Has Liberalism Grown Flabby?

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ruveyn is never sarcastic as far as I can tell, although his statements are the sort of things that Canadian comedians use to parody the American right.

He believes that "freedom" (as he defines it) is the most important thing to protect. Freedom would include the freedom from taxes and the freedom to keep the money you earn. So yes, I guess wealth is a greater right than health.

Not in absolute terms, he is a minarchist.

Regardless, what is wrong with such an ideology? Is there something inherently wrong with keeping the money you earn?

In case you haven't seen my other posts, I'm a socialist, so I take a different view on things. I view the most fundamental right as that to the basic essentials: food, water, shelter, education, healthcare etc. I place democracy, freedom of speech etc. on the same level. But I believe that as a society we must ensure that everyone is provided for. So that means having to give up some of the money you earn in the form of taxes to pay for things such as public education, universal healthcare, social housing and the like. I also believe in democracy to a far greater extent than ruveyn (although I doubt that he will agree): I believe that democracy should be extended outside of just the government and into the economy.

No, it just won't lead to a stable country with a high standard of living.

Well, we don't know that. Unfettered libertarianism has never been really tried.

No taxes=you end up with a country resembling Somalia.

With no funds, a government is worthless. You end up with a third world country.

I think puppet governments would essentially be set up, utterly reliant on the backing of their wealthy corporate oligarchs, who rule over much of the property that is among the cornerstones of value in that society... hm that doesn't sound very unfamiliar does it

Well, they would say they want a worthless government.

The point is, it just ramblings on the part of libertarianism. It has not been tried entirely, so the ideology has no empirical basis. + the few parts that have been tried individually have led to utter disaster, but that could be argued to be incomplete. The theory is flawed, too, but most theories are flawed. I'm surprised an ideology can have so many followers when it is at best unproven, at worst proven false by reality. I doubt it could even be really applied, because it is more a set of principles than anything practical. At least, the bolsheviks had the theories of the professional revolutionaries and the dictatorship of the proletariat as basis for application of their ideology

Indeed? And by declaring these things a "right", does their availability magically increase? Housing is a constitutional right in South Africa. So I assume this must mean that South Africa has zero homeless persons, correct?

Yes, and Somalia's prior repressive socialist regime had nothing to do with its current state.

Oh wait, it did, and the country's standards of living actually improved after the socialist government collapsed.

Piracy and arms dealing as well as the khat trade certainly raised some people's standards of living. Entire communities have apparently sprung up in support of the pirates. Siad Barre's regime was definitely not good news... but he did enforce a standard writing script for Somalis and forced the population to become literate

The only places to see real improvement are the two major unrecognized Somali republics- Somaliland and Puntland. Both are at least semi-centralized and have seen improvement of quality of life in the regions under their control. imo Puntland should serve as the nucleus of a reorganized Somali state, since its autonomous status is more a result of the Mogadishu government's inability to provide security to people within its control than an actual desire for secession. Somaliland on the other hand voted heavily in favor of secession 20 years ago and in the time since has become possibly the best part of Somalia at the present

That article is pretty good, the guy does his homework, but I think there are a few glaring flaws with it:

1) He is wrong about Somaliland and Puntland, both, though not strong governments, are not as weak as the author seems to imply. In addition, his example of Berbera as a major port that is responsible for a huge amount of livestock export, is the main port for Somaliland, and the Somaliland government oversaw expansion of this port. Puntland and Somaliland were both strong enough to discourage the ICU from attempting major operations against them; on the other hand the ICU mopped the floor with the Mogadishu government for quite some time; which brings me to my next point
2) This is an outdated paper. Nothing from post-2006 is taken into account. In addition there is not one reference to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which was a major destabilizing factor at the time, and was organizing much of Mogadishu's territory under sharia law- definitely not "stateless". It is unfortunately a very big oversight on the author's part to not even mention the ICU
3) Most of the growth in Somalia has happened in areas under the control of governments, not stateless areas. And even in areas that are "stateless", there is a very well defined clan system that works in substitution for government, and has for generations. In fact, both Somaliland and Puntland are sort of proto-clan-democracies if that makes any sense.
4) Is it because of anarchy that things got better or simply because Barre was no longer in charge? Some of his data, such as his comparisons of Somalia with its neighbors, make it look like Somalia is surpassing its neighbors (well, its two breakaways) but in reality, it is in a position of growth, as it was literally at rock bottom. So 17% increases compared to 4% in a neighbor may appear significant, it is more like a bubble that will eventually settle down and reach equilibrium and its real value will become apparent.

We may not have a king but we definitely still have nobility. Do we REALLY have separation of church and state when every recent president has used Christian references in their speeches? Is our freedom of speech REALLY protected? You know how expensive permits for protests are?

Vigilans, though your criticisms are perfectly valid, my citation of the paper was not intended as a proof that anarchy works. Rather, it was intended as a demonstration of why Somalia is not proof that anarchy doesn't work. To quote the paper: "there is a tendency upon observing problems in distressed regions of the world to see only on the 'failure' of the current situation, ignoring the quite possibly even worse state of affairs that preceded it".

Of course not. It just means that I feel that as a society we must strive to provide them.

To address your other post, I don't like it when people point to Communist dictatorships as an example of why socialism doesn't work. THAT WASN'T SOCIALISM PEOPLE! Socialism is based on the democratic control of the economy, and without democracy that obviously can't happen. The beurocracy inherent to Communist regimes is incredibly inefficient and fails to provide a fair economy. It is little wonder that some lassez-faire might work better than that. Although I could have sworn that I've read that life in Somalia had gotten worse after the fall of Communism. Still, that is a vague memory so i could be wrong.

Any repressive regime (as you put it) will mess up a country.... but if you think Somalia is such a nice place to live why don't you head over there for a while?

The part you aren't seeing is that the areas that the author uses as an example of how "anarchy doesn't not work" are not in fact... in anarchy. That part of the paper you quote also works both ways; the pre-1990 situation was horrible, there was literally only up to go, so he is only looking at the success, and neglecting to take into account that in that position, growth is inevitable, if not immediately, then eventually. And the places that did grow were under the authority of governments or clan organizations