Re: Roy is ingenious and jack the lad

On Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:42:06 +0100, peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_Bj=F8rn_Perls=F8?=) wrote:

<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:52:20 +0100, peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_Bj=F8rn_Perls=F8?=) wrote:

<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:08:43 +0100, peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_Bj=F8rn_Perls=F8?=) wrote:

<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:27:46 +0100, peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_Bj=F8rn_Perls=F8?=) wrote:

<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 01:08:17 +0100, peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_Bj=F8rn_Perls=F8?=) wrote:

How is this state apparatus sovereign?

It recognizes no higher secular authority.

How does that make it sovereign?

By definition.

Not so fast, buddy.

sovereign |?s?v(?)r?n| |?s?v(?)r?n| |?s?v?rn| |?s?vr?n| noun 1 a supreme
ruler, esp. a monarch.

<sigh> Equivocation.

What makes this ruler "supreme"?

His de jure monopoly on use of force, naturally. The day he is outgunned,
either by the civilian population or by another state, he ceases to be a
state.

Wrong.

Which leads me back to the question you didn't answer - if not force
makes him supreme, then what?

I already told you: you are equivocating. Look up about 15 lines.
You are now trying to switch to a different sense of the word,
"sovereign." In fact, you are using it as a different part of speech.

And you are avoiding the point. Again.

No, I am pointing out that you are trying to change the subject.

Again.

Why is it so difficult to understand that without superior firepower,
your allegedly "sovereign" state will be reduced to the simple
equivalent of a gang of thugs that have been evicted from used to be
their territory?

Because it's just false. There are lots of sovereign states that lack
much in the way of firepower, yet still manage to avoid both thuggery
and eviction. You are probably living in one of them.

But you already know this. You are merely being contrarian.

What I know is that you are just making $#!+ up again.

Face it, roy, you are twisting and turning to avoid the common and
factual definition of statehood - namely a (de jure) monopoly on
coercion.

Kindly cite any dictionary that uses this "common and factual" definition
of statehood. I've cited two sources that do not mention monopoly of
force, and could easily cite dozens more. That's dozens more than you
have cited.

Since when were dictionaries the sureme source of political knowledge?

They are the supreme source of knowledge about how to use the words we
need to identify our political knowledge -- those of us who actually
have any, that is.

Dictionaries are a supreme source of knowledge only in regards to
everyday langauge, not specialized subjects like politics and economics.

I agree they generally are not reliable for technical terms. But the
definitions I cited were perfectly good ones.

But to test you "supreme source of knowledge", i looked up "georgism"
and "geoism". NEITHER appears in Oxford's New American Dictionary or
thefreedictionary.com.

So? Lots of dictionaries list no definition of "libertarian" other
than the metaphysical one relating to free will.

In your logic, that means that these subjects are non-existent.

Lie. It just means those dictionaries are not comprehensive.

But please cite these "dozens of sources", so we can be assured that
you're not just pulling these claims out of you ass, which is an
unfortunate tendency for you.

You are a liar and a disgrace.

Mirror time, pal. You could easily prove me wrong by posting these
"dozens" of sources, and you choose instead to turn to empty verbiage
and venom.

But what would be the _point_ of proving you wrong? It might take me
an hour or more to find two dozen different sources. Where's my
motive to do so? It's not like being proved wrong has ever changed
your beliefs in the past.

But it was as I predicted. You pulled it out of your ass, and it is not
the first time you have done so.

Lie. I cited two well-regarded sources.

I offer you the priceless gift of
hard-won knowledge, and you repay me with false and outrageous
accusations.

Priceless? Your verbal feces is hardly priceless to me or anybody else.
The only thing that is priceless is seeing an arrogant jackass like
yourself run like a yellow-belly dog when challeged to back up his
assertions. Empty asserions, as it turns out.

Lie, and you know it. You are just trying to make me waste my time.

If I _do_ provide two dozen sources, what will you do? Admit you were
wrong? Actually change your mind? Give me a reason to go through
that exercise, other than just the fact that you like the feeling of
power you get by presuming to order me around and waste my time.

I have already provided two sources

And you claimed you had a dozen. Where are they?

You are lying again. I stated the fact that I could easily _find_
dozens. And two is enough to prove you wrong.

that support my use of the term.
You have provided none, repeat, _none_ that support yours. Yet you
now claim _I_ am the one fabricating claims, and demand that I waste
my time multiplying at arbitrary length the proofs that you are wrong.

More shittalk. You claimed that you had a dozen sources, and when called
don it, you backpedal with stupid excuses and avoidance.

Sickening. Disgusting. Nauseating. Disgraceful.

As your alteration of the subject line of this thread makes clear, you
are not interested in the issue. You are just trying to make this all
about me and how much effort it will take me to provide you with
dozens more sources, rather than about the issue.

But just to wipe you and your disingenious blather out completely, I
offer the following asserions in support of my claim:

http://cantillonparadise.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_cantillonparadise_archi
ve.html

"First of all, what is the "State"? I would offer the definition given
to me by anarchist Jeffrey Rogers Hummel: a legitimized monopoly on
coercion. This is a fairly common definition of the State and most
political scientists regardless of political affiliation would, I think,
agree with it."

That is just a personal opinion -- from an anarchist, no less -- with
zero authority or credibility. The idea that most political
scientists would agree with it is laughable.

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/WWW/STUDY/xweb.htm#1918par4

(¶ 4) "Every state is founded on force" said Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk.
That indeed is right. If no social institutions existed which knew the
use of violence, the concept of "state" would be eliminated, and a
condition would emerge that could be designated as "anarchy" in the
specific sense of this word.
Of course, force is certainly not the normal or the only means of the
state - nobody says that - but force is a means specific to the state.
Today the relation between the state and violence is an especially
intimate one. In the past the most varied institutions - beginning with
the sib - have known the use of physical force as quite normal.
Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that
(successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical
force within a given territory. Note that "territory" is one of the
characteristics of the state.

As above. This is not an authoritative source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_the_legitimate_use_of_physical_
force

The monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force designates an
essential attribute of the state's sovereignty. As a political concept,
it was formalized by the sociologist Max Weber in his 1918 speech
Politik als Beruf (Politics as a Vocation), but has since then entered
common use in political theory.

This is more credible and authoritative, but the acceptance of
informal "delegation" of force makes the claim of state monopoly
nearly vacuous. How would you tell if the state had a monopoly on
force or not, short of armed conflict or civil war?

http://www.cwis.org/state.html

STATE
A territory built by conquest in which one culture, one set of ideals
and one set of laws have been imposed by force or threat over diverse
nations by a civilian and military bureaucracy. States are ephemeral and
originate and disappear with the stroke of a pen (e.g. the end of the
U.S.S.R., December 25, 1991). In 1993 there existed 191 states.
(Examples: USA, Sudan, China, Spain, Nicaragua)

That is clearly just garbage, and CWIS is hardly a credible source.

http://geography.about.com/cs/politicalgeog/a/statenation.htm

(snip)

Has sovereignty. No other State should have power over the country's
territory.

Not relevant to the issue of force _monopoly_.

http://lemennicier.bwm-mediasoft.com/col_docs/doc_48_fr.pdf

The minimal State with its monopoly of coercion on a territory jointly
with
democracy is the instrument through which it is said that efficient and
peaceful
cooperation will emerge among individuals in the society.

Not a definition of "state."

http://www.independent.org/students/garvey/essay.asp?id=1609

"Government acts only by the intervention of force; hence, its action is
legitimate only where the intervention of force is itself legitimateâ?¦
that being the case of legitimate defense.[5]" Or, as Hayek put it, free
society confronts the problems of chaos and crime "by conferring the
monopoly of coercion on the state and by attempting to limit this power
of the state to instances where it is required to prevent coercion by
private persons[6]."

That is just Hayek's opinion.

-- Roy L
.

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