So many leftist on these boards?

[Desmond Hawkins]

What?

You bet... just look at how wonderfully effective the decentralized, informal, anarchic military forces of Los Angeles are at maintaining the peace. Perhaps San Salvador is a better example now that the US has deported a lot of the anarcho-capitalists back to their homeland?

 

[Angst]

LJ, in a few points you have written the best thesis on capitalism in the history of economics. Are you sure you're not a professor?

I can't tell if you're sarcastic or not; although I still can't help but feel good from this compliment. That said, I hope it's not sarcasm. But well, I'm a student on the level of the late American high school.

Was it sarcasm?

that would be all true, if profit was the thing people voted with.

In order for party who offers most profitable service to get to power, people vote with profit which what they deem to be worthy for what the parties offer back.

HOWEVER, what they instead vote with is a static rigid vote. Thus, there are no real profit offering auction going on. Due to people not voting how much they want to offer in exchange for the services parties offer, it is impossible for parties to know, how much people want to pay, and thus impossible to tell how much a service is worth to people, so its impossible to compete on those terms. AKA the socialist calculation problem( http://mises.org/econcalc.asp ), which also sank the soviet union

Parties can offer promises concerning services and whatnot, but the other side of the balance sheet they cannot know as no one determines the prices as i mentioned earlier , so that will only be possible to figure out through trial and error to determine combinations that result in the least deficits in the services they offer.

SO it really doesnt matter how much they even want to offer the best possible deals, due to prices not existing it is impossible to do.

You are actually somewhat off; basically you are right, voters only know the promises of the to-be-elected party. But your allegory to the Sovjet Union is way off; that system was a one-party, totalitarian system. The state was absolute, and the voters had no alternatives to vote for; therefore the government did not directly have to fulfill anything for the people, at least not technically; and they were free to redistribute the national wealth for their own good. Note that in a system like America's (Even though I don't care much for many parts of that system, but let's leave it at that), Bush's decisions were not cared for by the people, and therefore the Republicans were democratically overthrown. Even though the people does not know what they will recieve from their vote, again, the governing party has to fulfil the expectations of the people, otherwise they'll be removed. It's that simple.

Also, you're missing a part. Not knowing what the people will pay is completely out of the line; it is easy to give feedback to the government through the media, or with numerous other means. If the people want lower quality public schools and higher quality hospitals, or the other way around, or lower or higher taxes, they will tell the ruling party and it's easy for the ruling party to take that into consideration. To sum up, feedback is easy and plentiful.

About centralised army, it is a poor and expensive way of defending people anyway, decentralised groups are way more efficient(ie guerilla warfare), so youll be getting way more bang for your buck in anarchy.

This... This I don't even want to counterargue. Your statements confuse me. There aren't even arguments behind this. You're just saying that different factions of uncontrolled armed forces are healthy for a nation, and that's it. Well... It makes no sense, for obvious reasons.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Well... It makes no sense, for obvious reasons.

Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions here!

 

[Rashiminos]

I'm not so sure you can appeal to obviousness with xarthaz.

 

[Angst]

Lol at the two replying before xarthaz. xD

now now,, easy with the straw men.

http://mises.org/books/securityproduction.pdf

(insert)read the mises article for a more thorough review.

Sorry but I don't want my Sunday night to be spent reading a 12-paged article which I'll probably find other nonsense anyways, since 1) I'm not good with many English words even though I know the Danish words for the same concepts, 2) I probably won't agree with it anyways, and 3) Simply counterarguing with a link has never worked on me.

No offense, but just summarize it nice and dandily Also, strawman, I don't know that idiom.

not a problem of feedback. problem of distributing goods, of making choices between several goods which are all deficient, but mutually exclusive. which choice produces the best economic result? no prices to calculate it. and choises like those happen ALL THE TIME in every public company.
(snip)

What? So what you are saying is that a public train company has no more idea of what price to set its tickets to in order to balance out its losses compared to a private one? The private company is per definition more trustable in running a stable budget? When the hell did that happen?

 

[Flying Pig]

Strawman = when you try to make an argument against x by proving point y. Example - Evolution must be rubbish - some of the stuff Darwin said has been proved wrong. LJ, for once I was being serious/

 

[Angst]

Strawman = when you try to make an argument against x by proving point y. Example - Evolution must be rubbish - some of the stuff Darwin said has been proved wrong. LJ, for once I was being serious/

Thanks And I'm flattered then

 

[Dachs]

Strawman = when you try to make an argument against x by proving point y. Example - Evolution must be rubbish - some of the stuff Darwin said has been proved wrong. LJ, for once I was being serious/

No, a strawman is a bit more complicated than that. It's a misrepresentation of an opponent's position so as to make it easier to argue against.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think you need to double-check your math El_Mac...

At ~46 years, you're worth more. 10 years later, you're worth twice as much.

 

[Flying Pig]

The point is, fast evolution works better long-term than big piles of cash doing nothing.

 

[Ayatollah So]

So if I could digress back to the original topic ...
Why ARE there so many leftists here? Exclude the Europeans, and I think it would still be true. Age? Really?

And consider this - we almost all got here via our love for a game of world conquest. (Oh sure, political victory and all that - belated and weak add-ons.) Not exactly your peace love and freedom crowd, you would think!

 

[Kerozine]

I've always been somewhat of a communist sympathizer.

 

[Cutlass]

So if I could digress back to the original topic ...
Why ARE there so many leftists here? Exclude the Europeans, and I think it would still be true. Age? Really?

And consider this - we almost all got here via our love for a game of world conquest. (Oh sure, political victory and all that - belated and weak add-ons.) Not exactly your peace love and freedom crowd, you would think!

I think the right wingers get frustrated faster/more completely and leave (voluntarily or not).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

So if I could digress back to the original topic ...
Why ARE there so many leftists here? Exclude the Europeans, and I think it would still be true. Age? Really?

And consider this - we almost all got here via our love for a game of world conquest. (Oh sure, political victory and all that - belated and weak add-ons.) Not exactly your peace love and freedom crowd, you would think!

The game is about civilisation which is something left wingers appreciate more than your average right wing neanderthal hick.

 

[potatokiosk]

Strawman = when you try to make an argument against x by proving point y. Example - Evolution must be rubbish - some of the stuff Darwin said has been proved wrong. LJ, for once I was being serious/

Your example wasn't a strawman, more an ad hominem because it attacks evolution by attacking darwin

So if I could digress back to the original topic ...
Why ARE there so many leftists here? Exclude the Europeans, and I think it would still be true. Age? Really?

And consider this - we almost all got here via our love for a game of world conquest. (Oh sure, political victory and all that - belated and weak add-ons.) Not exactly your peace love and freedom crowd, you would think!

Because the game appeals to smart people and smart people are less likely to have the irrational prejudices that encourage a conservative mentality.

 

[Angst]

No, ad hominem should be an argument directed at the opponent instead of his actual point.

 

[civ_king]

The game is about civilisation which is something left wingers appreciate more than your average right wing neanderthal hick.

stop mixing fact and reality, after all the truth has a well know liberal bias...

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I suppose you heard that on Fox

EDIT: LOL at fact and reality, nice1 you fooled me. Shame on you. Fool me twice... I won't, I mean I can't get fooled again or something.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

So if I could digress back to the original topic ...
Why ARE there so many leftists here? Exclude the Europeans, and I think it would still be true. Age? Really?

And consider this - we almost all got here via our love for a game of world conquest. (Oh sure, political victory and all that - belated and weak add-ons.) Not exactly your peace love and freedom crowd, you would think!

Minus the Europeans, you still have a ridiculous proportion of Canadians.

Minus the Europeans AND Canadians, I really don't think it is that left-wing at all. The Americans on this forum (your political benchmark I assume) are a fairly good cross-section of the voting public. If there is a slight skew it might be because rural people don't use the interweb as much.

Really, it might be because of a greater than average number of younger people. The overall population has a bunch of old fart conservatives. There is my attempt to answer your question.

stop mixing fact and reality, after all the truth has a well know liberal bias...

No, reality has a well-known left-wing bias, not liberal

 

[civ_king]

I suppose you heard that on Fox

EDIT: LOL at fact and reality, nice1 you fooled me. Shame on you. Fool me twice... I won't, I mean I can't get fooled again or something.

awesome response/edit