I think lots of statists identify with political leaders like Obama. It must be something like people into cheering on sports figures. They feel that they are powerful, efficacious and significant because their guy, who they support and think they are doing a bit to keep in power, controls weapons, beats the opposing party, kills Arabs, etc. I think lots of people with empty, meaningless, meandering lives, who feel valueless and experience no flow or flourishing, feel enriched by their fantasy of being part of the state and on its team.
On Friday, August 3, 2012, Joshua Katz <jalankatz@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Jeff - I'm a Szaszian in general, but I'm starting to inch towards the state as mental illness - perhaps the only mental illness. I don't think libertarians differ from others in ethics or anything else - I think we differ in not suffering from bizarre delusions. That would mean it's unlikely that you'll convince people by logical argument, or that we'll get rid of the state by any direct means.
>
ey> What is the source of these delusions? It might be, as you suggest, simply psychological mechanisms, most likely wish-fulfillment type stuff. I have a more radical theory, though. It's nutrition. People are generally suffering from brain damage due to what they eat, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and the drugs they take. Note the accelerated pace of statism as butter consumption fell. I think this was accidental, but they've also figured it out, hence the attacks on Amish farmers and the greater and greater subsidies for Monsanto, not to mention the attacks on supplements. Note also how often being paleo and being libertarian go together. Accident?
>
> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Jeff Olson <jlolson53@gmail.com> wrote:
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> Well, nothing in my hypothesis opposes psychological factors being primary. My basic belief, contrary to JR, is that psychology is the main ingredient in not appreciating libertarianism or really any other reasonably apprehensible idea. Most of this stuff really isn't terribly cognitively difficult.
>
> Where psychological factors in belief get really interesting for me is on "the margins" where fairly sophisticated arguments are needed to parse out claims and supportive chains of reasoning. Examples from recent discussions include positive and negative atheism and objective vs. subjective aesthetics. Something, and I'm not sure it's logical difficulty, is preventing us from agreeing on these things.
> Jeff O.
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> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 4:41 PM, Dan <danust2012@gmail.com> wrote:
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> A Flatlander might, though, imagine there is more than just the flat surface she perceives and moves about in -- just as we can imagine things beyond our perception. And Bill must have some imagination. I think his holdup must be psychological and not cognitive. Further, I have a means to test this, though it would require his cooperation.
>
> Regards,
> Dan
> On Aug 3, 2012, at 5:23 PM, Jeff Olson <jlolson53@gmail.com> wrote:
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> As far as I can make out, Bill does think a lot, but it's in a circular motion on the surface of the subject. Around and around, repeating the same ideas over and over and over, never attempting to penetrate the surface of the ideas he's skating on, and then stopping occasionally at some point on the circle just to confirm that, yes, he's still where he wants to be, and then around and around on the surface he goes again.
>
> At least that's how I envision his thinking process. It more or less explains why he seems unable to get off his merry-go-round and acknowledge or challenge points that lie beneath the surface. Kind of like a Flatlander debating a three-dimensional being. The Flatlander can only see and respond to the surface of the argument.
> Jeff
>
> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 4:16 PM, Dan <danust2012@gmail.com> wrote:
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> My understanding of Ostrom -- and it's nice how you just namedrop like this; it doesn't give anyone a real clue as to what you mean and is nebulous enough that, were you brighter, you might use it to insulate yourself from further criticism -- is she's just kicking the problem up and treating a group of people as if they private own a commons. This is fine as far as it goes, but doesn't work bottom up. People already have to agree on the commons...
> Also, I think boundaries are right here, but the problem is assigning them. For instance, can anyone under your regime opt out of treating a commons as a commons? If not, then your governance board is going to behave no different than any real world state -- with the state'd presumption of sovereignty and the individual dissident at best being only able to leave under the specific rules the state sets.
> And throwing around the names of Nock or any other thinker you prefer dies not resolve any of these problems. It merely makes me (and likely many others) think you haven't really seriously thought through any of this, and that you're just bullshitting us about all of this.
>
> Dan
> On Aug 3, 2012, at 1:22 PM, "Bill" <erm4you@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- In LeftLibertarian2@yahoogroups.com, MikeHolmesTX@... wrote:
>
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