Grafton ... top story

[thinkliberty]

You do handle the equipment that was purchased with stolen funds. You could refuse to take part in that violence. You could refuse to accept that stolen money. You could refuse to use the equipment that was purchased with that stolen money.

You do use public roads ...
Oh, wait, you're a hypocrite who wants other people to live up to your ideal but don't actually want to do it yourself.

I'm not telling you to stop using roads to put out fires. I'll tell the people who provide road maintenance service the same thing I'll tell people who provide fire services and medical services.

Don't use stolen goods to provide a service. Don't use blood money to repair the roads, Don't use blood money to put out fires or to stop crime (ha) or to cure disease.

I'm not being a hypocrite when I tell people not to use blood money to provide a service.  Because I don't use the proceeds of blood money to provide a service.

I guess I'll never convince you to be an honest person. You'll never convince me that using violence to provide a service to a community is the right thing to do.

I guess we are done with this debate.

[Lex]

Yes, and I'm not the one receiving stolen property.  If I were, then I would be looking to at least try and reduce my culpability.  You, apparently, are just happily playing with your stolen toys, feeling not a qualm in the world about working with the murderers who give them to you.

I sleep well at night because a lot of people aren't complaining. So far there is only the half dozen people on this thread. Which to me says that the majority of residents of Grafton are either satisfied or too complacent to say anything. The town next to us spends 5 times a year (maybe more now) on their department and they are only a little bit bigger (as far as equipment is concerned). They buy a new vehicle every 5 years instead of our every 10 years, they pay someone to paint their station and for a lot of other services, they also pay their volunteers for going on calls. Most people recognize and appreciate our frugality and the tens of thousands we save the town by doing everything ourselves including painting the station and not expecting to be paid anything not even reimbursed for expenses incurred in respond to calls.

I'm not going to volunteer more hours to fix something that a very large majority of people don't care about. I'm not an idealist.

This is why I bring up the point that in order to have change and not have it be a failure (Gandhi, American revolution). Is that you have to start with the general public, you have to convince them that the current system has problems and suggest workable long term alternatives. Once people want change then I think there will be a much higher chance of it happening. Just make sure that you present a long term plan and not just get people riled up to destroy things without any clue of what to do after the current system is gone.

[Lex]

I'm not being a hypocrite when I tell people not to use blood money to provide a service.  Because I don't use the proceeds of blood money to provide a service.

Just as you use services related to public roads to get around, the Grafton fire department uses the town finance department services to get equipment and pay bills.

So, yes, you are a hypocrite. You use services that are offered to you with blood money but you openly chastise others for doing the same thing.

[MaineShark]

Yes, and I'm not the one receiving stolen property.  If I were, then I would be looking to at least try and reduce my culpability.  You, apparently, are just happily playing with your stolen toys, feeling not a qualm in the world about working with the murderers who give them to you.

I sleep well at night because a lot of people aren't complaining. So far there is only the half dozen people on this thread. Which to me says that the majority of residents of Grafton are either satisfied or too complacent to say anything. The town next to us spends 5 times a year (maybe more now) on their department and they are only a little bit bigger (as far as equipment is concerned). They buy a new vehicle every 5 years instead of our every 10 years, they pay someone to paint their station and for a lot of other services, they also pay their volunteers for going on calls. Most people recognize and appreciate our frugality and the tens of thousands we save the town by doing everything ourselves including painting the station and not expecting to be paid anything not even reimbursed for expenses incurred in respond to calls.

So, as long as it's a kinder, gentler form of oppression, it's all good with you?

This is why I bring up the point that in order to have change and not have it be a failure (Gandhi, American revolution). Is that you have to start with the general public, you have to convince them that the current system has problems and suggest workable long term alternatives. Once people want change then I think there will be a much higher chance of it happening. Just make sure that you present a long term plan and not just get people riled up to destroy things without any clue of what to do after the current system is gone.

The American Revolution didn't have popular support.  The Revolutionaries prevailed because they were idealists who would say, "give me liberty, or give me death," not "give me liberty, or buy me off with shiny toys."

Joe

[Lex]

Yes, and I'm not the one receiving stolen property.  If I were, then I would be looking to at least try and reduce my culpability.  You, apparently, are just happily playing with your stolen toys, feeling not a qualm in the world about working with the murderers who give them to you.

I sleep well at night because a lot of people aren't complaining. So far there is only the half dozen people on this thread. Which to me says that the majority of residents of Grafton are either satisfied or too complacent to say anything. The town next to us spends 5 times a year (maybe more now) on their department and they are only a little bit bigger (as far as equipment is concerned). They buy a new vehicle every 5 years instead of our every 10 years, they pay someone to paint their station and for a lot of other services, they also pay their volunteers for going on calls. Most people recognize and appreciate our frugality and the tens of thousands we save the town by doing everything ourselves including painting the station and not expecting to be paid anything not even reimbursed for expenses incurred in respond to calls.

So, as long as it's a kinder, gentler form of oppression, it's all good with you?

As a band-aid short term solution, absolutely!

I'm willing to continue to do what I'm doing while someone with more vision, time and resources can do the difficult work of convincing the masses.

This is why I bring up the point that in order to have change and not have it be a failure (Gandhi, American revolution). Is that you have to start with the general public, you have to convince them that the current system has problems and suggest workable long term alternatives. Once people want change then I think there will be a much higher chance of it happening. Just make sure that you present a long term plan and not just get people riled up to destroy things without any clue of what to do after the current system is gone.

The American Revolution didn't have popular support.  The Revolutionaries prevailed because they were idealists who would say, "give me liberty, or give me death," not "give me liberty, or buy me off with shiny toys."

That's exactly my point, they did not have popular support. So even though they "prevailed", ultimately they failed. And what you and some of the other people on here are proposing will do the exact same thing. Unless you get popular support and get people to think in terms of free market solutions, any kind of revolution will be a failure because people are creatures of habit and after a revolution they will want things to be the way they were before, what they are familiar with.

[thinkliberty]

Just as you use services related to public roads to get around, the Grafton fire department uses the town finance department services to get equipment and pay bills.

So, yes, you are a hypocrite. You use services that are offered to you with blood money but you openly chastise others for doing the same thing.

I think you mis-understood my last post:

I'm not being a hypocrite when I tell people not to use blood money to provide a service.  Because I don't use the proceeds of blood money to provide a service.

Using a service that I am force to pay for is not the same thing as providing a service that others are force to pay for.

[Lex]

I think you mis-understood my last post:

I'm not being a hypocrite when I tell people not to use blood money to provide a service.  Because I don't use the proceeds of blood money to provide a service.

Using a service that I am force to pay for is not the same thing as providing a service that others are force to pay for.

As I've said before, it is not up to me to decide whether the service is provided or not because if I do not provide the service then the next town over will. So, the service will be provided whether I want it or not and if I do not participate by volunteering it will cost even more in taxes to provide the service through other towns.

So, in a sense, I am just as forced to either pay more or volunteer as you are forced to use the roads. Actually, your situation is better because you don't have to pay more in taxes if you stop using roads. I, on the other hand, will have to pay more in property taxes if the volunteer fire fighters stop volunteering and the town hires someone to do the job.

[thinkliberty]

As I've said before, it is not up to me to decide whether the service is provided or not because if I do not provide the service then the next town over.

I guess you don't mind being the lowest common denominator within the human race.

You shouldn't be stealing things from your neighbors, because if you don't, other people who are worse than you are will. You should protect your neighbors from people who want to steal from them.

I guess we've come full circle now. I am done. 

[MaineShark]

I think you mis-understood my last post:

I'm not being a hypocrite when I tell people not to use blood money to provide a service.  Because I don't use the proceeds of blood money to provide a service.

Using a service that I am force to pay for is not the same thing as providing a service that others are force to pay for.

As I've said before, it is not up to me to decide whether the service is provided or not because if I do not provide the service then the next town over will. So, the service will be provided whether I want it or not and if I do not participate by volunteering it will cost even more in taxes to provide the service through other towns.

So, in a sense, I am just as forced to either pay more or volunteer as you are forced to use the roads. Actually, your situation is better because you don't have to pay more in taxes if you stop using roads. I, on the other hand, will have to pay more in property taxes if the volunteer fire fighters stop volunteering and the town hires someone to do the job.

"If I don't do it, someone else will," eh?

A lot of folks have tried to justify the commission of atrocities with that line, over the years.

Joe

[Lex]

I guess you don't mind being the lowest common denominator within the human race.

You shouldn't stealing things from your neighbors, because if you don't, other people who are worse than you are will. You should protect your neighbors from people who want to steal from them.

You shouldn't tell me that, you should tell that to the general public because most people do not see it as stealing. Once you convince most Grafton residents that paying property taxes is theft and propose alternative solutions then it won't matter what I think, change will happen regardless.

The problem isn't convincing me, it's convincing the general public.

I have innately understood anarcho-capitalist principles since I was a child and in the last 5 years have studied and understood it in a much more thorough and structured fashion, that is why I decided to participate in the Free State Project and moved to Grafton 4 years ago. I do not need convincing.

I'm not an idealist though and I believe that history has a tendency to repeat itself particularly when it comes to idealistic revolutions being utter failures. To succeed you would need people to understand the reasons and goals of such a change and to have a structure in place to support those that want things to be familiar for them.

When Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union a lot of people just didn't know what to do with themselves, they thought that society was coming to an end. My great grandfather still went to communist party meetings a decade after the collapse despite what all of my other relatives told him because he did not want to acknowledge the collapse. If you are a young person it's easy to want drastic change but a lot of the working population in America grew up with the current government and for them social security and our system of government is what they are used to and accustomed to, they don't mind paying taxes. That is the challenge that you have in trying to create a free society, because without the general population being on board all you're going to end up with after getting government to go away is a new more dictatorial government as has been the case for thousands of years across hundreds of revolutions.

Those of us that participate in town or state government in NH are doing it to keep things relatively sane so that if/when the public decides to drastically change gears it will be easier. Just think of it this way, which do you think would have a better chance of making it in a free market society? California or New Hampshire? The government in California has gotten so monstrous and the people have gotten so dependent on it that any chance of success is probably a negative number. In New Hampshire the government is small and people are independent, the chance of success is much larger. This is going back to why New Hampshire was chosen for the Free State Project in the first place. Those of us doing things via political means are merely keeping things as they are or even making things better (gentler oppression). So that the non-political ones can change the hearts and minds of the populace to one day eliminate the whole thing altogether by peaceful means, probably by simply making the state irrelevant. The less power it has the easier it will be to make it irrelevant and that's what the politicos are doing. The less expenditures government services are using the easier it will be to find ulterior source of income when the time comes.

[Lex]

"If I don't do it, someone else will," eh?

A lot of folks have tried to justify the commission of atrocities with that line, over the years.

Yes, lets equate nazi concentration camps with fire departments. Get a grip on reality.

[MaineShark]

"If I don't do it, someone else will," eh?

A lot of folks have tried to justify the commission of atrocities with that line, over the years.

Yes, lets equate nazi concentration camps with fire departments. Get a grip on reality.

Yes, let's.  Unless you can demonstrate any fundamental difference between the two.

Oh, and I was actually referring to the Russians who slaughtered a number of my ancestors and forced others to flee the country, not the Nazis.

Joe

[Lex]

Yes, lets equate nazi concentration camps with fire departments. Get a grip on reality.

Yes, let's.  Unless you can demonstrate any fundamental difference between the two.

Answering this question does not seem worthwhile to me. Maybe someone else can answer it. I'd recommend starting a separate thread though.

Oh, and I was actually referring to the Russians who slaughtered a number of my ancestors and forced others to flee the country, not the Nazis.

One of my great grandfathers was a general in the red army and the other spent a decade in a russian concentrate camp for political prisoners to only live a few months after being released and die of pneumonia acquired while imprisoned. So, I have both perspectives.

[MaineShark]

Yes, let's.  Unless you can demonstrate any fundamental difference between the two.

Answering this question does not seem worthwhile to me. Maybe someone else can answer it. I'd recommend starting a separate thread though.

Yeah, having your hypocrisy shown so blatantly would do that, wouldn't it?

Joe

[thinkliberty]

I guess you don't mind being the lowest common denominator within the human race.

You shouldn't stealing things from your neighbors, because if you don't, other people who are worse than you are will. You should protect your neighbors from people who want to steal from them.

You shouldn't tell me that, you should tell that to the general public

Okay, I will tell the general public that you are the lowest common denominator. I like your idea.