*VIDEO* Anarchism, Socialism & Libertarian Summit – Alternatives for Peace

Russia Today anchor Abby Martin hosted The Libertarian Republic Editor Austin Petersen, anarchist Scott Crow and socialist Eugene Puryear for a discussion featuring alternative viewpoints. Discussed were civil liberties, economics, ideal societies and transition plans to ideal societies, as well as law and police actions in free societies.

The summit was not a debate, but an open question and answer session hosted by Martin who quizzed the representatives of each philosophy on their positions related to major issues.

As a participant in this discussion my only real issues I found were with the Socialist. Mr. Puryear is a fine speaker, however, his moral philosophy boils down to nothing more than confiscation and redistribution. For instance, the socialist’s first response includes a description where he claims that he will “take” the productive power and put it into these services that he thinks are for the good of humanity. But he completely forgets that capitalism is what put that productive capital there in the first place to be confiscated. All he is advocating is that we do violence to one group of people to take their stuff and give it to other people. There is no sense for how Human Action works, no real economics, rather a total dismissal of the laws of supply and demand. And no concept of individual plans from individual citizens that might not involve his quest for world communism. However convincing the class warfare rhetoric might sound, socialism killed 100 million people and all we got was the lousy t-shirt. Monsanto saved a billion lives and the conspiracy theorists of the social democratic left want to ban their products. Socialism? It’s theft and violence made into law, no more.

Libertarians argue for more “spontaneous order” to the world. Loosen the barriers to trade and loosen the restrictions on our interactions with one another. Let cultures blend. Libertarianism is classical liberalism. It is the true laissez-faire. People allowed to interact can come up with better ideas and better culture. Tradition is important, but not at the expense of genuine progress. Societal norms function as a spontaneous order, and are not needed to be enforced by the state. Although social shaming or negative societal norm enforcement is often harsh, it shows that true incentives do exist to mold a more temperate overall human psyche. Humanity does not need a supranational coercive state to enforce morality.

The anarchist however was a very interesting character. Post hurricane Katrina, Mr. Scott Crow was involved in forming anarchist collectives that were resistance groups to local hostile powers. After the enormous devastation, there were numerous groups involved in violence for local resources. Natural states of combat naturally emerge in survival situations. Crow claims that he was there empowering those individuals to defend themselves and invoking their right to the 2nd amendment when it was MOST needed. He stated clearly in the summit that he believes in self defense. Too often anarchists can be characterized as pacifists in many ways, rather than empowering of individual self defense. Social democrats on the other hand, want to take away your right to self defense and contract that all out to a government. That’s not wise when in individual self defense situations such as post Katrina.

If America is going to be a more peaceful, prosperous nation then we must become a more libertarian republic.

The video is 28:07 minutes long