joefromchicago wrote: Locke and Hobbes didn't suggest that a person could opt out because it was possible, but because it was necessary in order to make their positions internally coherent.
"May" implies "can". Moral permissibility is simply irrelevant to impossible options. Yes, Hobbes and Locke suggested that citizens
are permitted to cancel their social contract and retreat into a state of nature. Citizens continue to have this permission today. But it's irrelevant now; they no longer
can cancel their social contract today. So the fact that they don't no longer means anyhing. In particular, it no longer means implicit assent to the social contract.
joefromchicago wrote:If you ask someone to tell you who is the current US president and he answers "Bush," but then reveals that he believes the president is George Bush senior, I don't think you'd say that he knows who the president is -- even though his initial answer was correct. Just because utilitarians and social contractarians might arrive at the same answer doesn't mean that they are both correct.
At the time he reveals that he means "George Bush senior", the conclusions are no longer the same, and my point no longer applies. Also, please notice I said "lead to the same practical conclusions" (plural -- I was referring to all comparable practical conclusions being the same, at least to a good approximation). I certainly didn't say "lead to the same conclusion in one single case, even if it's a case Joe deliberately manufactured to produce a false positive".
joefromchicago wrote:Only if you believe that a libertarian government "does no harm."
Oh come on, give me a break! You know I was talking about the moral difference between actively causing harm through something you do, and passively neglecting to prevent harm through something you fail to do. Everything a libertarian government
actively does -- policing the streets, defending the country against invadors, and judging criminals, tortfeasors, and contract-breakers -- are things that every government
actively does, whatever its philosophy. The difference between libertarian governments,
if wrong, and governments of other philosophies,
if wrong, is that libertarians will passively neglect to prevent harm, while the others will actively cause it. This is why I expect libertarian governments,
if wrong, will be less bad than non-libertarian governments,
if wrong.
You understood this point the first time I made it. Why are you making assertions about it that you know are false?
joefromchicago wrote:Well, Stalin believed in "socialism in one country," but I don't think we've gotten to the point of "socialism in one kibbutz."
Who is "we"? And how is "socialism in one kibbutz" not socialism?
joefromchicago wrote: Socialistic communities can practice a form of socialism, just as libertarians can form utopian communities of their own (they're called "country clubs"),
When people join country-clubs, does the federal government waive all their tax burden exceeding five percent -- that being the budget necessary to finance a nightwatchman state? Does it take them off Social Security, Medicare, public highways, and other institutions of a mixed economy? The examples are not symmetrical, and your sarcasm will not make them so.
joefromchicago wrote:If very few people are buying socialism in the marketplace of ideas, it seems clear that just as few people are lining up to buy libertarianism.
True. On this planet today, the nightwatchman state is almost as rarely offered as the state of nature is, leaving libertarians with little to line up for. Therefore, the fact that few people are migrating to nightwatchman states isn't telling us that few people want to -- which is what you appear to imply, and which also brings us back to the beginning of your post.
There one possible exception. Hong Kong is the closest thing the world has to a nightwatchman state. It is overcrowded, yet demand for residence permits continues to exceed supply by large mutliples. Prospective immigrants, many of them from poor countries like Vietnam and mainland China, are definitely lining up to get into there. At the one possible place on Earth where your claim can be empirically tested, it fails the test.
