So having more rights doesn't mean anything to you? I guess only the rights you have as an American (which I presume you are) actually count as freedom. Iran and North Korea use the same argument to claim that they are free countries. After all, the people of those countries can do anything they should want to do.

The parent didn't say that anything was allowed in Holland, but he gave some examples of rights that differ from the USA. Argue those rights instead of using the 'anarchy' argument (also known as the 'fingers in my ears' argument).

And yet, the ratio of small companies to big companies is higher in Holland. So seemingly it is easier to profitably run a small company in Holland, despite having more regulations. Anyway, IMHO civilization is about establishing rules that shape our interactions and limit our actions. For instance, food regulations + inspections allow us to visit a restaurant with some confidence that we will get served hygienically prepared food. That is a highly practical measure. There are also more moral measures, such as hate (speech) laws and laws against (non-hallucinogenic) drugs. Both the USA and Holland have both types of laws, but the exact laws are different. What I find interesting is that in my discussions with Americans, they often seem to regard their own choices in regulations to be completely sensible and the choices of other civilized countries to be completely alien; As if these regulations do not have any merit and prevent us from having a happy and quite free society (which is a pretty silly argument if you know a bit about Holland). As I see it, some Americans like the word Communism because it allows them to neatly file something in the 'evil file', without have to consider the actual pros and cons.

Why not? Are you not interested in improving your country? I am interested in improving mine.

Or we might have had a (limited) space war, filling Earth's orbit with debris, making it impossible to have any satellites for the next thousand years.

If you cannot stop in time for a stationary object, you are speeding, regardless of the actual speed limit. There are many reasons why there could be a stationary object behind the corner: a traffic jam, accident, fallen boulder, someone with car trouble, etc. It's not 'shit luck' when you hit that object. It is the consequence of your decision to drive faster than is safe. That decision also happens to put cyclists in danger, the people who get in an accident in that spot, the cars in a traffic jam, etc. Essentially, you are gambling with the lives of others.

You are not entitled to go 25-30mph. You are allowed to drive up to the speed limit, if the conditions allow.

Sometimes, the reasonable speed for a car is 0 mph. At a traffic light or in a traffic jam for example. Do you run the red light or drive on the shoulder along the congestion, since you are seemingly entitled to keep moving? If you don't, then why can't you accept that there are situations where you have to slow down because your fellow road users cannot go as fast. This can mean cyclists, trucks, tractors, horse and buggy (Amish), a herd of sheep being moved to greener pastures, etc.

Or perhaps drivers should just learn to obey the law. If there is something in your lane that is moving slowly or not at all, you are obligated not to pass until it is safe to do so. Regardless of whether that obstruction is someone who is breaking the law or who you think is inconsiderate. Drivers who get frustrated and perform dangerous maneuvers are breaking the law themselves. They are the real issue, not the cyclists. If the cyclists are banned, the agressive drivers will do the same thing to trucks, tractors and other slow traffic.

Just because the roads in Europe weren't designed for cars, doesn't mean that they are safe for cyclists. Since their introduction, cars have simply taken over these roads and forced alternative forms of transport off the road (it is simply not safe for 30+mph cars to mix with 15mph cyclists). In bicycle friendly parts of Europe, there have been a lot of investments in seperate bike lanes to allow cyclists to travel safely:

http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/10/04/notes-on-bicycling-in-copenhagen/

The USA could do the same. More cycling means less congestion, fewer parking problems, less obesity, less gas consumption and less pollution.

Only Germany could not rearm freely, according to the Treaty of Versailles. The French and British could invest as much as they wanted in their military. The major issue there was cost, but in the lead-up to the war, Britain was rearming at a decent rate. The French had asked the US to produce planes for them to buy and the US were ramping up their military industries. In 1942/43, France and the UK would have had a stronger military and the US would be way stronger.

Indeed. There is a huge difference between a CIA agent that meets with sources in dangerous locations and torturers who hurt unarmed men in a heavily guarded prison. The first group are to be applauded, the second group should be put in prison.

This is a working link:

http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673

And Snopes message board commentary:

http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/43/t/001054/p/1.html

Actually, I already pointed out that electric cars also pollute the air, because tires and brakes produce small particles. So electric cars could not have worked without the invention of brakes and tires that do not wear. Battery technology in the early 19x0's sucked, which was one of the main reasons why the car makers chose to go with combustion engines. The quality of batteries has improved only slowly ever since, even in recent years, despite considerably pressure (laptop makers would kill for a 100% increase in wattage/weight or wattage/size). There is every reason to think that disallowing combustion engines in cars would have slowed the developed of cars down a great deal and would have preventing a lot of economic growth. Then I'm not even talking about planes. An electric plane is not seriously considered by anyone today, so how would it be feasible in the 1900's?

The problem with your argument is that society decided, in a democratic manner, that the effort to develop these techniques was not worth it. In essence, your argument is that there should be a system to force people to accept limitations that they do not want. I am a 'green' person, but I believe in following the democratic process to reduce pollution with the support of 'the people'. This is difficult enough, since many people prefer to pollute (actually, pretty much no-one is willing to reduce their pollution to 0). Of course, those people would never accept a complete ban on air pollution, so your system would never be accepted in a democratic society. In this respect, Libertarianism and Marxism have the same problem. They go against people's nature, so they will never be willingly accepted. The only way to institute them is to corrupt them horribly (Communism corrupts Marxism by forcing people to share beyond what they consider reasonable and forcing people to meet quota's, while Marxism wants people to contribute to society as much as they can out of free will). The only way you can make Libertarianism work is by having a dictator government that ignores the desires of the majority, which doesn't seem very liberal to me (for the original meaning of 'liberal').

Fact is that right now, we cannot even come close to a 100% non-polluting society. The best scrubbers we have are still imperfect and there are plenty of sources of pollution that we have no clean solution for. So how would we get to a libertarian society, without causing all polluting industries to disappear overnight (which would cause our society to collapse)?

Perhaps we need increasingly strict regulations (over time), so industries will have to adapt at a manageable rate. This is already being done for cars in the US and EU, but there is a global treaty that was intended to kick off such a system globally (the Kyoto treaty). Do you support the Kyoto treaty as a means of establishing Libertarianism?

If we ignore the pollution when building the power plant, mining and processing the uranium and transporting it then you are correct. However, nuclear plants need cooling water and are often situated next to a river. This causes the water to heat up, which can cause the fish to die, so there are currently government regulations to prevent this. How would libertarianism deal with this form of pollution?

So what happens when that person dies? Most hazardous waste lasts for a very long time unless cleaned up, so unscrupulous people would just offer to store the waste for money and leave the problem to other people when they die. In the meantime, the waste might have seeped into the ground, slowly making it's way into your drinking water. So someone is going to have to clean it up. I guess that will have to be the state then.

That is a false analogy, since the solution to slavery was trivial: pay the workers a wage and let them switch employers. There is nothing that can be achieved by slaves that cannot be done by free men. However, there is plenty that cannot be done today without polluting.

I think your argument is quite silly. Your example of utilitarian 'compromise' is in fact the opposite of a compromise. Choosing to let hated people live in your midst is of course a compromise. Choosing to deport or kill them is uncompromising insistence on a utilitarian ideal. I don't see how you can look at the worst humanitarian crimes, such as committed by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot and consider them compromises. For example, the Holocaust directly follows from the Hitler's beliefs that Jews are genetically determined to do evil and will always try to corrupt the Arians. A compromising 'solution' to deal with these beliefs would be deportations, which would have been a much preferable solution from the standpoint of the Jews, I'm sure.

Ultimately, compromise means that you take everyone's opinion into account and try to accomodate them were possible. Doing harm to others generally cannot be called a compromise.

You are severely misunderstanding the goal of do-gooders. Generally, they want to reduce suffering and give people the resources to grow out of poverty. Do you have children? If so, did you throw them into the gutter after they were born, to prevent them from suffering in a dependent environment? Or perhaps you helped them to learn and grow until they could be independent? Socialists tend to extend this caring feeling beyond their own family. Of course, this can be counterproductive in some cases, but this requires a non-extremists discussion of when it is good to help people and when it is it not. A true extremist non-socialist, like you claim to be, is not capable of such a discussion.

You simply sidestepped my criticism of your utopia and let loose another vague lecture. Explain to me how you would travel 50 miles in your utopia? There have been thousands of different methods of transportation that have been invented, so I'm sure that you can come up with a semi-realistic one that doesn't pollute the air at all. I suspect you can't though, because it is virtually impossible. You prefer to engage in magical thinking, which is the only way to make your utopia work.

Only the production techniques that we take for granted today would never have been employed to such an extent. Meaning resources would have been diverted into developing and refining alternative production techniques.

Assuming those techniques exist, they are clearly much more difficult than the ones we use today (or we'd be using them). So at a minimum, many of the inventions we enjoy today would have been usable much later. Do you really think that most people would accept this? That the government would close cities for cars simply because a few people would not accept the air pollution in the 1900's when the cars were introduced? Or better yet, let me posit this: clearly people do not accept your theories or they would have created at least one government somewhere that follows them.

It would only be consistent if you were living your life according to your ideals. I'm sure that you are not. What I actually meant was ignorant and dangerous. Ignorant since you suggest a major revolution even though there are basic criticisms that you cannot reasonably refute. Dangerous because extremists tend to commit the worst crimes, since they cannot compromise. When they encounter conflicts, they choose radical solutions. A dry region without enough water for everyone to drink, have swimming pools, etc, etc. Fine, the people with the most money buy the water and use it frivolously. The poor die. Problem solved.

I was referring to the system of capitalism that we currently have. You know, the one that enables you to earn a living. Of course you prefer to 'discuss' capitalism in a purely philosophical manner, because in your capitalist utopia you will be rich. How? Magic. No need to get into the details of how people would live their lives. Let's just do it, what could go wrong? I mean, there never would be mass starvation like under communism. They had a flawed theory that clearly could never work. Unlike your theory, which is perfect.

The problem with that argument is that we would have almost none of our technology if we could simply sue people to get them to stop polluting:
- Even electric cars cause air pollution (tire rubber and metal particles from the brakes).
- All fossil-burning electro plants produce air pollution.
- Pretty much all moving parts cause (trace amounts of) air pollution, so you'd better not mow the lawn, walk around, breathe or do any of the million other things that generate small amounts of air pollution.
- Most industries cause at least some air pollution (including bakeries, although many people enjoy that smell). Even the best industrial filters will let trace amounts through.

Politicians are supposed to find compromises that allow for a safe level of pollution, while allowing our industries to function well. Ironically, your libertarian ideal is so extremist that it will destroy capitalism completely. You are a greater threat to capitalism than most communists.

You do realize that both ships will be moving about quite a bit? I doubt that a once trained, but unpracticed shooter will be very effective with a rifle until the pirates are already on board (at which point you lose your greatest advantage).

I don't see how guns are cheaper, more reliable and easier to use than a water cannon (which can also be used for fire fighting). You can easily guide the fairly wide, continuous water beam to your target. That is much easier than firing a gun accurately. You can train with a water cannon fairly often, but when are the crew members going to practice firing their guns? On the high seas there are no targets for target practice, so the crew will have no idea if they are shooting well. Near harbors, you aren't allowed to fire guns. So the guns will stay in storage until the pirates attack. Then they can only hope that the guns will actually work (after not having been cleaned for years) and that the crew can use them effectively.

That depends on the ship. If the cannon can reach the entire deck, it may well be more effective, especially since you can use the cannons by remote control. In a small arms fight on a ship, there is a pretty high chance of getting killed. I don't see why the crew would take that risk instead of simply surrendering. After all, the crew generally survives being taken hostage.

That is a pretty silly argument because military units have highly trained military units that are willing to kill. Their primary task is to fight other military units (99% of the weapons of a warship are hugely overpowered for dealing with pirates). Military warships would look completely different if they were designed for pirate hunting. This is a story about warships using water cannons as weapons, since their regular weaponry was hugely overpowered.

Total war doesn't mean that you fight to the death. It means that a society uses all available resources to try and win. When you can no longer win, surrender is a valid option. Generally, total war also means that civilians will be attacked, since the entire workforce is considered to be part of the war machine. This is not genocide, since the aim is to disrupt the enemy war machine and to terrorize the enemy into surrendering, not extermination. World war 2 is a good example. During the war, almost no civilian cars were produced in America since most industries were producing for the war. Also, the civilian population of various countries was attacked by rocket attacks, nukes, fire and carpet bombing. However, neither side committed genocide for war reasons (the Holocaust was ideologically driven, unrelated to the war, really). The war ended after the enemy surrendered. At that point there were acts of revenge (mostly by the Russians against the Germans), but no genocide.

In olden times, it was called retirement. Either your work now pays well
enough now to save for it, or your employer sets up a pension. Employers
decided they don't like spending money for pensions, so it is all up to us
to carefully chose the investments that won't lose our life savings.

So why shouldn't musicians save for their retirement? Like you said, plenty of people have to do so.

Music may become something people only do because they love it and keep a day
job to pay the bills.

Meanwhile in real life, there are many aspiring artists who cannot earn a living making music. This will always be the case, since many people enjoy making music, while the music-buying public can/will support only so many artists. If a musician cannot afford to save for his retirement, he should find a job that can support him.

Anyway, perhaps you should explain why professional tennis players still exist, since they do not get any royalties for their past performances. Clearly, Andy Roddick will die in debt.

I wasn't that familiar with that part of Iraqi's history, so I did some research. You are indeed correct that Saddam had a decent nuke program in 1992. The program would have taken at least 3 more years, so there would not be a weapon until 1995. A nuke in 1993 would only be possible if they seized the uranium that was under UN safeguards, which would have been a major incident that Saddam clearly didn't want (or he would have seized the uranium).

We are discussing the 2003 situation however. At that point all Iraqi uranium was safeguarded. Why would the UN ever stop safeguarding that uranium? The IAEA was created to monitor nations like Iraq.

Do you have any evidence to prove that the air force and other military assets were shipped to Sudan or Syria? AFAIK that never happened, but was simply implied/assumed/made up by various untrustworthy people.

The war with Iran was supported by the US, who also supplied WMD's to Iraq for use in that war. Saddam only began the war with Kuwait because he thought that the US wouldn't mind. He offered to withdraw later, on the condition that he was allowed sufficient time to keep his defensive front intact. This was disallowed by the US. So it seems clear to me that Saddam was receptive to western concerns and there is no reason to assume that Iraq could not be kept in check.

Also, you ignore the huge difference between the Iraq of 1980 vs 1991 vs 2003. In 1991, Iraq was virtually bankrupt. In 2003, Iraq couldn't start any major war or risk one by attacking a smaller neighbour. They had no useable WMD's. So what was the justification for attacking Iraq if it wasn't a threat.

The US has been punished for WTO violations, where the WTO has authorized retaliatory tariffs. Various countries have been punished by UN security council resolutions, by instituting sanctions or authorizing war. Obviously, countries with a veto (such as the US) can never be punished there. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is very young and their first trial has only begun this year (of course, they punish individuals, not states). It is possible for US nationals (such as politicians) to be tried by that court under certain conditions. The penalty is jail time. The US has passed the American Service-Members' Protection Act authorizing the president to start a war against The Netherlands to free US personnel from ICC custody. It also instructs the government not to cooperate with the court (although the president can choose to do so). Of course, there have also been special courts, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which has punished many war criminals.

There is also the International Court of Justice to arbitrate conflicts between states, as well as various other arbitration procedures to ensure that countries follow the treaties they sign. There is no direct punishment for ignoring binding rulings, although other countries or the UN security council may institute their own punishments.

I believe that these institutions have been crucial in our current prosperity (since the current global economy could not have been created without a mechanism to arbitrate trade conflicts), have prevented wars and have punished some very nasty criminals. Of course, we have a long way to go still, but our own systems of law took a long time to mature. In fact, until fairly recently, it was still common to solve some conflicts by duelling (for the higher classes) or a fist fight (for the lower classes). Just because international law isn't perfect, doesn't mean we should just ignore it.

Actually, most civilised countries try to follow international law as much as possible, sign important treaties, try to solve conflicts through international institutions, etc. Since international law is imperfect and there is no world democracy, not everything can be solved this way. The US is not charged with exceptionalism because they occasionally solve their problems outside of these institutions, they do so continually and often act in bad faith. The opposition against the ICC is one clear example; US politicians and soldiers reserve the right to mass murder, enslave, mass torture, make people disappear, etc. We know that the US government did this because they wanted to be able to torture people and make them disappear, using those tactics in the War on Terror. Acting in good faith would be when the US government would go to the UN and would argue that torture and making people disappear should be allowed in some cases and calling for a modification to the ICC treaty. Then the US arguments could be openly discussed and criticised. At that point, depending on the changes made to the treaty, the US could still decide whether they are willing to submit to that. If they wouldn't, they would violate international law, but at least other countries would know the limits of those violations and could pressure the US.

Instead, the US government pretended not to torture, while doing so anyway. The message is clear: you are free to lie to the international community about what you do as long as you are strong enough to get away with it. It is the opposite of strengthening international law.

International (criminal) law is mostly a subset of the criminal laws of our respective countries. We are talking about the most awful crimes that any sensible country would disallow (although the US has recently undermined those laws). These crimes always fall under the jurisdiction of the countries involved. The US may prosecute genocide if US citizens are the perpetrators or victims. You may also prosecute if the crime happens on US territory. The major difference between a regular and an international crime is that you may also choose to extradite the suspect to an international court. If you had signed up to the ICC, you would in fact be obligated to either try the suspect yourself or to extradite them.

Belgium goes even further by prosecuting these crimes themselves, regardless of any connection with their country. In other words, they will also prosecute crimes by non-Belgians against non-Belgians that happened outside Belgium.

True, but the problem is that the enemies of the US know this and use it to their advantage. As Rooseveldt said: âoeSpeak softly and carry a big stick." In other words, solve things peacefully when possible and keep your military ready to go. The US is in the opposite situation, the military is exhausted and fully used.

Bullshit. No one wants to lose control over their army. The only viable solution is a cooperative model. Anyway, the US is slowly but surely losing it's dominance, so the future will have multiple large powers. The only question is whether they will cooperate or let the world go to shit.

What program? Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and India have got serious nuclear programs. Saddam never had. The only 'evidence' to the contrary were some crudely forged documents from Niger indicating that Iraq was buying yellowcake. Note that getting yellowcake is just the first step in getting nuclear weapons. At worst, Iraq was a decade from creating a functioning nuke (and they were making no real progress at the time). There was no credible evidence at all, let alone a smoking gun.

Wow, are you serious? North Korea famously attacked South Korea in 1950. They have a huge army and the only reason why they haven't tried again is because the US has made it clear that they will defend South Korea with nukes. Iran hasn't invaded any countries recently, instead they arm and support various paramilitary groups, such as Hezbollah. Pakistan and India have been at the brink of war several times. Pakistan has sold nuclear weapons technology to several nations. How are any of these nations less of a threat to our safety than a neutered Iraq?

How would anyone know? There is no way you can predict what will happen in 20 years with any accuracy. It's complete insanity to start a war to prevent something that might happen 20 years in the future. What about waiting and making the choice in 20 years. What is the hurry?

The US doesn't operate in a vacuum, there are treaties and organizations that determine how civilized countries should act and those constitute a form of international law. Instead of trying to adhere to and strenghten international law, the US practices exceptionalism. In other words: 'We and our friends can do what we want. If we don't like what you are doing, change or you will be invaded'. The US wants a sort of police state at the global level, with the US as judge, jury and executioner. Understandably, many countries don't want to bow to the US and figured out that a good defense is to have nukes. The invasion of Iraq drove this point home extremely strongly. The US invaded a mostly harmless country just because they could, while leaving more dangerous countries like North Korea and Pakistan alone. Iran learned the question quickly and immediately ramped up their nuke program, while the US had their hands full.

Note that your country has treatened to invade mine if we ever dared to try an American for violating international law. I assure you that I'm not from one of the traditional rogue nations, but I'm still on your hit-list if we dare to go after terrorists or torturers that the US supports.

How we judge an invasion strongly depends on what happens after the war is 'won'. Doing the cleanup so badly also weakened some of the stated reasons for the invasion (bringing democracy & saving the Iraqi people from a dictator).

- Global climate change is not just a yes/no proposition. The magnitude (and effects) depends on our actions.
- We are using an unsustainable amount of resources, so the current world economy cannot be sustained anyway. Why not adapt now, when we still have options, instead of trying to adapt later when we are already f**ked.
- 'Crippling the world economy' is a pretty meaningless statement. Ultimately, what matters is how we can live happily. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to do that while using far fewer natural resources.

PS. The latest estimates project major global climate change way before those 100 years of yours. Why not reduce our energy use, so we actually get 100 years to adapt?