...will prevent it for the greater good.

So much freedom has been sacrificed on this one prognostication. The problem is they do not nor cannot know what "the greater good" is, so it is often used as a justification for megalomania.

How do you feel about worker co-ops or similar alternatives to state ownership?

I'm all for people starting whatever associations they wish so long as it is of the voluntary variety. These co-ops and the like can then serve as shining examples for these types of associations. Ironically it is only possible to do this if they embrace rather than reject capitalism.

And that is itself a fallacy: ad vericundium (?). Populum, sorry.

I evoked the 70million+ to show that your generalizations were on the hasty side, not to say that I was right.

Not true: I associate you with Republicans, not one or two fascists or racists. As pointed out, Republicans (especially including any of those 70 million) had their chance to divorce but made their bed. They are now Trumpsters. Sorry, that's on them. If they want to turn their backs on him, denounce him, endeavor to return to the community of man, they can. You can too. But you'll have to leave the Republican Party to do it.

I’m a registered independent, “unaffiliated”. I cannot vote in any primary in my home state even if I wanted to. But I wager none of this absolves me from any sweeping generalizations.

Again, using the same hatred and the same behavior does not allow you to paint me as you or them, nor do I paint myself as such. It's the thinking which is palpably different. My thinking is right, and your thinking is wrong. The simple fact that we both think does not make us alike. There is no fallacy when you are what you are. You defend Trump who is the Republican Party. I'd beseech you to leave, to come home, but I know how you feel about the community of man. You want the best of both worlds. Understandable, but so is ostracization or, less than that, remonstration.

Sure it does. Your rhetoric is one of groupthink, in-group/out-group stuff, "othering" and all that piffle. If this is how your "community of man" operates I want no part of it in any case.

Businesses are often created from the ground up at much cost and effort, and those who did so have every right to control the operation of their own creation as a matter of property rights. I can’t see anything inherently evil in this dynamic because it isn’t obligatory. One can, if she wants, create her own enterprise and run it how she sees fit.

I see evil wherever people beg those in power to force businesses to this or that end, whether it be wages, benefits, and the like. The idea that we should transfer power from the people at large to the state because we don’t want to work as much or want some sort of benefit is a greed of the highest order.

Yes, I defend Trump. Guilty as charged. So do millions of others. Over 70 million voted for him the last time I checked. But instead associating me with them you associate me with the one or two fascists you can think of.

You engage in the same species of thinking put to use by the very fascists and racists you pretend to oppose. So while I may be guilty by some tenuous association, you’re guilty of using the same fallacies, the same hatred, and the same behavior.

Like anything, it depends. I personally don't think it's healthy to have division about climate change -- that's something that should be agreed upon, as it was a few years ago before the Koch network took the Big Tobacco playbook and manufactured controversy.

But as for responsibility for legislation -- yes, which is precisely why both parties like the idea. Except for the top priorities (i.e., what their corporate constituents want), they'd prefer to have the congress dysfunctional. That's why McConnell didn't break the filibuster for major non-budgetary legislation -- because his top priority was reshaping the courts and cutting taxes. Since the Republicans have no ideas beyond that, having everything else be completely stalled -- now and in the future -- was the best bet.

Think also of the strategy of "political triangulation", taking an opponent's policies as one's own, not for any principled reason but strictly for syphoning votes and retaining power. This strategy tends to hollow out each party, shifting their principles until they are nearly indistinguishable. I fear this approach and bipartisanship results in the uniparty we are now looking at.

That is fair and a far more reasonable approach. I even agree that Trump probably, if not obviously, used the opportunity for the photo op.

It's a common fallacy and you have every right to operate in that manner. But I suspect rather than respect that opinion.

Pretty simple. No-one can prove the intention of clearing the park for his photo OP was part of Trump's input into the decision making process here. Because a) Maybe he was smart enough not to explicitly state that or b) It wasn't. We don't know. Only a clown would claim something has been proven here.

The evidence provided by the report proves quite a bit. Those who planned the operation explicitly stated their intentions and reasons for clearing the park. If any evidence to the contrary arises be sure to let me know.

Guilt by association. Classic.

You can't prove the unstated intention here true or false. You can only infer one way or the other. We are engaged in speculation. The fact you don't seem to understand that is comical.

The intentions of those who cleared the park were made explicit by everyone involved in doing so. It was backed up by testimony, video, emails.

Have you read the report?

Dude, if you think you can convince anyone here that you have special access to Donnie's soul such that you can ascertain his pristine intentions re all this, you are a seriously lost soul. It is totally reasonably to infer the intention outlined based on character and history. He doesn't have to tattoo it across his orange mug.

I'm not sure any of these inferences are reasonable if they are continuously proven false.

The report clears the USPP. It says nothing about Trump's decision to appear, how this was coordinated, or what measures were taken to assure his safe passage. It simply states that the USPP played no role. But the USPP was not the only policing agency involved. The report does not exonerate Trump, as he claimed, at best it exonerates the USPP.

All of that is irrelevant to the fantasy that Trump cleared the square for his photo op. The square was cleared to provide the contractor a safe environment to put up the fence.

NYT story: Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church. False. They were dispersed to provide the contractor a safe environment to put up the fence.

NPR story: Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op. False. The often-violent protesters were cleared to provide the contractor a safe environment to put up the fence.

You're right. Bipartisanship is problem, like any coalition style of governing, because it absolves the politicians and their party of responsibility for their legislation. So in your metaphor about the meteor or climate disaster, if bipartisanship reigns, the politicians and party who legislated wrongly will not receive their comeuppance.

Division, to me, is the sign of a healthy politics.

The report says quite a bit about other agencies.

Our oversight obligations are focused on the DOI, and our authority to obtain documents and statements from non-DOI entities is more limited. We nonetheless obtained radio transmissions from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) related to its policing of the protests on June 1 and body camera video from an MPD liaison officer in Lafayette Park. At MPD’s request, we also interviewed an MPD assistant chief of police. We obtained videos from the Secret Service’s observation cameras positioned throughout the Lafayette Park area. The Arlington County Police Department (ACPD) also provided documents and radio transmissions related to its assistance at the park on June 1, and three ACPD members consented to voluntary interviews. We interviewed a DC National Guard (DCNG) major who served as the DCNG’s liaison to the USPP during the June 1 operation and testified before Congress regarding the events at Lafayette Park. We also received emails and other documents from the fencing contractor through the Secret Service and conducted voluntary interviews of the fencing contractor’s president/cofounder and project manager. The Secret Service also provided us with documentary evidence, such as operational timelines, documents and emails related to the procurement of the antiscale fencing, emails between Secret Service officials and USPP officials, and radio transmissions from the radio channel used by the Secret Service unit that deployed onto H Street.

https://www.doioig.gov/sites/doioig.gov/files/SpecialReview_USPPActionsAtLafayettePark_Public_0.pdf

But none of that matters because it is also clear from the report that the Park Police, with support of other agencies, cleared the park in order to allow contractors to build a fence, and did so in response to the continuing violence against officers and the vandalism of federal property.

Inserting other motivations into the minds of others, without the evidence to do so, is an act of fantasy or projection. That's what the media has done here and they spread this misinformation all over the world. Hell, even on this board people spread it and believed it. Sadly, I was the only one here—on a philosophy board of all places—that noticed the error in their reasoning.

There was no evidence he cleared the park for a photo-op. This fantasy was the going rate for quite a time. It’s in the title of the article I posted earlier, which you responded to, and was the entire reason Congress wanted the investigation.

Let me guess: you believed it, even when there was no evidence. You believe it still, even with evidence to the contrary.

Another myth dispelled. Who believed this lie?

Report: Park Police Didn’t Clear Lafayette Square Protesters for Photo Op

Does it work this way for other rights? Doesn't restraining or injuring or even killing someone who is about to kill someone else violate their general right of bodily autonomy and freedom of movement?

Rights are not absolute "bubbles" that extend a certain given distance at all times. They're rules that apportion a territory given by the circumstances.

Yes it does but only because they are about to violate the general right of bodily autonomy and freedom of someone else. Rather, one defends these rights and freedoms by stopping people from trampling on them and denying them of others. I don't the same cannot be said of forcing someone to provide the conditions for someone else's free self-expression of actualization.

What's contradictory about it?

Wouldn’t forcing someone to do something against their will contradict their general right of free self-expression of actualization?

I like your opinion, James, and I can find some affinity with it.

I can’t get out of my mind, though, that we the people are already in possession of the state. Every lawmaker up there is elected, funded by our donations and taxes, and by some feat of the imagination we believe that they represent us. Anyways, it doesn’t matter who takes power because the machinery, the laws, the regulations, the taxes, the agencies, and their enforcers remain after the politicians who enacted them are a faded memory. While state power accrues, our freedom diminishes. I swear, the distinction between state and citizen on the one hand and lord and serf on the other is steadily decreasing in degree. Is statism not fealty in a sense?

I can’t stand the collectivist and paternalistic superstition that so long as the anointed are in power the future will be better for everyone. So many disasters have been premised on this obsequious and blood-soaked notion. Even so, I’m never disappointed with what Herbert Spencer called “the perennial faith of mankind”, that even though every day chronicles another failure, whether war or injustice or unforeseen consequence, every day it is believed that only the right rulers and an act of legislation can correct it.

All that we have left is to take a vote and perhaps stamp our feet on the pavement now and then. It’s all we can do. We have to beg the state to take care of us because we’ve long since delegated our duties to one another, and any power we’ve had, to an institution of impersonal officialdom.

Again, you fail to grasp the concept of proxy. Whatever. I just see the genius and the effectiveness of their intent and implementation in you: blaming the state for your woes. LOL! Black ants, red ants, who's shaking the jar? If there were an independent state working for the people, it would want the opposite.

And no, I'm not talking about mom and pop s corps. I'm talking about the big c corps that spend all that money on politics. They aren't doing that because it doesn't work. They are buying a product and a service and they are getting what they pay for as the new owners of that which they bought.

Well, I think you imagined their intent and implementation, or at least you haven’t shown it. I blame the state for my woes simply because they are the perpetrator of them. If a corporation ever becomes a parasite, stealing my wealth, skimming from my purchases, restricting my movement, and claiming the right to use force against me should I refuse, my ire will turn to them.

But yes its easy to curry favor with those in power if you have more money. That's why I think no one should have that power. Men are fallen and fallible.

But you narrow the extend to that right to a few specific cases. You don't delineate a general right of free self-expression of actualisation. You're only concerned with some conditions of life (such as bodily integrity), but not with the others. I'd like to know why you think this is a reasonable approach. To me it seems like you're lifting your view straight from 18th century enlightenment texts without accounting for the historical contingency of those demands.

Nothing I’ve said precludes "a general right of free self-expression of actualization”, as far as I'm aware. I just don’t think anyone should have the right or power to make others provide the conditions for it. It seems to me a contradiction to do otherwise.

Yes, these are old principles but so far I haven’t heard any better ones.

But in an anecdotal and ecclectic approach. What's the general rule according to which some methods are admissible and others are not?

If I had to formulate a rule it would be something like “do not make man a slave”.

Has he not given me the right? Everyone has the right to force other to respect what's theirs. So since everyone can demand respect from everyone else, they all mutually have the right to enforce that respect.

Yes, and so you should respect the autonomy and individuality of their body. It’s theirs, not yours. I fully support the use of force to defend that right.

You clarified that you mean freedom as "freedom from", yes, but that doesn't anwer what the force is, or why it's good to be free from it.

I did answer what type of force I was talking about.

That brings us back to my original question regarding what I recall (long time ago) about Mussolini and fascism: six of one, half dozen of the other. If you remove the state, none of that vanishes. You just have the corporations doing the same shit, beholden only to the shareholders. In order for you to have influence, you have to buy stock and attend the shareholder meetings, raise a stink and pray enough other shareholders put their financial interests on the back-burner to support whatever it is you are whining about.

Why do you think cancel culture works when people pressure corporations but it doesn't work on the corporate employees in the legislature? Follow the money.

Mussolini’s statism was a frightening, quasi-religious affair. He was statism and collectivism manifest. I have never seen any corporation rise to his level of ardor. Maybe there is a better example.

I don’t like many corporations either, but they have no control over me. It’s only when they run to the state could they hope to do so. One can stop supporting a corporation and no longer associate with them by refusing to buy or use their products. Not only that but corporations are the work of private, non-state actors like you and myself. You and I could start a corporation and direct it towards good ends. That’s not the case with the state. Refusal to associate or purchase means prison or fine.

I don't believe people control the legislature at all. I believe the state is an anti-social institution. It operates only for its own benefit. It forbids murder but commits murder on a grand scale. It forbids theft but puts its hands on anything it pleases, and claims the right to do so.

Why wouldn’t you blame the state? is the question. They’re the ones with all the power, who accept bribes, and pull all the levers. Remove the state and that all vanishes.

Corporations don't have to do anything like that when they have a state to do it for them

Well, I would have to blame the state in these instances. They could have refused and done otherwise, but didn’t. It’s just another reason why people shouldn’t have that sort of power over others.

I partially agree, especially wherever the state weds itself to corporations. But I just don’t see corporations bombing countries, taxing and jailing citizens, or shooting them dead in the street for victimless crimes. Maybe there is, I don’t know, but states have engaged in countless atrocities and genocides, and that fact cannot be avoided. My point is, only the state has the monopoly on violence. Corporate influence doesn’t exist at that level as far as I know.

It's flawed because it's vague and you're not supplying any argument for why we should accept your conception of compulsion, why it should be avoided etc.

Perhaps a more precise term is “duress”.

It should be avoided because you do not own the person. He is neither your child nor your slave. He has not given you the right to force him to do anything.

This is just circular reasoning. Freedom is the absence of force, and force is bad because it's the absence of freedom. Nothing about this tells me anything beyond establishing "freedom = good, force = bad".

Except I never stated that, so that’s not my reasoning. How can you establish “force = bad” when we were just talking about forcing people to do things against their will? In fact, in the text from which you quoted I clarified what I was talking about.

I don’t see how a voluntary society is implausible, or at least you haven’t shown it. Appeals to incredulity do not suffice to dismiss the notion in any case.

When using the terms “compulsory” and “voluntary” I am speaking of relations between human beings, not between the individual and nature. I thought this was clear. We can discuss the compulsion of nature if you want but I don’t see why we should. To me, speaking of voluntary and compulsory association—that is, between human beings—necessarily involves motivation and human action. Yes, my objections are value judgements, particularly moral ones. And you’re right, when I speak of “force” I do not mean the force described by Newton’s laws of motion. I mean the methods of coercion, violence, and exploitation. I don’t understand how any of this is flawed.

I don’t subscribe to the Hegelian idea of freedom, as if one should be emancipated from the consequences of nature and his own actions, or that man is free so long as he is content with his situation. When I speak of freedom I do so in the social and political sense (negative), as in the absence of the methods of “force” mentioned above.

To me the idea of “unbridled capitalism” is largely a myth. The history seems to me to be one of state interventionism. It’s even written into the American constitution. Congress has the power “To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes”. I cannot think of many states that have refused intervening in the affairs of the citizens, whether social or economic. Maybe there is, but nowadays the so-called capitalist economies are of the mixed variety, and have been for quite some time. This reeks to me of mercantilism rather than capitalism.

But you’re right. One of the problems with a state is that it is ripe for corrupting influences, as have all institutions of human power. If it has the power, as all states do, to rig the game for its own interest it will do so. It will favor who it pleases, impose tariffs and taxes and so on. I contend that reducing state power will have a corresponding effect of reducing corruption for the simple reason that there will be no one in power besides the citizenry to seek favor with.

You're thinking of capitalism.

I’m thinking of statism, though I’m interested to hear your argument.

But who could be convinced by such a viewpoint? I don't think you can even live according to a standard of "all compulsion is bad", unless you are a hermit subsistence farmer somewhere.

Myself, for one, but also many individualist, anarchist, liberal, and libertarian thinkers. Anti-statism has quite a rich literature if you ever care to take a look. I could be wrong but I doubt you yourself engages in compulsion, and prefer a voluntarist approach to your relations.

It has nothing to do with needing to do it. I want to do it. So do most other people. Most people prefer a technological civilization with all their comforts, long livespans etc. to subsitence farming somewhere.

You can only get to and maintain a technological society via communal action.

The problem I have is I see state "communal action" as compulsory, maintained through coercion and funded by exploitation. This is why I cannot see it as something desirable, no matter the comforts it may be able to provide.

Again, it still doesn’t follow. The idea that “humans are only capable of forming such relationships with a couple dozen to maybe a few hundred people” does not lead me to the conclusion “additional institutions are necessary in order to organize communal action”. Why would you need to force someone into “communal action” because he doesn’t know enough people? You don’t; you do it because you require his labor, his wealth, and his obedience to complete your schemes, and you will take it by force.

Because the first time we spoke about this you were quite happy to tar every BLM protestor, however peaceful, with the same brush as it's worst individuals and, indeed, opportunistic looters who had nothing to do with the protests (while maintaining that a minority of murderous, racist cops does not look bad for the police system that arms and trains them). And you seem to be doing that again here: I spoke of protestors; you substituted protestors for rioters and looters, not me.

You accuse me, falsely, of criticizing people “protesting their oppression and lives lost in the hands of a violently oppressive state”. In fact, I was criticizing the rioting, looting, and assaulting, which left dozens deceased and the damage in the billions of dollars. Then it turned out I was criticizing the black people protesting. Now its BLM protesters. I fear we’re entering duck-speak territory.

In any case it’s probably better to ask my opinion on these matters instead of inventing them.

You don't seem to understand. I'm not equivocating between humans in their natural state and larger groups with an egalitarian policy: I've said twice now that larger groups can't support that default behaviour. I'm saying that modelling a state on our natural egalitarianism would be better than carving one out protect tyrants, oppressors, exploiters and thieves from the masses, which I gather is your preference.

Of course larger groups can’t support support natural human behavior. It’s why collectivism has always sought to wipe out natural human behavior and association in order to enforce compulsory behavior and association. So no matter which way you model your state, at some point you’ll run out of voluntary participants and move right to force. In the end this scheming and state building will snuff out natural human behavior, not compliment it.

One of your straw men against BLM was that it had communes. I guess you mean you're all for white people starting their own communes?

That’s not true. I claimed then that no activist network such as BLM can substitute for family or community, and still stand by that.

Curious question, but why do you keep bringing up race?

Ah okay, so when black people protest, however peacefully, it's still a violent crime, so you can freely substitute those occurrences as if they were the same. I guess this is the logic certain police officers employ too. Anyway, good to know the world hasn't turned upside down.

I was speaking about riots, violence and theft. So why bring up black people and peaceful protest? Logic?

A faction of human beings in control is powerful, they don't need to seek favour. Or do you mean between factions, like land owners and politicians? Then yes.

I mean between those who possess the monopoly on violence and those who do not.

I suppose people imagine human beings to be approximately like them. I don't know how seriously you take science, but the reigning wisdom is that, yes, human beings are naturally egalitarian and altruistic by default. We've had tens of thousands of years of social cooperation within groups; the exploitative power dynamics we're used to are thought to be relatively recent, post-agricultural. There are still many hunter gatherer tribes in the world now who, far from civilisation, remain egalitarian and altruistic.

However, key to their success is staying small. Basically it relies on everyone being close. This gives everyone a reason to want to help each other, while also allowing everyone to keep everyone else in check.

Power differentials are at odds with that, and that's one reason why you need a state to maintain them. I don't think there's anything untotalitarian in brainwashing people into thinking that their disadvantage from birth isn't real and enforcing the point with violence and dual-standard policing. It seems infinitely better, if we must have a state, to have one that ensures everyone's stake in society is comparable. After all, the lie that is the American dream is meant to appeal to precisely that sense of egalitarianism and self-realisation.

Equivocating between protean and compulsory egalitarianism makes it all the more confusing. To me it doesn’t follow that because people are generally altruistic or egalitarian they all must be given a comparable stake in some combination of civil order, presumably by some benevolent and incorruptible group of brokers.

I’m all for people starting their own communes, so long as people are there by their own free will. I’m against the involuntary, statist communes, however. The list of failed attempts and the corpses they are built upon is long enough for me dismiss the notion outright.

What I said was I see no use with the social contract theory of state. I simply don’t believe that is how man transitioned from earlier times to what we have now. I believe states form through conquest and exploitation. I didn’t say or mean to imply I eschew the use of social contracts.

There are plenty degrees of statism, not just two. I mentioned this already. But it is true that I prefer and expect a better deal from one side of the spectrum over the other.

I don’t recall conversing with you at all so it might not have been that interesting. But yes I tend to criticize violence, rioting theft, and the destruction of property, and my own statism require rights and properties be defended. I also think all collectivist ideologies are pap, and should be criticized, communism included.

But yes, wherever a faction of human beings is in control that’s where the powerful and powerless alike seek influence and favor. They cannot do otherwise. So why put a faction of human beings in control?

I don’t believe there is a natural egalitarianism in our species, nor would I want an equal stake in a land that is unequal. It seems to me building and enforcing such an association would require totalitarian methods and an unfathomable suppression of regular human activity. I’ll pass.