I *will* have my cake and eat it too.

[Alex Libman]

John,

(And this actually applies to several people on this forum individually, but let me start with John.)

You are a very nice person.  I am a person who steps on a lot of toes in search of both objective and individual Truth.  This doesn't make me better or worse than anybody else, just one human mind struggling for meaning.  I wish I could be on friendlier terms with you, but not at the expense of not saying the things that I've said.  I refuse to compromise.  I stand by what I've said about emotionalism, private armies, etc.  And I still testify to the fact that I respect you and many other people on this forum.

I judge.  I will be judged.  I will piss you off from time to time.  And I love you.

Libman out.

[littlehawk]

What is your definition of love?

[Alex Libman]

What is your definition of love?

A very good question, and a very complicated one.

Love is a multi-dimensional concept that applies differently for the different people involved...

For some people on this forum describing my love would start with the fact that they are a significant part of my life, although they won't know me from Adam, because I've been reading / watching / listening to their work for years, in some cases several hours each day.

In some cases it's almost as if I have multiple personalities (although expert opinion says that I'm entirely sane), and those people are perfect representatives and teachers of some of those personalities.  I can agree with something that someone says with all my heart and soul, and still know that I have to disagree with them, often fiercely and ruthlessly, for a higher purpose... 

Some people on this forum are what I think about when I'm depressed and trying to motivate myself.  I say that if I work really hard I may accomplish what they've accomplished - in my own way of course.

For John specifically - I don't know him very well, but I greatly admire his commitment to peace and freedom.  As for religion...  I'm not some post-Soviet atheist who then jumped on the modern religion-bashing bandwagon - I've studied religion, and I will continue to do so in the future.  He touches on the Tolstoy and the Pushkin and the Shalamov and the dozens of other Christians / anarchists / Christian anarchists that sit somewhere deep inside my mind.  For all the complexities of the real world that all of us must deal with, I share those values, and I love them.  I love them a lot.

And I stand by my statement about wanting Gaddafi's severed head on a pike.

I am complicated, and reality is complicated, and I will struggle with all this complexity the best I can.

[Alex Libman]

Coincidentally, just as I was writing the above post, my hopes for reconciliation have been diminished greatly.

But I am not compromising, and I am not giving up.

In time, I can do a lot of things to help FSP / FTL / FK / NHU and the related communities live up to their potential.  And my first duty toward that end is to the Truth.

Great people deserve great critics - I am not calling myself great at anything, but I will continue to try my very best.  If I had let Ian conduct that "libricide" uncritically, it would have been a surrender of everything that in my eyes "Free" Talk Live has ever stood for!  An "F"TL with a forum from which an Alex Libman is banned like this would be the worst example of hypocrisy within the libertarian movement!

I can be a lone-wolf blogger (as Dalebert keeps saying), and I think I can accomplish very good things in that genre, but I've already explained the many shortcomings of an Internet where everyone tries to run their own site instead of cooperating with others.  This is why I've given some of the best fruits of my mind of the past few years to sites like Free Talk Live, and I hope to be allowed to continue that in the future.

I wasn't always hated like this.  My writing is going through a very dark and depressing period right now.  (Abandonment of statist former friends, tax resistance, and betrayal will do that to you...)  But I think I may yet recover from my depression, and many good things (including some cutting-edge programming projects) that are in the pipeline will eventually spring forth.  I did not plan this, but this is turning out to be a perfect test of whether communities like FTL deserve the devotion that I've given them.

I still want to reconcile with everybody - Ian, Dalebert, even John Shaw.

But if my pursuit of uncompromising Truth makes all that impossible, then I'll be a lone wolf, and I'm going to do just fine.

[CJS]

  Why don't you "divorce" yourself from that forum . Once and for all. I understand how big a part of your life the BBS has become but just like when a marriage with irreconcilable differences absolves what were at one time vows to stay together till death .

  You will never have any peace there and a good part of that is your own fault , but in no way all your fault. Several of the members there hostile , violent ,prejudiced , homophobic and worse of all IMO incredibly hypocritical. They spend a good portion of their time ridiculing and degrading the activists while doing nothing to promote freedom . Why do you have such a need to be a part of that ? Not healthy I think.

  I have a lot more of peace in my life today because of this forum and the people in it . Kat , Russell , Lauren ,Jim , John and others have  a lot more to do with that than I do as they are living examples of non violence . I though t I was a peaceful person when I started lurking here almost three years ago now and found out I was a pretty violent guy. Maybe lurking in a peaceful forum instead of that nuthouse will be good for you. "Better a crust of bread in peace than a steak in chaos" makes a lot more sense to me now than it did a few years ago.

[Alex Libman]

See here.

I do not ethically deserve peace, and I do not deserve a warm welcome on this forum.  (Plus our good friend Flashysigbert wouldn't want me here anyway, except perhaps on the few specific threads.)  I deserve to be treated like a gadfly for all the things I've said, and, as long as I live, will continue to say.

What I do deserve, IMHO, is just a slightly bit more understanding from Ian.  Back when FTL was a good example of free speech, I was proud to be one of its most active and prolific members, and at one point the top AMP (which encouraged other people to raise their AMP levels as well).  I always had a vision for that forum achieving something as significant as the radio show / podcast has achieved in its own category, although my creative / coding ideas (which I was willing to implement for free) were never considered seriously...  Anyway, I certainly don't deserve the treatment John Shaw and some other specific individuals were giving me, and I don't deserve to be banned over a distortion.

They of course have the Right to "divorce" / ban me if they wish (just as long as I can copy my "children", in context), but I will do my best to avoid that and achieve reconciliation - without violating my commitment to the Truth.

[Alex Libman]

[...]  And I stand by my statement about wanting Gaddafi's severed head on a pike.  [...]

Now I even have Ron Paul's permission!   

FTL fan confronts Ron Paul over the word "we"

(Thanks, Dave.)

[littlehawk]

Hmmm. Was that Ron Paul doing the masonic handshake? Odd.

[Alex Libman]

The question starts about 2:04 into it.  Ron Paul answers:

"You can fight against [Gaddafi] on your own, just don't ask me to [...]"

Now, I'm not saying the Libman Militia is on the case - at least not yet.  But this is the most rational position a libertarian can take, and in the free market there would be plenty of incentives to deal with a tyrant like Gaddafi.  The peace cult needs to understand this, and stop ostracizing geopolitical realists like myself.

[MaineShark]

Of course you can fight against [insert horrible dictator], yourself.  Or even with friends, compatriots, or employees.

What you can't do is kill innocent people, just because they happen to be near [insert horrible dictator].

What's so difficult to grasp?

Joe

[Alex Libman]

What you can't do is kill innocent people, just because they happen to be near [insert horrible dictator].

Obviously!

But, barring improbable luck, mistakes will happen.  Innocent people will get in the way and die.  Using this reality as the excuse to forbid all pursuit of justice is irrational.  Some people will need to get their hands dirty, and, in the process of liberating millions of lives, risk causing a few dozen innocent deaths.  If no one in the free market can do this, then governments and the "divine right of kings" delusion will be with us forever.

The Non-Aggression Principle is not based on wishful thinking, but on economic reality - it must flex enough to make execution of justice against the tyrants practical in the present circumstances.  If the Libman Militia takes all reasonable precautions, but my smart-bomb kills Horrible Dictator's porte-coton, well, c'est la vie...

Don't be anywhere close to Horrible Dictator if you can help it.  And if Horrible Dictator uses you as a human shield against my bombs, then he, not I, is your executioner.

What's so difficult to grasp?

Ask the "peace" (aka slavery) fanatics who ostracize me.

[CurtHowland]

Some people will need to get their hands dirty, and, in the process of liberating millions of lives, risk causing a few dozen innocent deaths.

I find my own opinions get poo-pooed on this subject as well.

I believe that the prohibition against assassination is an absurdity, a politeness to Heads of State that has no basis in reality.

However, I also believe in being held responsible for one's actions.

So if, for an example of present political realities, some head of state orders an attack on another country, that country has every right to put a "letter of marque", a contract as it were, out on that head of state.

But if anyone ELSE is harmed in the enaction of that letter of marque, depending upon who they are, the ones who killed them owe restitution.

But the govt that started it also owes restitution, and the whole mess deserves to be adjudicated openly.

The Non-Aggression Principle is not based on wishful thinking, but on economic reality - it must flex enough to make execution of justice against the tyrants practical in the present circumstances.  If the Libman Militia takes all reasonable precautions, but my smart-bomb kills Horrible Dictator's porte-coton, well, c'est la vie...

But the commanders and operatives of the Libman Militia must stand up and accept responsibility for their actions, even if they are perfectly justified.

The more clandestine the action, in my opinion, the fewer innocent deaths could be "rationalized". An action against, for example, a Hitler, which killed hundreds or thousands of "innocent" Germans at the same time, could be rationalized.

But an action which killed a Bin Laden yet also killed hundreds or thousands of "innocent" Afghans or Pakastanis would be irrational and an unsupportable action.

As technology has improved, the "need" to level a city to get one person has ceased to exist. The sniper, the smart bomb, the crowbar from orbit, can hit a small target and NOT cause wide spread harm.

I would never condone 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it' regardless.

[Alex Libman]

I agree about taking responsibility and owing some restitution, it's just a matter of degree.

I think the 21st century Private Defense Agencies would be several orders of magnitude more efficient at eliminating barriers to market freedom than even the best of governments have been.  Their operational culture, management, and incentives would be completely different, and there would be lots of them, from WalMart-sized giants to solo independent contractors, competing for every job.

I can permit myself many reasonable assumptions in how on-going technological and social advancements would make all of this possible - it would be a lot more foolish to assume those things could stand still.  I cannot, however, fantasize that, in this century, governments can be entirely replaced with PDA's that would stand trial for murder if they hit an innocent bystander.  That would make this market segment, which is crucial for attainment of Anarcho-Capitalism, completely impossible!  Who then would go after wannabe mafia bosses except other mafia bosses claiming to be a lesser evil (aka government)?

The function of security / defense is crucial in any society, and especially in a global economy where goods and services travel across continents populated by people who do not share the same values.  We still live in a world where only a tiny minority recognizes Property Rights on a consistent basis, and plenty would "cut off your ear if they don't like your face", or your religion, or lack thereof.  (Though those people do have a much better excuse than the socialist "intellectuals" of the first-world - they simply don't know any better.)  Talk to a random person anywhere in the world, and what you'll likely hear is some variation of socialist brainwashing still seeping through every pore...

Pure Anarcho-Capitalism can only exist in a sufficiently rational society.  (Perhaps even more rational than both Ian Freeman and myself, as the September incident has shown.)  Until then, civilization needs to be protected - by any means necessary.

This means a gradual transition from the "divine right of governments", as nations fragment and intergovernmental competition drives all of them ever-closer to the free market ideal, and state power is eventually replaced by the private sector.  There will still be the need to "take out the trash", so to speak - a role that has been filled by the U.S. "empire" for most of the 20th century, with a limited degree of success.  If PDA's are to take over this role, even in part, some liability limitations will continue to be necessary for the foreseeable future.

How does the "rational right of freedom fighters" sound?

X shares of stock and an appy-polly-loggy...  a band-aid and a lollipop for every wounded child... 

Hey, I'm not saying that any of this is an ivory-tower ideal, but what better alternatives are there?

[CurtHowland]

If PDA's are to take over this role, even in part, some liability limitations will continue to be necessary for the foreseeable future.

Such limitations I can imagine being by custom, the same way the society we exist in now recognizes violent self defense. Someone is dead, but it's generally agreed that it's not murder because of why the person is dead.

I resist creating any institutional limited liability, because it will be abused. Heck, I'm sure self defense has been abused, too.

[Alex Libman]

Then I guess we essentially agree.


So...


This thread was intended to balance out the antagonism and create a bridge of understanding with people who've called me a "warmonger" (ex. John)...  without compromising any of the truths that I'm here to defend.

How am I doing so far?