The problem is the fate of the country often depends on who does win. In large parts of American society there’s been a huge and growing quiet withdrawal from certain demographics that even the Brookings Institutions has published books about, simply because the people steering the helm of the cultural ship excludes and doesn’t partake of the vision of society that would include these people. You won’t get people to participate if they feel there’s nothing in it for them. That’s why it’s so imperative that your side win out. Because if the other side wins, you don’t just lose, you lose everything, including a reason to keep trying.
Sulla’s proscriptions were actually successful, and he didn’t have to be overly concerned with ordinary people because ideology isn’t always relevant to most of what people had to do to get along with their daily lives thousands of years ago. And information also had a much shorter range and traveled much slower.
A society can often only please one party at the expense of another losing out. It’s why every society that exists on Earth, liberal or not, consists of winners and losers. Effective ones can figure out a way for people to make do with their unhappiness or until a political pressure valve allows them relief of their anger and frustration, which is difficult to manage. But it’s better than a liberal society that tries to please all parties involved because a society that tries to please everyone will end up pleasing no one in the long term.
Tretiak
2mo ago
Israel never "withdrew" from Gaza in 2005. Israel redeployed from the heart of Gaza to the periphery. And Israeli experts themselves have even admitted this. The "withdraw" with an expressed attempt kill any chance of Palestinian Statehood. Back in 2004 while the plan was still being discussed in the Knesset Dov Weisglass waa senior adviser to Ariel Sharon and straight up said to his face “The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” By “freezing” the political process his claim was that you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem”.
And by their own admission the “withdrawal” from Gaza didn't entail ceasing to make life hell for the Palestinians and would keep the Gazans on a "diet." If you call being blocked from export, blocked from import, fishermen not being able to go out to fish, the naval vessels driving them back to shore, and ignore the statements of the Israelis themselves, etc., then yeah; they withdraw. Just over a third of Gaza’s arable land is barred from entry to Palestinians. It’s called a “barrier.” They want to keep them on that, meanwhile separated from the West Bank, and continue the ongoing project of taking over.
How many military incursions did Israel make into Gaza since pulling out in 2014 and October 7th, 2023? Your brilliant suggestion was Israeli policy for the better part of a decade. Hamas responded to this cessation of hostilities by committing the worst pogrom since the Holocaust. At this point "complete and total destruction of Hamas, root and branch" strikes me as an entirely reasonable goal for Israel to pursue.
Do you actually mean to tell me the ongoing presence of a military occupation doesn't amount to a military incursion?
Tretiak
2mo ago
In libertarian world, society is as laissez faire as owner of the society (technically, land where the society is) wants it to be. Do not like it? Pull yourself by your bootstraps and build your own society.
And in the real world, don't blame people for not following in lockstep with the libertarian fantasy when they decide to pull themselves up by their bootstraps by pulling out a gun and robbing you of your personal property. Otherwise, have fun homesteading on the eastern plateau of Antarctica. This is why the "libertarian world" will never become what we can the "real world," at any point.
Tretiak
2mo ago
Dubai isn't even remotely close to something like that. Perhaps the closest thing I can think of to an anarcho-capitalist (i.e. "feudal") society is something like minimal, positive non-interventionism in Hong Kong. Have some people benefitted? Sure. If you're one of the 220,000 people that still live in cages, probably not. I'm not going to bid on that kind of future.
You just take your own biases for granted. You speak of "governance" as if it's a done deal already that an elected few have the last word on all aspects of how society is to be run. It's not.
I would've thought judging by results was good enough. Your reply to my original claim was that you liked the system you lived under, and yet it wasn't what I described at all. So what's the issue then? That I wasn't making an argument you wanted to respond to?
One that's reasoned from first principles by administrators instead of being the mere codification of ancient custom. I don't see why I should grant more legitimacy to the former than the latter, except that I am forced to do so at gunpoint.
You obviously haven't perused much of my post history. I'm not faulting you for that, but this is just inaccurate because I am a staunch and ardent traditionalist and readily accept the latter. Again, you're not responding to my actual argument.
All civilization is based on violence, why should I like your monopoly better than my competition when it actually makes bigger and more deadly wars?
Civilizations and the maintenance of social order are ruled by the implied 'threat' of violence. Wholly unrestricted use of force versus regulated force is the contrast between living in a society and living in a civilization. All civilizations are societies but not all societies are civilizations. You can't have the latter without the former.
I'd indeed much rather it be in many hands than just the hands of the State. Because i have seen the XXth century and I don't much enjoy being expropriated and exterminated because some guy had an idea.
And I don't want to live in an anything goes society where my freedom and liberty extends only to what I can physically fight for an defend from someone else. You can live in a world where everything is up for grabs on a daily basis, I'll settle for a world where my neighbors and I are fine with not getting 100% of everything we want from each other but can live with each other in peace.
I’m not aware of any venn diagram that logically entails centralism at the mention of the idea of a regulated society. A lack of enforceable norms or rules simply means anyone with the means can go in and impose his own on everybody else.
“Centralism” isn’t a synonym for “rule of law.” Centralism is a type of rule of law. And to be honest to quote Deng Xiaoping, “I don’t care whether it’s a white cat or a black cat so long as it catches mice.” The test of its success of governance is its overall pragmatism, not whether “centralism” or “federalism” or “localism” is right.
You like living in a society where the only limiting factor on that is how many guns someone has on the rack of the back of their pickup truck?
Hamas didn’t fire off thousands of rockets against their peaceful neighbors. They fired off thousands of rockets at people they’re being occupied by.
The entire debate being had is the one Israel gets to play by imposing the framework of discussion to make Hamas take blame for things they aren’t primarily at fault for.
And your gloss of this is that Israel bears more responsibility for escalation of hostilities than Hamas?
Yes because Israel is the military occupier. You can’t be fair to an occupier. How can you?
The obvious next question is - if the fashion Israel responded to October 7th was excessive or inappropriate or whatever, what, in your estimation, ought they to have done instead?
As far as a comprehensive program at this point, I really don’t know. But I can tell you where Israel should start. Halt any further military incursion tomorrow and rethink its plans for the region. There would be a good place to start. Hamas should end its violent campaign as well and the easiest way for both sides to do that is to stop participating in it.
Tretiak
2mo ago
Have you actually read their statements at all? They are entirely opposed to establishing a State in Israel because they believe their Exile by God is still in effect.
Tretiak
2mo ago
I’ll state what my original post was again if it was misunderstood:
He was a radical advocate of social and economic laissez-fairism. To such an extent he thought if you were someone who harbored racist beliefs and wanted to hang Neo-Nazi slogans on the window of your business, you should be able to do that. Or if you were a prejudiced business owner who wanted to refuse someone because of their religious beliefs you could turn away anyone you wanted for any reason.
I think there’s a point where unconstained liberty brings you far too close to the breakdown of society and it just becomes unworkable. Large segments of society refuse to cooperate with each other. Everyone is suspicious of their neighbor. People have to travel far out of their way to buy groceries or make a living. Violent retribution is always a looming concern. Corporations may refuse to provide power to your neighborhood’s electric grid. Who knows, police may refuse to help you if you get into trouble; depending on who you are. But at least you have freedom of speech and expression.
But without the metapolitical and social prerequisites that allow a shared community to flourish, it’s ultimately worthless. It’s why when the program of economic “shock therapy” was introduced into Russia under the Yeltsin era, hitmen and assassinations were a readily available service in the Russian free market.
But like he said, lots of people want to live there.
Then why does he keep responding to an argument I’m not making?
… it is not exactly known as land of freedom…
“Yeah yeah, I understand what you’re saying but I’m going to ignore it and replace your statement with one you didn’t make and reply to that instead.”
My entire statement was about a socially and economically hands off, laissez-faire society. That is absolutely ‘not’ what Dubai is, and not by a long shot.
Tretiak
2mo ago
The Satmars don’t live in Israel because they’re opposed to its existence and it’s sacrilegious for them to do so. And they put in work to support groups who desire to see Israel dismantled.
Among those that are religious who support Israel, most of that comes ordinarily as you’d expect from the Orthodox, but even then there’s no overriding consensus on the matter. Israel is extremely worried when it comes to mobilizing the very religious sectors of their society because they haven’t been able to move the needle in any substantial way without risking a huge rift in fabric of Israeli society. I think if worst comes to worst things will run the other direction. I don’t share your prediction on this.
Edit: Phone keeps autocorrecting/making typos.
Tretiak
2mo ago
Dubai has Sharia And Civil Law dude, it’s not a socioeconomic laissez-faire society.
Tretiak
2mo ago
The vibe I get is that people here seem to mistakenly think that “Israel” is this one big, indivisible thing. They’re supporting the Zionist regime under the mistaken premise of thinking it’s in support of Jews. Most religious Jews hate the State of Israel because its secular and want to see it dismantled just like Hamas does, and they work to protest and support groups directed at that end of things.
Tretiak
2mo ago
Israel is not going to hold a world democratic referendum on its own existence.
Zionists aren’t. The Ultra Orthodox Jews are as anti-Israel as Hamas is.
Tretiak
2mo ago
Possession is nine-tenths of the law. If the Palestinians want a change to the status quo, they should have cultivated an army to beat the IDF. Now they're beggars in the land of their forefathers with no hope of recovery. No, you're not getting your land back: the people with guns who took it aren't in any mood to just hand it over. It is for them to accept the reality of impotence and exile, as every people who lost wars before them have.
Actually the funny part about this is Israel may not even be around in its current form in a couple generations and it won’t be due to military conflict. The Satmar Jewish sect is the largest congregation of Jews in the world and they are fervently anti-Zionist as well as many (though not all) Orthodox. Guess who fertility rates are favoring over the long run? And it’s not even close.
All Palestinians may have to do is continue to hold out. Jews are on their side in the long run.
Tretiak
2mo ago
I watched an interesting interview on Tucker Carlson’s podcast not too long ago that offered an alternative perspective of what it’s like for an ordinary person to live under Israeli occupation and also has to live with Palestinians and Hamas.
Israel isn’t helping itself using this conflict to support its ulterior designs for expansion to create a Greater Israel in the region. You can argue who started the fire and draw your lines in the sand wherever you want but to me there’s no doubt Israel is pouring more gasoline on it at the moment than Palestinians are.
Tretiak
2mo ago
I've personally chosen to live in one of these and it's been a massive improvement to my quality of life and that of my friends and family. Mostly out of not having to worry about constant petty crime anymore. But in fact I've observed the exact opposite of what you're claiming. People are a lot nicer and more respectful of cultural differences than I've seen in supposedly enlightened liberal democracies.
You live in Tamaulipas? Because we definitely aren’t talking about the same thing if that’s not the case. And I don’t know of any rich trillionaire that owns an entire city outright, so I’m going to call it that you don’t live in such a city.
I choose to trust my personal experience over your conjecture.
You have quite the unheard experience from anyone on planet Earth if that’s the case.
Tretiak
2mo ago
If that were the case I know more than a couple of people who should’ve been imprisoned a long time ago.
Tretiak
2mo ago
Financial support for riots/ers is a crime after all
It is?
In the case of something like January 6th, assume for the sake of argument it was an attempt at a coup (in my view it of course wasn't). An almost direct but legally implied right to overthrow a tyrannical government is built into the 2nd amendment of the Constitution. Why wouldn't any of the rioters get off on that defense? Because that one isn't entirely clear to me.
If you want to live in an anarcho-capitalist society that’s run by corporate feudal lords, have at it. I’m not against the idea of it working, but see it as highly unlike at worst and undesirable by most at best. Some people would do well. No doubt. Just as some people did well in Nazi Germany or Los Zetas does in Tamaulipas. Die hard libertarians may want to live in this society but normal human beings do not.
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