Ditko was a prophet
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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That's not actually true. Libertarianism is at it's most effective as a self-sustaining isolated system. The solution to that is a balance of terror and a defense in depth. I guy with a club beating another with a club can be stopped by 3 other men with clubs who agree not to allow people to just go around beating others with clubs. Things quite naturally fall to this order where violence is simply to high risk for most individuals to engage in, so long as there is a threat of an immediate reprisal for violating the norms.
Libertarianism fails because it is such a clear and ever-present threat to all consolidations of power that it's becomes a primary effort to hunt it to death by force at all places an times. The collectivist seeks to rally his slaves together and destroy a free people with as much violence and terror as is humanly possible, in order to make the people believe they can't survive without protection from the collectivist's force.
From then on, the only thing that the collectivist or the authoritarian do is exchange ownership of the people, and both never tolerating a population seeking self-sustainment.
I noticed that quite clearly with the public statement of Obama's Islamist commie KGB czar John Brennan on his interview with msnbc.
Though what the other guy said about violence still applies. Humans are pretty shitty and you'll always have someone trying to upset the order for their own gain, enough people who can be convinced they should side with authoritarians, and masses of lazy/indolent people not willing to stop those usurpers until its too late. Game theory means at least one group of authoritarians arise if only to stop others. You can call them collectivists to make it sound like a foreign cancer we can wipe out if you want, but it's human nature. People naturally lean towards collectivism to some degree. Perhaps with smaller balkanized states experiencing self-governance over multiple generations we'll get closer to a culture of liberty needed for libertarian ideals to work. I think that's what the pre-Civil war American leaders were going for.
That was the original idea. Essentially power was balanced between individual states with the federal government intervening when states overstep, and vice versa. One of the biggest reasons we are here is because of the continuous diminishing of state power and the constant overreach and lack of accountability for the federal government, a problem that even the founding fathers were concerned of when making the constitution. Texas should be allowed to handle their borders as seen fit, and the federal government has no right saying they can’t protect their state.
Real American priorities are as follows: home, town, county, state, country
I've noticed it with federal investigations too. I've often cited Dwight Armstrong for leading himself and 5 other communist terrorists in blowing up the Sterling Hall building at the University of Wisconsin with a VBIED. One man was killed. They did this because they claimed that the building was involved in researching Agent Orange. This was a lie among many others. They fled to Canada, and Canada refused to deport them for over a decade. When the US finally promised that they would never face a death penalty charge, they were finally extradited. In the end, Dwight himself was convicted of a lesser charge and given seven years. Everyone else served 5, 3, or 1 year in federal prison. He moved back to Madison, WI and sold hot dogs. In the 90's he was asked if he regretted what he did and he said no, and that he'd do it again.
Compare that to the guy who founded Silk Road, or even Aaron Swartz who uploaded scientific papers, and then was persecuted to the point that he killed himself rather than risk the 40 year prison sentence he was facing.
You can blow up buildings, kill normies, shoot cops, and rape kids and the government will be miffed, and interested in seeing if you would like to be an informant. But, if you threaten the government's potential access to money, you're as good as dead.
I'm willing to accept that, but that's why I'm not an Anarchist. I think law, morality, tradition, and culture are all good mechanisms to, not prevent it from happening, but allow it to be perpetually challenged so that even if you lose ground, you don't lose the game.