The point that you're missing is that every time there was any resource contention, any conflict whatsoever, the larger, more organized group of people won out.
- I am not missing anything, the entire point of USA Constitution is to ensure that individuals are not treated by the government in that exact manner - where the federal government exercises its power to destroy any freedoms of individuals (and when we talk about State rights, we are not automatically giving authority to State governments, we are talking about individual rights).
The point (and which you're missing again) is that there's always a power center. If government is weak - whether it is by design, or because it is too local - it is overtaken by private power
- no, you are missing the point. With local decisions being made locally (and for all I care even your street shouldn't be forced into a scheme of government that it objects to) there is competition and thus you have huge number of choices, real choices that you can make as to how you prefer your locality to be governed if at all. I am not talking about restricting your ability to gang together with a bunch of likeminded neighbours and to come up with your own system of local government if you want one.
The problem with that ridiculous assertion is that the only people who think that way are those whose basic needs are fulfilled, aren't threatened by government overreach or warlord terror
- so you know all about all "those people" and you know all of their personal conditions. By the way, your personal conditions are not supposed to change the way a government treats you under law, whatever your personal circumstances are, you shouldn't be getting any special treatment. That's the only way to achieve a society that does not discriminate against people while creating the most diverse market, market where individuals are not obstructed from actually creating new wealth and are not punished for that either.
Holy crap. I had no idea that you could so completely misread Stalin.
- I didn't misread a thing. He was happy he could control people easier because to them very large numbers stop being personal and become abstract.
Of-course Stalin and every ruler like him and every government employee under him should be tried for every case of murder, every case of maiming, every case of destruction and confiscation of private property.
Millions upon millions of cases because these government kill, maim, steal from millions and millions of individuals. That's what is lost when people think of others as just of large numbers - the fact that they are individuals.
That's it. If something has the slightest negative effect on you, it is terrible, regardless of how much it helps others.
- millions of people were killed by Stalin's government. I don't know where you see positive effects in that, positive effects for the entire country in fact, that was robbed of the most incentivized, most individually entrepreneurial people.
Considering how badly you mangled the Stalin quote, I'm waiting for the entire paragraph in Mein Kampf where you got that quote from. In German.
- I am in Germany. I spend enough time here over the last 3 years that I can easily give you the necessary paragraphs, but will YOU be able to read them?
Der Foderalismus als Maske ...
Die Bedeutung der Einzelstaaten wird kunftig uberhaupt nicht mehr auf staats- und machtpolitischem Gebiet liegen; ich erblicke sie entweder auf stammesmassigem oder auf kulturpolitischem Gebiete. Allein selbst hier wird
Heer und Einzelstaaten die Zeit nivellierende wirken. Die Leichtigkeit des modernen Verkehrs schuttelt die Menschen derart durcheinander, dass langsam und stetig die Stammesgrenzen verwischt werden und so selbst das kulturelle Bild sich allmahlich auszugleichen beginnt. ....
Im ubrigen wird eine junge sieghafte Idee jede Fessel ablehnen mussen, die ihre Aktivitat im Vorwartstreiben ihrer Gedanken lahmen konnte.
Der Nationalsozialismus muss grundsatzlich das Recht in Anspruch nehmen, der gesamten deutschen Nation ohne Rucksicht auf bisherige bundesstaatliche Grenzen
seine Prinzipien aufzuzwingen und sie in seinen Ideen und Gedanken zu erziehen. So wie sich die Kirchen nicht gebunden und begrenzt fuhlen durch
politische Grenzen, ebensowenig die nationalsozialistische Idee durch einzelstaatliche Gebiete unseres Vaterlandes.
Die nationalsozialistische Lehre ist nicht die Dienerin der politischen Interessen einzelner Bundesstaaten, sondern soll dereinst die Herrin der deutschen Nation werden.
Sie hat das Leben eines Volkes zu bestimmen und neu zu ordnen und muss deshalb fur sich gebieterisch das Recht in Anspruchnehmen, uber Grenzen, die eine von uns abgelehnte Entwicklung zog, hinwegzugehen.
Je vollstandiger der Sieg ihrer Ideen wird, um so grosser mag dann die Freiheit im einzelnen sein, die sie im Innern bietet.
- now you see, that's a quote. What I did with Stalin's words was completely paraphrase them, but you can't understand the difference obviously.
BTW, that's chapter 10, mask of federalism (that's if you in at the deep end, you can find an English version fairly quickly, or do you want me to Google it for you?)
you think that at the core, liberty is a stronger need for humans than safety
- for individuals that's the case.
and you think that power structures are not part of human nature.
- wrong interpretation of my words.
What you call the evil central government is nothing but the formalization of what used to be ad-hoc power structures.
- wrong understanding of USA, of the Constitutional Republic.
You're arguing that individuals can't compare to the killings of today's central governments
- nobody can compare to the killings of central governments.
what you're missing is that until the emergence of nationalism and the nation-state, individuals WERE the central government.
- no, they were not central governments by any definition.
In other words, the vast majority of genocides, wars and misdeeds going on in the world until about 1800 were done at the command of individuals sitting atop a pyramid whose order was enforced through violence.
- yes, individual FREEDOM is a new idea, economy based on non-intervening government is a new idea. Idea that individuals are better at trying, failing but building an economy without central government is a new idea.
Your ideas are as old as the world, ideas of freedom are very young, they are going to become more prevalent I think than your old ideas.