Quote from: caveden on March 10, 2011, 10:54:40 AM

It's not ad hominem, I'm just basing myself on what you've been defending on this thread: the use of violence to force people to adhere to your regulations and taxes. You're defending the state, so by definition you're supporting violence.

And who said "no rules"? Freedom is about no rulers, not no rules. This has been said more than once on this thread too. This is such a repeated topic when discussing libertarianism that when I had the chance I wrote a text about it myself. It is in Portuguese, if you don't mind an auto translation: http://tinyurl.com/6jplv8u
Of course you can find better material than that. The short book Chaos Theory, from Robert Murphy, is easy to read and good. There are also plenty of videos like this (very good video this one).

Since I'm giving links, one that you shouldn't miss is this nice short animation on ethics: http://www.isil.org/resources/philosophy-of-liberty-index.html
It was actually this animation that made search for more answers concerning libertarianism. When I first saw it, that put me in a sort of contradiction, since I couldn't disagree with its fundamentals, but at the moment I couldn't agree either with the conclusion of such fundamentals. So I went on reading and learning about ethics and economics, until I changed my mind in many aspects.

No, claiming that I support violence and dictatorship when I in fact do not is an ad hominem attack. What I'm saying is that if you want to live under the rules of the current contract that the US has with it's citizens (or any other state) you have to adhere to the rules setup by that entity. Either that or you can leave, or try to change the rules/contract. Perhaps you can't find somewhere to move, or the rules won't be changes to suit you. Well, that can happen in a libertarian society too. There's no gurarantee that you can find someone who'll offer exactly what you want, so you'd have to make compromises.

I glad to see that you agree that rules are needed. That's what I've been saying all along. Without rules in the marketplace it can't function. And rulers doesn't seem to be such a big problem either, since you applause the Cheiftains in Iceland and whatever the other were called in Ireland. Seems to me that they are just what you protest so much against. Elected leaders. Your text was interesting though, and I enjoyed reading it. The auto-translate wasn't too bad.
The video however was quite bad. It was very naive, full of misrepresentation and distortions and hopes that things would just "work out". Not all of it was bad, and he does have a few good points, but in all it isn't a very good video. I'm hoping that the book is better.

The flash-animation was a nice introduction, but nothing new. And it does describe an ideal world, a theory. While I also agree with the fundamentals, I'm not an idealist.

The premise of the contracts everyone is supposed to agree to is that all parties are equal. I reject that as a false premise. And if you enter into a contract as a weaker part and being exploited, how is that not comparable to the force that the state imposes on you.

I don't think we're as far apart as you might think we are. I believe that the state does good for the most part, that it should lay out a few basic rules for how the society should function, and then move out of the way, to a more controlling function where it monitors and punishes those who break the rules. And, like I said in a previous post, how many rules there should be is a matter of debate.