Oh this was glorious. And more than a little frighting as a few too many people honestly think that, outside of all the warlords of course, a "system" like Somalia would be just fine.

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I know.

As a would-be historians, Libertarians drive me up the wall. The closest things in the West to the society they propose would be either the Roman Republic (where there were no taxes and all public services were provided via private funds) or feudal Europe, and neither was all that fun to live in unless you happened to be at leastnear the top of the pyramid. Sadly the majority of Libertarians seem to assume they would be.

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This is the All American problem. Since we don't have a proper class system where you know full well what class you're in, every moron assumes he is/will soon be in the top class. Drove Pops Mortis nuts, since he worked in a factory full of guys convinced they were Upper Middle class, minimum.

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I can't remember who, but someone wrote that the class system in the United States is unique only in that it's not usually perceived like a vertical structure, but like a high school cafeteria where each class sits at a different table - and many people not at the "cool (rich) kids'" table is convinced that one day they'll find themselves sitting right there one of these days.

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I love this.

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I love it too.

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No see, black people live in Somalia and they can't do anything right so that's why it's not REALLY a libertarian paradise. ;-P

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I wish I could be sure that such an argument hasn't been made more than fifty times on certain corners of the Internet.

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That's awesome lol :D

That said, I'm curious what current Somali residents think of life over there. Is it really true anarchy? Feudal government via gangs?

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I'd be curious too. I suspect it's probably like what happens to most societies when they're under extreme strain, and in the absence of a centralized authority "microregimes" have sprung up across the country.

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I'm curious if any libertarians would actually move there too...

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Libertarian Magic Dust, heh heh heh.

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Like I said in another blog recently, the market is too nebulous a thing for anyone to blame Republicans or corporations or Alan Greenspan when it turns bad, but of course all economic problems can be easily and under all circumstances remedied by initiating tax and fiscal policies that favor the rich and big businesses and cutting the government's spending on health care, infrastructure, and education.

Edited at 2009-05-28 01:15 am (UTC)

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I have to admit that I was once a Libertarian. Then I grew up.

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Same here, although it was because I grew up and I experienced what it was like to be poor.

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Yeah, a stint of extreme poverty definitely opened my eyes.

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