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Bernie Sanders and the establishment DNC
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<blockquote data-quote="Whither" data-source="post: 4382298" data-attributes="member: 76643"><p>If you're fond of libertarian thinking (I am), I don't follow how any government's 'contract' with its citizens can pass as legitimate. The parties are hardly equals and, in any case, one never has the opportunity to give or refuse consent but is nevertheless bound by the 'contract'. In a word, the citizen's situation smacks of duress.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not all of <em>us</em> communists are statists. Anarchists also used to call themselves libertarian communists and were not joking re: the libertarian part. (Still aren't, but we're the byproducts of history.) Second, it is bad faith to discuss human nature apart from historical conditions -- even if we can be said to bear a 'nature' (in the ethical sense, since this is what always meant by the expression) there is no way of parsing out the ways history/current conditions has shaped it. For example, it is well-known that communes/intentional communities are mostly failures in modern times, with a few exceptions proving the rule. But it is also the case that humans, our ancestors, have spent the vast majority of their tenure on earth banding together in small -- likely egalitarian -- groups, without the wonders of the state, capitalism, and all our modern solutions for living.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>To me, this is where libertarianism goes off the rails. A way of thinking that claims to value freedom above all winds up, time and again, yarning about wealth and efficiency, as if these were any replacement for the immeasurable freedom surrendered to get them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Whither, post: 4382298, member: 76643"] If you're fond of libertarian thinking (I am), I don't follow how any government's 'contract' with its citizens can pass as legitimate. The parties are hardly equals and, in any case, one never has the opportunity to give or refuse consent but is nevertheless bound by the 'contract'. In a word, the citizen's situation smacks of duress. Not all of [I]us[/I] communists are statists. Anarchists also used to call themselves libertarian communists and were not joking re: the libertarian part. (Still aren't, but we're the byproducts of history.) Second, it is bad faith to discuss human nature apart from historical conditions -- even if we can be said to bear a 'nature' (in the ethical sense, since this is what always meant by the expression) there is no way of parsing out the ways history/current conditions has shaped it. For example, it is well-known that communes/intentional communities are mostly failures in modern times, with a few exceptions proving the rule. But it is also the case that humans, our ancestors, have spent the vast majority of their tenure on earth banding together in small -- likely egalitarian -- groups, without the wonders of the state, capitalism, and all our modern solutions for living. To me, this is where libertarianism goes off the rails. A way of thinking that claims to value freedom above all winds up, time and again, yarning about wealth and efficiency, as if these were any replacement for the immeasurable freedom surrendered to get them. [/QUOTE]
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