Moderation: A Virtue or Tyranny's Secret Weapon?
“Don’t go to extremes.” What could be sounder, more reasonable advice? Moderation is extolled everywhere as one of the highest virtues. Drink in moderation. Enjoy good food in moderation. Take an interest in your favorite hobby - in moderation. Too much of a good thing can be just as bad for you as poison, right? “Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues,” said Joseph Hall.
In civics classes, we are taught that “democracy” functions based upon compromise. Compromise brings people together. Compromise is the only way that conflicting interests can exist together peacefully. Moderation is unselfish. It respects the interest of all parties, and is willing to “give and take.” Moderation is fairness.
On the website http://moderaterepublican.net, Moderate Republicans are described as believing:
“…that government does have a basic social responsibility to help those in need; a belief that the nation does have international responsibilities.”
“Moderate lawmakers are consensus builders. But then again the art of legislating is that of compromise, negotiation, and a recognition that other views have merit. This does not mean Moderates compromise core values, but rather they understand the complexities of passing intelligent legislation that benefits the greater good.”
“Moderates were the first internationalists. The nation, they contended, had a critical role to play in advancing democracy in the world.”
I’m not sure how this platform would be considered substantially different than that of Woodrow Wilson’s in 1912. Yet, this is without question the platform of George W. Bush and the present Republican party, their 2000 campaign promises notwithstanding. The so-called “neo-conservatives” are nothing more than moderate Republicans. What could be wrong with that?
The media often describes American politics in 2008 as “extremely polarized.” Yet, any sober analysis of American politics would conclude that the debate is now between centrist, moderate Republicans and ultra-liberal, socialist Democrats. A Republican president and Congress have passed increases in entitlement spending greater than any since the 1960’s. A Democratic congresswoman has threatened to nationalize the oil industry, scarcely eliciting a mention in the media, much less a cry for her censure or impeachment. Individual liberty is so far off the table in political debate that it produces almost no results when searched on major news sites (besides the occasional article on Ron Paul). How did we get here?
I suggest that extolling the virtues of moderation has played a major role. In political debate, we are given the impression that a range of issues constitute moral dilemmas where competing but equally worthy interests must be considered and an equitable compromise reached. How do we enact legislation that supports labor while not constricting economic growth? How do we fight hate crimes while preserving free speech? How do we support Israel without inflaming further hatred among Muslims? How do we ensure healthcare to all Americans while maintaining fiscal responsibility?
None of these dilemmas are real. A government limited to its proper role faces no conflict. The litmus test in any political debate is simple: Whose liberty is being threatened? By whom? The only proper answer for government is to defend liberty.
Using this standard, all of the so-called dilemmas evaporate. How do we provide healthcare? Government does not. It has no way to provide anything without attacking liberty. How do we support Israel without incurring more terrorism? We don’t. We take no sides and try to be friends with both. If they attack each other, we mind our own business. Our liberty is not threatened by age-old, regional conflicts on the other side of the world. How do we support both labor and management? We do neither. We enforce the sanctity of contracts and otherwise keep government out of it.
When it comes to wine, women, and song, a little moderation is a very healthy thing. When it comes to questions of liberty, I suggest that it is a deadly poison. If liberty is one extreme and slavery the other, how could we ever benefit from a compromise? Reflecting on the choices we’ve been offered over the past 100 years, we have constantly had to choose between giving up a little liberty or giving up a great deal. Government never proposes to get smaller or surrender any control. When a new government program or initiative is proposed, the choices never include more liberty. In the best case scenario, moderation carries the day, a compromise is reached, and only a little liberty is lost. However, the next debate begins from there.
Seen in this light, it is clear why an establishment bent on socialism or more government control would extol the virtues of moderation and compromise. When it comes to issues of liberty, moderation is like the old saying, “heads I win, tails you lose.” Extremism is an easy position to vilify – nobody likes an extremist. Even John McCain’s rhetoric (when he remembers his lines correctly) has shifted imperceptibly from “terrorists” to “extremists” when talking about threats in the Middle East.
I have a friend that is a few years younger than me that has always been a Democrat. Often, when we’ve debated politics, he has argued that the Republicans are crooks, the party of ignorance and religious fundamentalism. Our age difference is small but critical in that he has never known a Republican party that could be described any differently. A few months ago, he called me very excited about a television special he saw about Barry Goldwater. He went on for several minutes telling me what I already knew, that Goldwater was “a real American,” “a true patriot,” and that “there is no one in politics that is anything like him.” My friend does not remember a Republican party that would nominate such a man.
It was the present “neo-con” platform of the moderate Republicans that Goldwater defeated in 1964, although he lost the general election by a landslide. Why did he lose? He was characterized as an extremist, a label he welcomed, saying,
“Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Critics of libertarianism often label the movement “extremist.” The most common obfuscation of the debate is to argue that “liberty doesn’t mean that you can do anything you want,” or that “liberty doesn’t mean no government at all,” as if either of these represented the true positions of libertarians. However, these arguments are effective because they use the buzz word “extremism” and count on a public that will hear that word and accept the rest without critical analysis. They certainly would not consider that perhaps extremism in the defense of liberty is a virtue.
Perhaps the only way to truly ensure liberty is to banish moderation and compromise completely. As crazy as that may sound at first, a little reflection reveals otherwise. If liberty means never to initiate the use of force, what is the moderate position? Initiating a little force? If liberty says that taking the fruits of someone’s labor without their consent is stealing, what is an acceptable compromise? Stealing a little? If liberty says that a person’s life is his own to do with as he wishes, so long as he does not violate the rights of others, what does the moderate say? Is his life only partly his own? Before rejecting extremism in the defense of liberty, revisit these questions and ask yourself this: Do we really want liberty in moderation?
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"If atheists deny that we have rights, then the surest way to help them see the light is to work to convert them to Christ and the truth about the universe He created. Trying to sugarcoat the truth with some watered down version of reality is disingenuous and counterproductive. Some will say what I just said is divisive, but, in reality, it is returning all of us to a unity with what is actually true. Any other argument is a waste of time and energy, because it will be based upon a false premise."
Dude. What you are saying is that if Athiests deny that a sentient god granted rights, then we must try to convince them that an entity that doesn't even exist does exist, so that they will follow along with our extremely faulty reasoning that if we aren't told what to do by a giant spaceman in the sky, then we will do whatever we want, which would include denying that rights come from a giant spaceman in the sky...
Instead of trying to convince others that you are correct, you may want to go sit on beach somewhere and actually think thngs through.
When you do, you will find that you have been grotequely lied to and that, lacking reason and logic and sensibleness, you have become brainwashed into thinking that you actually possess a book with the words of some divine creator dictated in them.
As you think about this book, you soon discover that science has already demonsrated that this book is an ignorant falsity, that archeology has demonstrated its stories to be fiction, and that a cruel joke has been played upon you by others who are probably just as brainwashed as you are...
You are now living in the 21st century. It is high time you behaved like it...
Every individual in society is poor and miserable, but government reports show that the collective is doing great.
All ends are subordinated to the "public good." The "public," by the way, is everyone but you.
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
"Is it possible
2that socialists are setting the criteria and gathering the data? Would I find them the "most liveable?"...
Perhaps not. But nobody really cares about you personally in these matters. You are just one person in a Billion...
>>"But nobody really cares about you personally in these matters. You are just one person in a Billion..."
The good thing about living in a free society is that when you find out no one cares about you personally (which they usually don't unless you give them a reason to) it doesn't worry you too much because you are not dependent on them. I would hate for my livelihood to depend on people caring about me. Unlike the ill-fated Blanche DuBois, I try not to rely on the kindness of strangers. It's ALWAYS a bad idea.
If you have to live in a collectivist system you had better hope that your needs and wants align perfectly with those of the majority, and that you can adjust to the slow and steady decline of everyone's standard of living on your sinking ship.
"But someone who doesn't take anything on faith should respond to the overwhelming evidence in favor of capitalist economies."
Ummm... I can also provide anecdotal evidence for any of my remarks. Being the son of an Airforce pilot turned UN pilot turned Pan Am pilot, I was lucky enough to actually see how bad or well other countries functioned.
I can also google like everyone else...
Here is another list--
Rank Country
1. Iceland
2. Norway
3. Australia
4. Canada
5. Ireland
6. Sweden
7. Switzerland
8. Japan
9. Netherlands
10. France
This one entitled "Most Livable"...
Again, notice the piling on of "socialistic" countries...
(Although I place the US above Japan and France personally, at least from my liberal blue state perspective)
So the liberty argument is left with non-emperical "opinion" based on zero countries actually adopting full blown libertarian ideals...
Hmmm...
Methinks a little "moderation" in your stances might just be what the doctor ordered?
Perhaps y'all will get on my bandwagon and advocate for government that actually works?
Incidentally, California had over 800 lightening strike fires started recently. Government coercion, no doubt, will be responsible for getting them put out...
For how long? What happens when managed economies are to week to support the demands aging retirees will increasingly be foisting on workers? Taxes and regulation stifle economic growth. That fact is well established. Ask any economist. People in socialist countries are still high on the promise they have been sold of getting something for nothing. But even that is changing. The French weren't too happy when riots broke out in their ghettos, where 40% of young people are unemployed due to excessive government regulation of employment. In fact, the French recently elected a right wing president who has promised economic reform. Funny thing, though, they are resisting his efforts to deregulate, because it is hard to give up the goodies once you are used to them. Same thing in Germany.
It's crumbling, Scott. And it doesn't take a genius to see the writing on the wall.
Hello Claire,
Did you offer the article on Estonia yet? I can't remember
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
Here it is again. Please take a look, Scott, and tell me what you think.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/will_estonia_liberate_the_unit.ht...
that socialists are setting the criteria and gathering the data? Would I find them the "most liveable?"
Glad your back, Scott. Claire and I were a little worried. :)
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
Check out this link:
http://breakthematrix.com/World/What-Ex-Commies-Know-that-We-Dont
I haven't been ridiculed all day. I hope nothing happened to him.
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
Maybe he's re-evaluating his former assumptions.
He's making his first communion and registering to vote as a libertarian.... :)
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
I think Scott will come around. Don't underestimate the power of reason. He's already an atheist, right? Here we go...
Just to make it clear, I am not saying you have to be an atheist to be a libertarian. In fact I suspect that most libertarians in America are Christians... But someone who doesn't take anything on faith should respond to the overwhelming evidence in favor of capitalist economies.
arguing for us? we really wouldn't have to do anything after that. :)
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
In support of what I have been saying. Here is an excerpt from a great article by Thomas Sowell that came out this morning (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/the_imitators.html)
"Minimum wage laws have the same effects in Europe as they have had in other places around the world. They price many low-skilled and inexperienced workers out of a job.
Because minimum wage laws are more generous in Europe than in the United States, they lead to chronically higher rates of unemployment in general and longer periods of unemployment than in the United States-- but especially among younger, less experienced and less skilled workers.
Unemployment rates of 20 percent or more for young workers are common in a number of European countries. Among workers who are both younger and minority workers, such as young Muslims in France, unemployment rates are estimated at about 40 percent.
The American minimum wage laws do enough damage without our imitating European minimum wage laws. The last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate in the United States was 1930.
The next year, the first federal minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act, was passed. One of its sponsors explicitly stated that the purpose was to keep blacks from taking jobs from whites.
No one says things like that any more-- which is a shame, because the effect of a minimum wage law does not depend on what anybody says. Blacks in general, and younger blacks in particular, are the biggest losers from such laws, just as younger and minority workers are in Europe.
Those Americans who are pushing us toward the kinds of policies that Europeans impose on pharmaceutical companies show not the slightest interest in what the consequences of such laws have been.
One consequence is that even European pharmaceutical companies do much of their research and development of new medications in the United States, in order to take advantage of American patent protections and freedom from price controls.
These are the very policies that the European imitators want us to change.
It is not a coincidence that such a high proportion of the major pharmaceutical drugs are developed in the United States. If we kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as the Europeans have done, both we and the Europeans-- as well as the rest of the world -- will be worse off, because there are few other places for such medications to be developed.
There are a lot of diseases still waiting for a cure, or even for relief for those suffering from those diseases. People stricken with these diseases will pay the price for blind imitation of Europe.
The United States leads the world in too many areas for us to start imitating those who are trailing behind."
Sure and the most glaring factor here is the amount of countries MORE socialist than the US that are on that list. Virtually, all of them...
Which deflates your arguement in a hurry.
And of course, you mention dictatorships as your evil proof that government by the people is deleterious? If "the people" choose to take care of themselves via taxes and social programs, this is in no way similar to murderous dictatorships. Nice try though. It shows the same desperation that Christians demonstrate when they pull the same canards out of the empty rhetoric box.
After a full year of a Lbertarian movement afoot, I am really surprised just how weak and ineffectual the arguments are. Cartoon portrayals of community ordinances, resorting to Pol Pot and Stalin (Why not Hitler?)...
I would have thought some kind of dialectic acumen would have emerged as you attempted to draw people into the fold?
Singapore and Hong Kong are very capitalistic societies, and both have very high average life expectancies. If capitalism is bad for life expectancy, why is this so? Is there something special about the people there, as opposed to, say, the people in China, that allows them to live longer in spite of capitalism?
When it comes to health care and medicine, capitalistic economic incentives in the US have led to great innovation in the development of drugs and medical treatments. These have benefited the health of people all over the world. Take away the incentives, I guarantee you the innovation will disappear along with them, and all the socialist countries that depend on us for new treatments will have to look somewhere else.
The US is prey to a lot of social problems (single parenthood, drug use, crime) that were in fact exacerbated by welfare. When you give young women economic incentives to have children before they are ready to raise them, incentives which additionally remove the stigma from the young men who abandon their babies, you have to expect that there will be more out-of wedlock kids, which leads to more poverty. A child who grows up in a family where no one goes to work in the morning and people engage in self destructive behavior don't suffer the consequences of it will learn bad habits that will hobble him for the rest of his life. It will take years of free market capitalism to undo what Roosevelt did with his New Deal.
Much of the violent crime in poor enclaves is associated with the illegal drug trade. Legalizing drugs would remove the incentive for criminals to operate outside of the regular economy. In the absence of welfare checks and an illegal product to sell, they would face the choice of either starving or finding legitimate employment. Some might remain drug dealers, although far lower profits would make that line of work much less attractive. Some would continue to rob people, but I think most drug dealers are not thieves. They are simply responding to the economic incentives the government has set up with its well-meaning policies.
Regarding life expectancy in the US versus Sweden, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that we are comparing apples with oranges. Whereas Sweden is a homogeneous society that benefits from a conservative cultural tradition in which people refrain both from acting out self destructively and taking advantage of the system, not all of the many cultural traditions in our melting pot support that kind of restraint. Moreover, poverty and life expectancy statistics are skewed by the 12 million illegal immigrants who were attracted to the US not only by economic opportunities but also by our social programs like public education. There is every reason to suppose that life would get better for all of us in a libertarian system. There would be more economic activity, more jobs. People would work for their money and keep all of it. Competition would improve the quality and lower the price of of everything from schools to health care. As for the truly helpless and disadvantaged, we are a generous people to begin with; imagine how much money would be freed up for charity if we didn't have to pay taxes. In a free-market capitalist libertarian America, many more people would be much better off.
I stated specifically that I was not equating Sweden with the Soviet Union. At any rate, we now know that communism doesn't work. What seems so obvious to you now was far from obvious to most people even as late as the 1970's when intellectuals in the West were scrambling to find good things to say about communism in the face of mounting evidence of its failure as an economic system. The problem with a historical evaluation of socialism is that the story is not over yet. For economies, socialism is a slower growing cancer than communism, but ultimately just as lethal. It remains to be seen how socialist societies will manage to support their aging populations as soon as thirty years from now when the money and the credit run out.
Because I wanted specifically to address your concerns about functionality, I have focused on the practical advantages of libertarianism, leaving the moral question to other people here; suffice to say that on an ethical level I believe it is the only legitimate form of government.
Trying to justify freedom to meet the satisfaction of the control fanatics is an exercise in futility, and an act of surrendering freedom itself. Either we have inalienable freedom, or it can be take away due to some inconvenience that it places on the "functioning" of society. Someone with a mind set like Scott's, who has managed only once during this discussion to nest his reply beneath the comment to which he was replying, has an endless supply of rhetoric based loosely on reality, at its best, to counter any argument put forth to support freedom.
Is fanatic too strong or inappropriate? Maybe there is a better word, but it cannot be too pleasant when it is to be applied to those who advocate something as dangerous as the state in the face of overwhelming evidence of its destructiveness. Can we not find a thread running from the ratification of the US Constitution to Bach's Car as it toted Fat Man toward its secondary target, which it identified using a cathedral built by Japanese Christians as a landmark? The Constitution was supposed to give us "a more perfect union" by greatly bumping up the power of the central government. It seems the centralization of power gave us a more murderous union, if anything. Perhaps, even under the Articles of Confederation, and more localized control, this country would still have arrived to participate in the mass murders of WWII. The seeds of statism are difficult to control once they have taken root. This is all just my braindead mind running wild. My actual purpose of posting this comment is to link to a recent article by the Wilton Alston. See below. It would be a good thing to find his article "Attack of the 50-Foot Minarchist" as well.
"Why Don’t More People Realize That a Stable Statist Society Requires Belief?" by Wilton D. Alston
http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston44.html
BONUS! BONUS!
Reflections on the Origin and the Stability of the State" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe18.html
"And what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world?" -- Frederic Bastiat
Rank by
UN member
state Rank by
entity Entity Overall life expectancy at birth Male life expectancy at birth Female life expectancy at birth
1 1 Andorra 83.52 80.62 86.23
2 Macau ( PRC) 82.27 79.44 85.25
2 3 Japan 82.02 78.67 85.56
3 4 San Marino 81.8 78.33 85.57
3 4 Singapore 81.8 79.21 84.59
6 Hong Kong ( PRC) 81.68 78.99 84.6
7 Gibraltar ( UK)[4] 80.9 78.5 83.3
5 8 Sweden 80.63 78.39 83
6 9 Australia 80.62 77.8 83.59
6 10 Switzerland 80.62 77.75 83.63
8 11 France (metropolitan) 80.59 77.35 84
12 Guernsey ( UK) 80.53 77.53 83.64
9 13 Iceland 80.43 78.33 82.62
10 14 Canada 80.34 76.98 83.86
15 Cayman Islands ( UK) 80.2 77.57 82.87
11 16 Italy 79.94 77.01 83.07
12 17 Monaco 79.82
SO THERE IS YOUR TOP 12 IN LIFE EXPECTANCY...
i SEEM TO SEE A FEW NON-LIBERTARIAN SOCIETIES IN THAT MIX...
"""No. I think we are finding out more and more that the rights in question are objectively what is best for human beings."""
Evidence please?
Here's an article about a psychological study I read about a while back: http://my.opera.com/nephronjga/blog/show.dml/1173398
The conclusion:
"Control is the real and perceived personal power we each possess over our own life and the events in it. It is our ability to make choices and choose our own destiny. Related to this real or perceived ability are our feelings of competence and personal power. We are happier and more effective when we have the power to choose. The loss of personal responsibility for our lives causes us to be less happy and healthy. It is only natural that when this power to make choices is taken away, we resist and engage in “reactance.” We like to at least believe we have the ability to control our lives."
Here are the top 15 countries ranked by degree of economic freedom (from:http://www.heritage.org/Index/countries.cfm). Notice the correlations with your list.
Hong Kong 1 [90.3]
Singapore 2 [87.4]
Ireland 3 [82.4]
Australia 4 [82.0]
United States 5 [80.6]
New Zealand 6 [80.2]
Canada 7 [80.2]
Chile 8 [79.8]
Switzerland 9 [79.7]
United Kingdom 10 [79.5]
Denmark 11 [79.2]
Estonia 12 [77.8]
Netherlands 13 [76.8]
Iceland 14 [76.5]
Luxembourg 15 [75.2]
As for historical evidence, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Castro have proven that extreme forms of collectivism are most definitely bad for people. Of course I wouldn't try to tar Sweden with that same brush, but it's something to keep in mind nonetheless, when we consider what it is that keeps us from going there.
We have yet to see whether the socialist promise of eternal prosperity for all is sustainable in places like Sweden. I suspect it isn't, and that we will soon see how years of trusting the government to take care of them leaves people much more helpless when the money runs out.
"We are happier and more effective when we have the power to choose. The loss of personal responsibility for our lives causes us to be less happy and healthy. It is only natural that when this power to make choices is taken away, we resist and engage in “reactance.” We like to at least believe we have the ability to control our lives."
That really is a very basic and constrained way of looking at this. First, there is no direct cause-effect relationship between losing a degree of personal responsibility and becoming less happy. Think of all that personal responsibility could entail. This is a normal compromise in life that exists outside of these political debates. More importantly, this ignores the most important component in all this, which is balance.
People are happier when they reach a state of stability and predictability in their environment. A high level of freedom is not required so long as individual expression (not the power to choose) is not suppressed significantly. But in that article, one group clearly was beyond that threshold, and we should consider that both groups already face high levels of dependency.
Regarding the "socialist promise"...it first started as the family promise. When people operate in a context of clear unity and association, which is most strongly represented by a family, this indeed creates a sustainable method of operation for the individual members.
A level of socialism is almost a natural component of governance for a homogeneous body. In the U.S., diversity, variability is the norm, and added to the enormous size and separation between peoples, it becomes clear why freedom and independence fits us better.
Whatever case a person wishes to make regarding this issue, I would just advocate that along with identifying the "preferred" philosophy (or combination of philosophies), one takes account of the group it would be applied to. Projecting the effects of socialism here does not necessarily indicate the same eventual effects in Sweden, or anywhere else.
"Taking this step is crucial if we are ever to convince an atheist that the rights of man exists."
Ummm... they exist only because we say they exist and we agree that they exist. There is no more to it than that.
There is no "magic place" where rights come from. They are invented, stated, and agreed upon by the very same people they wish to direct.
The founders wrongfully attributed the source of the rights they listed.
>>"There is no "magic place" where rights come from. They are invented, stated, and agreed upon by the very same people they wish to direct."
No. I think we are finding out more and more that the rights in question are objectively what is best for human beings. In the same way as we know from the science of medicine that certain things are better for your physical health than others, we also know from the study of psychology and our knowledge of evolution that freedom is essential for a person's well being and the continuation of the species. From the economics and history we have learned that freedom is essential for progress and growth. These are objective facts. If we want a system that is good for us we have to choose one that ensures liberty.
"you can prove damages, the defendant has to compensate you."
What are the damages? What is it that I am to prove?
That a gun going off at four in the morning violates my right to happiness?
That a pile of garbage on a neighbors property violates my right to happiness?
These things have been "proven" in court already, which is how they ended up being "laws", requiring coercion to uphold.
If I have to go to court and sue everytime some knucklehead decided to fire off his gun at four am, my rights are being violated, my time is being robbed from me, and my "right to happiness" is being stepped on.
That's why we have local ordinances and laws and a sherriff that gets paid to keep the knuckleheads in control of themselves...
Again, you aren't solving anything. Just making declarations based on a strict interpretation of a belief you hold...
>>"If I have to go to court and sue everytime some knucklehead decided to fire off his gun at four am, my rights are being violated, my time is being robbed from me, and my "right to happiness" is being stepped on."
The point is that you don't have to go every time. The threat of a lawsuit is an effective deterrent in most cases. Sometimes you will have to follow through.
>>That's why we have local ordinances and laws and a sherriff that gets paid to keep the knuckleheads in control of themselves..."
There are civil matters and criminal matters. If the guy is violent, you should call law enforcement. If he's only disturbing the peace, you can treat it either way, or both: call the sheriff and sue the noisemaker for damages.
>>"Again, you aren't solving anything. Just making declarations based on a strict interpretation of a belief you hold..."
I don't generally want to "solve" other people's problems, partly because I realize that often even well meant "solutions" can mess a bad situation up even further, and I would not want to be responsible for that. Nor do I look to other people to solve my problems, because I think I get the most out of life by being resourceful and self-reliant.
"You could sue your neighbor for keeping garbage "
Sure, which leads right back to government coercion. Who requires that the lawsuit be honored at all?
You keep using government coercion to solve problems even though you claim to abhor the concept...
There is a functional reason for that.
Coercion involves INITIATING the use of force. Government use of force to defend an individual's rights against an attack by somebody else is not coercion. It's self defense, and perfectly justified. In fact, it is necessary to maintain the liberty of a free people.
I would argue that 3/4 of the rebuttals you make to the liberty argument spring from your confusion of these two VERY different concepts.
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs