Re: democracy?!

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com> writes:
> What is a reasonable summary? Reasonable to who? What 'lot' of
> democracies?

This is getting kind of repetitive.  Perhaps you could provide a
counter example to disprove my claim that democracies result in more
petty privacy and freedom invasive laws than would be the case with a
pure market anarchy (perhaps old Iceland would be a suitable anarchy
to consider as a comparison).  Do you have a democracy in mind which
doesn't result in lots thought crimes and other "crimes" which are so
far removed from normal free market schelling points.  It's just a
natural tendency of a democracy.

> > But they do share a characteristic:
> > distortions of free market in the form of voting for theft and
> > redistribution of other peoples money leading to annoying government
> > micro-management, and general do-gooder busy-body-ness, and the many
> > laws on thought crimes.
> 
> Again, demostrate your assertion(s).
> 
> Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Who?  What?  Current democracices.  When?  Now.  Why?  Market
distortion.  How?  Politicians brokering legalised mass theft and
market distortion for game theoretic reasons.

> >  Your constitution says you can own and carry
> > guns; your politicians and law enforcement increasingly say that you
> > can not.  Your response to my saying that is that _I_ don't understand
> > the constitution?
> 
> No, my responce is prove your assertions. 

You prove your assertion: are you saying there are no gun controls in
the US?

> Explain to me why you believe these are valid views 

because they are a statement of readily observable reality?

> and why they provide a more usable environment for understanding
> what is going on then others.

What others?  Give me some other views to compare for realistic value.

> > > At the height of the range wars there were only 9 murders associated
> > > with the conflict, not hundreds as the popular entertainment media
> > > and spin-doctor culture would have you believe. Get your fucking
> > > facts straight.
> > 
> > I know, that was my point; recall that I said the murder rate was low.
> 
> No, you said *nothing* about murder rate. 

You're right, what I said was:

: (Crime rate was reportedly pretty damn low too.)

murder rates were low to as far as I understood.  That's what I was
thinking when I wrote that.  (Of course I can't complain about your
statement above, you're right ... I didn't write what I was
thinking :-)

> What you did say was that back in the old days people ran around
> killing those who bothered them. Which isn't true either.

That bit was a statement of a belief that few people would be inclined
to invade someones privacy and attempt to impose sanctions for what
they viewed as thought crimes.  It takes governments or religions to
do this kind of thing, individuals aren't likely to -- the natural
schelling points would be far less invasive.  My thought was that if
some crazy person went invading peoples houses telling them how to
behave that that crazy person would have a decreased life expectancy
:-)

> > The point was there were way less laws, and few were telling their
> > neighbours what they could think.
> 
> Really? What was the law count say in 1865 versus 1965? 1897 v 1997?
> Demonstrate your point.

I say: there were less laws in 1897 US than 1997 US.

Tell me: do you refute that claim?

How often do laws get repealed?  How often do new laws get bought in?
New laws are a lot more common.  Politicians want to produce new laws
because it makes it look like they're doing something useful to the
untrained eye.

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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