Once a person adopts the label of voluntaryist (or the like) for their political identity, they assume, with good reason, the following premise: human suffering is terrible and should be prevented; aggression and coercion necessarily create human suffering. This premise leads the voluntaryist to hold a number of hypotheses with varying degrees of accuracy in some form or fashion within their minds at all times. Here are several of those hypotheses.
Tag: intervention
The Delusion of a Win-Win Trade War
The foregoing considerations are only a few of the many that weigh against the initiation and continuation of a trade war. Trump says such wars are easy to win. In this regard, he apparently doesn’t even understand what winning means.
Markets aren’t Miraculous; God Bless the World
I was wrong to ever describe anything the market does as a miracle or as miraculous. Why? Because the positive effects of markets broadly described above do not depend on any sort of divine intervention, and its totally ridiculous to say that they do. Rather, they are the natural result of individuals and groups engaging in market action. No divine explanation necessary.
Funding Higher Education Debate: My Opening Statement
Why should higher education receive government support? There are two main arguments. The first is the economic argument. Government support is allegedly economically beneficial not merely for individual students, but for society as a whole. The second is the humanistic argument. Economic effects aside, government support is vital for the promotion of intrinsically valuable ideas, culture, and values.
Freedom, Not Force, Creates Lifelong Learners
As author Ray Bradbury famously said: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” If we want an educated and engaged citizenry, with a passion for reading and knowledge and ongoing self-improvement, then perhaps “free choice” should be the norm rather than the exception.
“War is Peace”, “Net Neutrality”, and Other Lies
The “net neutrality” scam means large data users, such as streaming video services, will be subsidized by little old ladies who only check their email once a week. Instead of having the big users of data pay their way, the costs will be split up among all users, no matter how much, or how little, someone actually uses.
Words Poorly Used #133 — Invention/Intervention
Intervention is taking that which belongs to someone else. Invention is sharing a new idea for the good of its beneficiaries. You cannot coerce people to adopt an invention, since to do so makes it an intervention.
Syria: Is Trump Finally Putting America First?
During a visit to Ohio to promote his infrastructure plan on March 29, US president Donald Trump dropped one of the bombshells that Americans have become accustomed to over the last year and a half: “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon …. Let the other people take care of it now.” If he’s serious, if the more hawkish members of his administration don’t dissuade him, and if he follows through, Trump will be taking a giant step in the right direction on foreign policy.
Strange Ideas
Sometimes, idea-oriented people have no shutoff valve. Politicians often have this affliction. They never met an idea that they didn’t like, but cost, intervention, and Rube Goldberg-ishness turn idea-attractions into love affairs. Their confirmation biases block any words to the wise.
Propaganda, Interventionism, Free Expression, and “Yes” Parenting (35m) – Editor’s Break 068
Editor’s Break 068 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: free speech and propaganda, government intervention trying to solve real or fake socio-economic problems, the importance of free expression and why coercively prohibiting it can lead to violence, the unschooling parent’s goal of saying “Yes!” to their children as often as possible, advice to the world to not hurt people, to not take their stuff, and to not ask permission, and more.