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How would Libertarianism work in an Irish context?

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12467…12

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    #92
    Kinski
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,555 ✭✭✭Kinski


    RichieC wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Tbf, just because no law exists saying that you can't do such a thing doesn't mean there won't be negative potential consequences which will dissuade you from doing it. If you erect the porno-board (can't believe I'm actually having this discussion!) then you're going to get complaints, and will have deal with them. On balance, no matter how badly a householder wants to erect a gigantic cumshot in the yard, most will probably decide it's not worth it.

    As for the lake, I think you'd have to establish that the scenic view was an integral aspect of the property you possessed. Can you own a view?
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.

    True, but the fort's an odd one. Unlike the Munch example, it's impossible to establish the provenance of a millenium-old ringfort. And while the same may be true for just about any piece of land, I think the case of the fort is a little different, since there is also the issue of its status as something of some cultural, historical and archeological interest. So I would argue that the judge was correct, in principle as well as according to law, to rule that one couldn't assume "unfettered" ownership of it.


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    #93
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Kinski wrote: »
    Tbf, just because no law exists saying that you can't do such a thing doesn't mean there won't be negative potential consequences which will dissuade you from doing it. If you erect the porno-board (can't believe I'm actually having this discussion!) then you're going to get complaints, and will have deal with them. On balance, no matter how badly a householder wants to erect a gigantic cumshot in the yard, most will probably decide it's not worth it.

    It could just be an absentee landlord that buys up small plots to erect ads for his porn sites. someone who just doesn't care.. after all, there's no reason to care since there's no ramifications under the law. I'm just taking an extreme example, though.
    Kinski wrote: »
    As for the lake, I think you'd have to establish that the scenic view was an integral aspect of the property you possessed. Can you own a view?

    Again, though, the shed you built is 100% on your property. What can you do if there is no planning laws?


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    #94
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #95
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    That ad is obviously meeting some kind of standards, though. whatever they are. carte blanche is what we're discussing here.


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    #96
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #97
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Every time Permabear enters the debate there are attacks on the existing system, but little or no reference to the cost of his system, except cultish adherence to his market backed philosophy. But we know what has happened, but must act like the past has disappeared down the Austrian memory hole.

    A huge amount of his form of argumentation is deliberately misleading. The drop in literacy standards from 5th ( wasn't that good?) to 15th might be down to any number of factors - a reduction in the quality of students, a reduction in parental expectations, the reduced interest of students to study during a boom, the increase in non-English speakers in the system - but what it is not down to the system becoming more Statist because it didn't. It was Statist when we were 5th, it was Statist where were 15th.

    The fact that we don't have a compulsory foreign language may upset Google but it doesn't mean that most people can't do the second language, and the libertarian support for compulsory languages is, frankly, hilarious. Ireland has, unlike Britain, up to 7 subjects at higher level, which makes room for both a foreign language, All secondary schools in Ireland teach a foreign language, or two. And if people are not taking this non-compulsory option now, despite the Google jobs, why would they do it in a libertarian school?

    But back to full on libertarian schooling. It doesn't happen anywhere, but it used to, and most people were not educated unless they got scholarships. The cost of public schooling is paid for by progressive taxes, which means the tax is taken disproportionately from the rich, and Corporations and so on. Libertarians oppose this. What this means is this. If education is fully private then taxes are reduced for everybody, but the cost of schooling will be a much higher percentage of the income of the bottom 50, 60 or 70%. Ireland had no State funding for secondary schools until the 1970's and very few people went, so the educational standards not unsurprisingly increased with free education. Of course libertarians would not fund primary schools so a good percentage of the population would not get any education at all. In most sane analysis, this might be considered retrograde.


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    #98
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #99
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    What does a "society" buying up something mean? Surely the way to buy this stuff is through the State. Whats the libertarian alternative.


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    #100
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    I may well be outraged by various decisions my government may take, and am, quite a lot, in fact.. Eventually I get to express my outrage in the form of a democratic vote. something that becomes completely done away with under a system of private tyranny.


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    #101
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #102
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    He voted in the people who did it, and later he got to vote to get rid of the people who helped out the banks ( if he did). Who are no longer in power.
    What about the Croke Park Agreement? Which party could I have voted for that opposed it, for the record?

    If none existed then, I assume Libertarian Party of Ireland fielded a few candidates, if not off you pop to the hustings.
    With regards to education, I'd prefer that Irish be made optional, at all levels of education. Will I "eventually" get to express my preference, in the form of a democratic vote?

    Sure, whats stopping you? Start a campaign. You may also have to change the constitution, but again, whats stopping you? Start a campaign.

    I have heard arguments like these made, as it happens, by Marxists. Although they are a bit more honest, the basics premise is Democracy is not working perfectly, therefore a proletarian dictatorship is in order. Things don't have to be perfect to be better than the alternative.


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    #103
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Why did we have to bail out the banks? Private investors would have sunk our country if we didn't meet their demands.

    Wrong man to mention the CPA too as I quite agreed with it.

    You can send your child to a private school with your money.


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    #104
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #105
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    by pulling investments. killing any further FDI, They would most certainly have punished us if we didn't bail them out.
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    I've covered this already.

    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    This is Ireland, we have a policy of trying to keep our language alive.
    If there's enough of a demand for private schools in an area surely the market will provide one, no? Is this not you're doctrine for entire economies?


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    #106
    Soldie
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 1,713 ✭✭✭Soldie


    I see this has predictably turned into yet another of those "but what about...?" threads.


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    #107
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Soldie wrote: »
    I see this has predictably turned into yet another of those "but what about...?" threads.

    Perhaps it would suit you better if we renamed the forum "Mises institute" and banned all the non believers.


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    #108
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    The compulsory Irish thing is a red herring. We are discussing Libertarianism in an Irish context, and therefore should be discussing libertarian schools, when discussing schooling. Irish could be made non-compulsory in the State sector. The State school system would not collapse if it were.

    This kind of argument is as if a homeopath got to talk all the time about the problems with the existing medical cures for cancer, and finding little problems here and there which could be fixed in the existing system, but never really justifying homeopathy. Well, we wouldn't accept that there, so lets not here.

    Can libertarians explain what they mean by a libertarian system of schooling.

    1) How much of the cost of building would be met by fees. ( assuming all)
    2) How much of the cost of the teacher's salary would be met by fees. ( assuming all)
    3) How much of the cost of the book and equipment. ( assuming all)
    4) How much ongoing costs of maintenance paid by fees (assuming all)

    5) How much State involvement if any. ( assuming none).
    6) Is there any curriculum or State exams? ( assuming none).
    6.1) Given that there isn't can they teach Creationism, or Homoeopathy for whatever certification they want. ( assuming they can teach anything for any private cert they choose).
    7) Whats do you think the approximate cost of the average non-subsidised fee paying school would be?
    8) How many people do you expect to not be able to afford schooling. Refer, answering this, to how many went to secondary school prior to 1970. ( assuming significantly < 50%)
    9) Are primary schools to also be made fee paying, how many would go? ( assuming < 50%)

    If you have counter arguments, please have detailed discussions, not one liners like charity, or Churches might educate poor people.

    Thanks. Let get onto actually talking about the subject, not the existing problems with the existing state schooling, which is tangential.


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    #109
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Soldie wrote: »
    I see this has predictably turned into yet another of those "but what about...?" threads.

    What does that even mean. Please actually explain what you mean by libertarian schools. Most of the whataboutary, all of it as far as I can see, is minor level attacks on the existing State sector. Nobody would say it was perfect. What we want from libertarians is actual detailed explanations - sticking to education now ( but I will move on to other forms of libertarian ideas with regard to Ireland later) - on how you actually want the Irish system of libertarianism to work, which is not the same as sniping at the existing system. This is the subject of the thread, but it is not being engaged with.

    Please elaborate, see my last post.


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    #110
    Soldie
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 1,713 ✭✭✭Soldie


    RichieC wrote: »
    Perhaps it would suit you better if we renamed the forum "Mises institute" and banned all the non believers.

    It would suit me better if the topic was stuck to instead of dressing up the endless "what if...?" questions as though they are a genuine attempt at discussion.


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    #111
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    And let me place on record that I fully expect no answers to post #108.


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    #112
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Soldie wrote: »
    It would suit me better if the topic was stuck to instead of dressing up the endless "what if...?" questions as though they are a genuine attempt at discussion.

    Answer post #108


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    #113
    Soldie
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 1,713 ✭✭✭Soldie


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    What does that even mean. Please actually explain what you mean by libertarian schools. Most of the whataboutary, all of it as far as I can see, is minor level attacks on the existing State sector. Nobody would say it was perfect. What we want from libertarians is actual detailed explanations - sticking to education now ( but I will move on) - on how you actually want the Irish system of libertarianism to work, which is not the same as sniping at the existing system. This is the subject of the thread, but it is not being engaged with.

    Please elaborate, see my last post.

    What I mean is that a once promising thread has unsurprisingly headed south yet again. I would identify this post as the catalyst (namely the "all libertarians really care about" ad hominem). What followed was the usual slew of "what ifs" and "gotchas" that had nothing to do with the topic. I am not interested in that kind of "debate", so thanks but no thanks.


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    #114
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Soldie wrote: »
    What I mean is that a once promising thread has unsurprisingly headed south yet again. I would identify this post as the catalyst (namely the "all libertarians really care about" ad hominem). What followed was the usual slew of "what ifs" and "gotchas" that had nothing to do with the topic. I am not interested in that kind of "debate", so thanks but no thanks.

    Right, but I brought it back on topic - where it most certainly wasn't before, since attacks on A, are not justifications for B - and I would sincerely like to know how schools are funded, examined, etc in a libertarian State.


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    #115
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Soldie wrote: »
    It would suit me better if the topic was stuck to instead of dressing up the endless "what if...?" questions as though they are a genuine attempt at discussion.

    They are genuine, just because they ask libertarians to answer uncomfortable questions you don't personally like being aired does not make them disingenuous.


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    #116
    Soldie
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 1,713 ✭✭✭Soldie


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    Right, but I brought it back on topic - where it most certainly wasn't before, since attacks on A, are not justifications for B - and I would sincerely like to know how schools are funded, examined, etc in a libertarian State.
    Can libertarians explain what they mean by a libertarian system of schooling.

    1) How much of the cost of building would be met by fees. ( assuming all)
    2) How much of the cost of the teacher's salary would be met by fees. ( assuming all)
    3) How much of the cost of the book and equipment. ( assuming all)
    4) How much ongoing costs of maintenance paid by fees (assuming all)

    5) How much State involvement if any. ( assuming none).
    6) Is there any curriculum or State exams? ( assuming none).
    6.1) Given that there isn't can they teach Creationism, or Homoeopathy for whatever certification they want. ( assuming they can teach anything for any private cert they choose).
    7) Whats do you think the approximate cost of the average non-subsidised fee paying school would be?
    8) How many people do you expect to not be able to afford schooling. Refer, answering this, to how many went to secondary school prior to 1970. ( assuming significantly < 50%)
    9) Are primary schools to also be made fee paying, how many would go? ( assuming < 50%)


    There is no such thing as a "libertarian system of schooling". The fact that you think there is suggests two things to me: (1) that you don't know much about libertarianism and (2) that you're not genuinely interested in debating libertarianism. Nevertheless, I'll bite:
    1. That depends on the business model of the school.
    2. As above.
    3. As above.
    4. As above.
    5. None insofar as the running of the school.
    6. I don't see why there would be no curriculum. Again, this depends on the school.
    7. I would imagine this would vary widely. It may depend on the type of school, the number of pupils, the location of the school, and countless other variables.
    8. That is quite impossible to predict.
    9. As with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

    Well that was great fun. (not)

    That's enough for me.


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    #117
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,793 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Sure, they have the right to do so, just as I have the right to destroy any paintings that I create (with the important distinction that I would be leaving the world a better place by doing so).
    Rationally speaking, one would need to be quite crazy to destroy an $80 million painting such as The Scream — and so one can argue that its value as private property only gives its owner an incentive to protect it. In that instance, there's no conflict between private property and cultural preservation.
    That only works if there's a monetary value placed on the cultural importance. It would be crazy to destroy a $80m painting, presumably because the owner paid something close to that amount for it, and could reasonably hope to recoup a similar amount upon selling it.

    The ring fort had no monetary value. It was purchased incidentally by a farmer who wanted the farmland, and who - from his own point of view - was improving that land. We're all agreed that it would have been better had he not destroyed it, so is that an instance of the market failing to protect something because it doesn't have a tangible monetary value?
    In any case, it's difficult to claim that governments have a better track record than the private sector when it comes to preserving cultural artifacts. The Nazis systematically destroyed works of art they found to be "degenerate," including much Jewish art. WWII aerial bombardments had a devastating impact on our cultural heritage — Courbet's The Stone Breakers was destroyed during the Allied bombing of Dresden, as just one example out of many thousands. Totalitarian governments have destroyed not only art, but executed artists as well.
    I'm not making a general point that governments can invariably be trusted to preserve culture; rather that the market can't invariably be trusted either. It seems that the market is pretty good at protecting valuable works of art - so we don't need a government to intervene to protect them - but pretty bad at protecting ring forts (or Georgian streetscapes), so we need government intervention to preserve them.


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    #118
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,793 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Soldie wrote: »
    I see this has predictably turned into yet another of those "but what about...?" threads.
    I don't know to what extent this is directed at my questions about the preservation of culture, but "what if" questions are essential to probe the limits of how an ideology would actually function if actually implemented.

    When I propose new processes or procedures at work, I expect to be robustly questioned as to how well those process will actually work; I know I'll have to explain how they not only meet all our existing business requirements but will also yield measurable improvements that justify the costs involved in making those changes.

    There are those who will believe that the destruction of a ring fort, while regrettable, is an acceptable price to pay for the unquestioned sanctity of private property rights. There are those who believe that a few very minor restrictions on those rights are an acceptable price to pay for the preservation of archaeological heritage.

    I don't believe in blind adherence to a simplistic ideology precisely because I feel it is ill-equipped to deal with edge cases like this. I ask "what if" questions to clarify my understanding of the ideology by asking its adherents what they believe. I'm not sure why that's such an offensive thing to do.


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    #119
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #120
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,793 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Apply the same logic to listed buildings: if we want to preserve quality examples of past architectural styles, we're dependent on another such society to buy every building that's currently protected? If the society can't afford to buy a given building, and its current owner wants to demolish it and build a McDonalds, that's just the way it is?

    In the picturesque town of Skagen in northern Denmark, there are only two or three colours a house can be painted by law. As egregious an interference as that may seem on private property rights, the result is very aesthetically pleasing. Is it such a bad trade-off?


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    #121
    Soldie
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 1,713 ✭✭✭Soldie


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    I don't know to what extent this is directed at my questions about the preservation of culture, but "what if" questions are essential to probe the limits of how an ideology would actually function if actually implemented.

    When I propose new processes or procedures at work, I expect to be robustly questioned as to how well those process will actually work; I know I'll have to explain how they not only meet all our existing business requirements but will also yield measurable improvements that justify the costs involved in making those changes.

    There are those who will believe that the destruction of a ring fort, while regrettable, is an acceptable price to pay for the unquestioned sanctity of private property rights. There are those who believe that a few very minor restrictions on those rights are an acceptable price to pay for the preservation of archaeological heritage.

    I don't believe in blind adherence to a simplistic ideology precisely because I feel it is ill-equipped to deal with edge cases like this. I ask "what if" questions to clarify my understanding of the ideology by asking its adherents what they believe. I'm not sure why that's such an offensive thing to do.

    My post was not directed at you.


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