The Town That Went Feral | Hacker News Reader

The Town That Went Feral

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22 pointstr_user18 comments

Some people seem to think that government is useless and should be abolished, always. But where ever the government powers are reduce we start to see societal decline. Crime goes up, the common infrastructure begins to fail, and generally, the place becomes a S hole to live in. Think about the worst places to live in and you'll see a government that's failing in someway. I'm not a rule lover but I know if there are no rules then it's an ugly place to be.

This leads to the idea that taxes are an important part of society since that's how we finance a peaceful and productive society. We should not let all our money go to taxes but there's a point where we need to pay taxes to have a society we want to live in. People get the dumb idea that we can ask for countless benefits from government without having to pay for them. We need to balance our wants with what's possible. The idea of paying no taxes or paying taxes that are so low that the government can't function is a recipe for disaster.

Libertarianism sounds like a nice solution to a free society in theory but in practice it's a non starter. The reality is that it falls in the same realm as fairytales and elves. It's nice to read about but it's not very practical as the primary societal philosophy of living.

You can sneer all you want but the kind of people who want low taxes and low services don't share your values and likewise don't care what you think anymore than a gay stripper cares what the Pope thinks. They're happy to have potholes and bears. To them it's a cheap price to pay for not having government that's not capable of micromanaging even if it wanted to.

Thank god we live in a democracy and there are almost none of them! But there are enough to sneer at I guess! (Which I don’t do - I just chuckle … well other than Grover Norquist who deserves all the derision he gets)

Funny because I shit you not the only gay stripper I know is a devout catholic. Celibate I think. A conflicted life to be sure but one that definitely does exist!

The irony and the hypocrisy of the situation is that I have no gay strippers trying to convert me into a gay stripper. But there are plenty of libertarians that are trying to take over government and force everyone into their idea of a free society.

Fine you want to live under a libertarian rule? More power to you. Just don't force the rest of us to be part of it. There's plenty of places where libertarians can create their dream world. The world is a big place.

>The irony and the hypocrisy of the situation is that I have no gay strippers trying to convert me into a gay stripper. But there are plenty of libertarians that are trying to take over government and force everyone into their idea of a free society.

You complain that libertarians are trying to force their way of life upon you but would they not be subject to the higher touch government you advocate for?

The cognitive dissonance is so thick I could mortar bricks together with it.

Just imagine your crypto wonder land. You move there. Air away all that smug smog everywhere. Move past the underage exploited people no one gives a shit about because line going up is what matters. Promptly get killed or lose everything.

That dream world is apparently New Hampshire!

I don't think most of them are that naive, honestly. It's pretty clear that restricting the power of the state doesn't in itself make individuals more free. It does give private power holders more latitude to express their power though.

The people advocating for these things simply are, or believe they are, more powerful than most of the individuals around them. It only "falls apart" from the perspective of the less powerful. If you're an incredibly wealthy individual or a large corporation who often finds the state getting in the way of the things you want to do to people, it can work out just fine for you.

It's been a while since I read it but the people in the article are mostly a mix of bought into it when they weren't actually in the private power holder group, or just misjudged the situation, misunderstood their ability to maintain some of the truly necessary fixtures of the state. Funny this time but doesn't mean future attempts will be as slapstick and self-contained as this one was.

It takes a massive amount of ignorance to run one's mouth in this manner. Do you seriously not have first or second hand experience with what it's like to be in the cross-hairs of local government? It's f-ing terrible. And it's not Karen and her ilk that they go after. It's the guy who's running a side business out of his garage (aka the "mixed use" HN fawns over). It's the guy who's neighbors don't like the look of his project sailboat. It's the elderly couple that can't afford the 20k price tag to get off of septic and onto the sewer. Getting government out of the business of mediating these sorts of petty matters doesn't necessarily result in more freedom as they already had it but it results in a hell of a lot less stress for the people who were getting abused for exercising it.

While dismantling the state at higher levels can cause some bad stuff (19th century robber barons selling people heorin over the counter, industry dumping hazmat, stuff like that) I find it very, very hard to argue against "more than the bare minimum to keep things running" at the local level.

Edit: And I'm not a libertarian. I think there's a laundry list of things government should be involved in providing and facilitating that no true libertarian would agree with. I however, don't think the government should be meddling in the bulk of the "enforcing standards of personal behavior and commerce" stuff that a lot of people here want.

Yeah actually I was homeless for years and once had the police destroy my entire possessions in front of me, another time beat me senseless then arrest me and refuse me medical treatment for the broken teeth and ribs they caused. The judge made it clear if he saw me again I was going to jail for years. I was 17.

And you know what it wasn't the power of the state that let them do that shit either. It was a rural area where those people held all the meaningful power there was, and the libertarian dream is that we all live like that and call it freedom. Run my mouth where I want to about this I earned it with the gaps in my teeth you'll see while I do.

Woo thank you. Initially I was afraid someone who has been homeless had been duped into buying into into our neoliberal status quo wet dream. Only blaming the govt. Thankfully that’s not the case.

The reason those cops and judges got to do those things is because of state authority. We all just kinda "agree" that the state is the only entity that gets to use violence to enforce its rules. When normal people do that shit we call it vigilante justice at best or a street gang at worst. (And then we send the state after those people).

Would your dental situation not be better in a society where the locals did not consider <whatever your transgression was> worthy of using state resources to punish?

Would you not have been better off in a society where the cops didn't have the resources at their disposal to respond to such petty manners?

Would you not have been better off had they just left you the f alone?

If you weren't actively harming anyone agents of the state never should have been involved in your business let alone arrested you.

No, do you have first hand experience with deep rural areas? If those men hadn't been agents of the state they would have found another way to do those or similar things, because that is what they wanted to do and they sought out the power that would allow them to do it.

I do support abolishing the police and all forms of carceral justice, for what it's worth. Possibly the state too, sure, eventually.

But I do not accept, right now that diminishing all forms of the state in favor of elevating personal and corporate power is a reasonable path.

We get it. You’re a libertarian in every way. Including the ironic smugness and rudeness. This could be an Onion article mocking libertarians and I’d believe it.

That's actually a really good point. The people with the power or perceived power are mostly the ones that advocate liberalism. If I have enough power and money I can create a dream world around me without giving a damn about everyone else. Whatever I want I can just buy. If things fall apart I can just build a fort around me.

Worth a read: fairly comical.

Until the bear gets you.

We have some in our back property.

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