations don’t contribute to progress. African countries don’t lack laws.

Like prohibition, or the war on drugs?

The northern USA pre 1913. Went from worst to first pretty damn fast.

100% false.

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