[Truth To Power]

TtP - the above is pretty mixed up, I can't make any sense of it.

You can if you choose to, because it states the facts in clear, grammatical English. The only way a competent English reader can fail to make sense of it is by consciously and deliberately refusing to understand what it clearly says. The reason you refuse to understand it is that you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil. I do not pretend to understand why people choose to preserve beliefs that they have seen disproved, but history is full of examples.

Of course I realise I am not supposed to make sense of it, its progressive thinking, where everything is inside-out, perverse and orwellian, its not supposed to make sense, its supposed to be nonsense.

It makes perfect sense, as intended. In fact, it makes too much sense: it makes the falsity, absurdity and dishonesty of your claims so glaringly evident that you have to refuse to understand it, as your beliefs cannot survive contact with the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.

So I have nothing to say.

What a gracious concession of defeat.

If it was right, I could agree, if it was wrong I could disagree, but since it is neither right nor wrong but merely nonsense, there is nothing to say. just eh?

Pretending not to understand clear, grammatical English is not an argument, sorry.

[Technology]

It's at least a good idea to learn about a "dogma" before you criticize it.

[Truth To Power]

taxizen, have you ever taken any political science courses or economics courses or read any political or economic books, or studied English history?

The Grand Inquisitor requires me to profess my adherence to progressive dogma?

What on earth do you erroneously imagine you think you might be talking about? He simply asked if you had any background, formal or otherwise, in the subject under discussion. Apparently that question touched a nerve.

What is the point of such a question? (I know of course but I wonder if you do.)

Oh, I think we all do. Likewise, we know the point of your absurd and dishonest claim that my writing is unclear.

Maybe I can make Pod's question clearer: do you or do you not have any knowledge of economics, political science or history gained from any source other than feudal "libertarian" websites like mises.org?

[Truth To Power]

The bigger the government the bigger the poverty.

Such claims are of course the diametric opposite of the truth. The countries with the least poverty in history -- e.g., 21st century northern European parliamentary democracies -- also have some of the largest governments in history, absorbing roughly half of GDP. By contrast, no society with a small or non-existent government -- call it a single-digit percent of GDP -- has EVER, in the whole history of the world, been anything but poor.

Government is a producer of poverty, that is what it does.

Feudal "libertarianism" is a producer of absurdities, that is what it does.

Structural poverty is poverty created by government monkeying around.

No, it is created by bad government policies reversing the benefits conferred by good ones.

If the government is not creating structural poverty it won't exist.

If the government is not creating an environment where people are willing and able to create wealth, it won't exist. See Somalia, or any other ungoverned society in the history of the world.

Really we will argue this round and round.. we will have to do it, for you to see.

I predict that no matter how many times or in how many different ways you are proved wrong, and no matter how comprehensively and conclusively you are proved wrong, you will never see.

[SolarCross]

You can if you choose to, because it states the facts in clear, grammatical English. The only way a competent English reader can fail to make sense of it is by consciously and deliberately refusing to understand what it clearly says. The reason you refuse to understand it is that you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil. I do not pretend to understand why people choose to preserve beliefs that they have seen disproved, but history is full of examples.
...
Pretending not to understand clear, grammatical English is not an argument, sorry.

I never said there was anything wrong with your grammar, I am saying its meaningless and empty of coherent argument. See the following sentence "The blue smell swiftly slept for homeless houses." Grammatically faultless but yet utter gibberish in terms of meaning. Look I'll walk you through your gibberish, since you missed it.
I said:

Anything anyone says about land ownership regarding monarchy applies to any form of governance.

You replied:

Except that the private landowner, whether a king or a farmer, is removing others' rights to liberty, while the rightful duty of government is to safeguard them.

Non sequitur: owning land is not the same thing as removing other's rights to liberty. Nor is this an exception for members of government in a monarchy compared with a republic.

Okay so far so weird but the best is yet to come.
I said:

A governor of a territory be it a republic, monarchy, or something else, is so because they assert and have military dominance over it. Military dominance naturally implies the governors have the ability to own through force anything they want within that area because really who could stop them if they have military dominance? It does not however imply they necessarily do own it or that they are any less the governor for not owning it.

You replied:

It's true that government administers possession and use of land, because that's what government IS: the sovereign authority over a particular area of land. The only question is, will it discharge that function in the interest of, and to secure and reconcile the equal rights of, all the people, or will it do so only in the narrow financial interests of a greedy, privileged, parasitic overclass that claim to own the land.

You say "its true" as if you are agreeing with my assertion but then echo it by saying something materially different. You say government "administers possession and use of land" (a particular government might do that but that isn't what makes a government a government) then you say that is because government is "sovereign authority" which means militarily dominant. You have conflated two very distinct concepts "administrator of ownership" and "military dominant". A government isn't a government unless it is the latter but that is not equivalent to doing the former. Having conflated military dominance with administration (registration? arbitration?) of land ownership you then assert that the only question is "will it discharge that function in the interest of, and to secure and reconcile the equal rights of, all the people, or will it do so only in the narrow financial interests of a greedy, privileged, parasitic overclass that claim to own the land." Plainly this is not the only question but aside from that you assert a narrow binary between one option that makes no sense: equal rights for all people? There is not and never has been any such thing nor could there be any such thing ever, the very existence of government itself of any kind is a profound negation of any possiblity of equal rights for all people; its less real or possible than pink unicorns. And another option that conflates any ownership of land with a bunch of perjoratives.

So yeah wilful gibberish.

[Pants-of-dog]

The Grand Inquisitor requires me to profess my adherence to progressive dogma? What is the point of such a question? (I know of course but I wonder if you do.)

I ask this because you seem to have some gaps in your knowledge. These gaps include basic political science, English history, basic economics, and a few other things.

I am not trying to imply anything. I am saying it outright.

For example, you do not seem to understand the history that went into getting rid of the monarchy as an actual institution with any power, and why we did it. And by "we", I mean the vast majority of people who like democracy and think that being ruled by some dictator just because he slid out of a particular vagina is not as good.

Anyways, please read up on Cromwell. Please note that he beheaded kings in order to support more free trade.

[SolarCross]

I ask this because you seem to have some gaps in your knowledge. These gaps include basic political science, English history, basic economics, and a few other things.

I am not trying to imply anything. I am saying it outright.

For example, you do not seem to understand the history that went into getting rid of the monarchy as an actual institution with any power, and why we did it. And by "we", I mean the vast majority of people who like democracy and think that being ruled by some dictator just because he slid out of a particular vagina is not as good.

Anyways, please read up on Cromwell. Please note that he beheaded kings in order to support more free trade.

No one has perfect knowledge, least of all yourself, so really I won't be lectured by you.
Political Science - Have you read "The Prince" by Niccolo Macheivelli? The "48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene & Joost Elffers? The "Art of War" by Sun Tzu? If not there are some gaps in your knowledge POD.

Economics? POD's economics is bag snatching.

The virtue isn't knowledge it is rigorous thought. Knowledge is merely fuel for rigorous thought. A little fuel consumed by an efficient mind produces more valuable truth than gallons of junk propaganda being spewed through the lying little mind of a zombie progressive. You might well know the communist manifesto by heart but that does not make your thinking superior to mine.

Cromwell and other rebels want in on the game of power, the use of force for fun and profit. Anyone who wields power is a dictator and if dictators are bad then the fewer of them the better. If an absolute monarch is one dictator, democracy is a teeming multitude of dictators.

You had better have one King than five hundred.

-King Charles II of Britain

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. - Plato

Man is insatiable for power, he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.

-Count Joseph De Maistre

[Truth To Power]

I ask this because you seem to have some gaps in your knowledge. These gaps include basic political science, English history, basic economics, and a few other things.

I am not trying to imply anything. I am saying it outright.

For example, you do not seem to understand the history that went into getting rid of the monarchy as an actual institution with any power, and why we did it. And by "we", I mean the vast majority of people who like democracy and think that being ruled by some dictator just because he slid out of a particular vagina is not as good.

Anyways, please read up on Cromwell. Please note that he beheaded kings in order to support more free trade.

No one has perfect knowledge, least of all yourself, so really I won't be lectured by you.

Kettle? This is Pot. Pot? Meet Kettle.

Political Science - Have you read "The Prince" by Niccolo Macheivelli? The "48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene & Joost Elffers? The "Art of War" by Sun Tzu? If not there are some gaps in your knowledge POD.

We can't read everything. I have read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, though, as well as millions of words of economic theory and history.

Economics? POD's economics is bag snatching.

The inevitable resort to contentless insult.

The virtue isn't knowledge it is rigorous thought. Knowledge is merely fuel for rigorous thought. A little fuel consumed by an efficient mind produces more valuable truth than gallons of junk propaganda being spewed through the lying little mind of a zombie progressive. You might well know the communist manifesto by heart but that does not make your thinking superior to mine.

True. It's not only superior knowledge but superior intelligence and honesty that make my thinking superior to yours.

Cromwell and other rebels want in on the game of power, the use of force for fun and profit.

Again, that is absurd. Those who suffer injustice have a perfectly honest and justified motive to resist it, not merely a desire to inflict it on others. You appear to be imputing to others motives that have chiefly been discerned by introspection.

Anyone who wields power is a dictator

Another inevitable resort to absurdity. You need to get a good dictionary and look up words before using them.

and if dictators are bad then the fewer of them the better. If an absolute monarch is one dictator, democracy is a teeming multitude of dictators.

Inevitably, a bald self-contradiction.

You had better have one King than five hundred.
-King Charles II of Britain

And history has comprehensively and conclusively proved him wrong. Every single one of the freest, fairest, and most prosperous countries in the world is governed by one of the "five-hundred-king" parliaments Chuck was talking about.

Every single one.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. - Plato

Thus, "libertarian monarchism."

Clear?

Man is insatiable for power, he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.
-Count Joseph De Maistre

And like the count, you cannot tell the difference between the kind of power Charles II wielded and the power of an ordinary citizen's vote....?

Waaaaay too much Hans-Hermann Hoppe....

[Truth To Power]

Pretending not to understand clear, grammatical English is not an argument, sorry.

I never said there was anything wrong with your grammar, I am saying its meaningless and empty of coherent argument.

But in fact, everyone reading this knows that is not the case.

See the following sentence "The blue smell swiftly slept for homeless houses." Grammatically faultless but yet utter gibberish in terms of meaning.

Wrong. It's not grammatical. Grammar includes allowed usage.

Look I'll walk you through your gibberish, since you missed it.

Without reading further, I know I will be proving your claims false and dishonest.

Anything anyone says about land ownership regarding monarchy applies to any form of governance.
You replied:

Except that the private landowner, whether a king or a farmer, is removing others' rights to liberty, while the rightful duty of government is to safeguard them.

Non sequitur: owning land is not the same thing as removing other's rights to liberty.

Yes, it most certainly and indisputably is. The landowner removes others' liberty to use that land, a liberty they would otherwise have if the landowner did not remove it. I already proved that to you by the example of Crusoe and Friday. The only difference between owning a slave and owning land is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's rights, while when you own land, you remove one of all people's rights.

Nor is this an exception for members of government in a monarchy compared with a republic.

That depends on the nature of the republic, its constitution, and how well it upholds that constitution.

A governor of a territory be it a republic, monarchy, or something else, is so because they assert and have military dominance over it. Military dominance naturally implies the governors have the ability to own through force anything they want within that area because really who could stop them if they have military dominance? It does not however imply they necessarily do own it or that they are any less the governor for not owning it.

You replied:

It's true that government administers possession and use of land, because that's what government IS: the sovereign authority over a particular area of land. The only question is, will it discharge that function in the interest of, and to secure and reconcile the equal rights of, all the people, or will it do so only in the narrow financial interests of a greedy, privileged, parasitic overclass that claim to own the land.

You say "its true" as if you are agreeing with my assertion but then echo it by saying something materially different.

No, I was acknowledging the accurate part of what you said, and correcting the inaccurate part. You were hoping to package-deal them.

You say government "administers possession and use of land" (a particular government might do that but that isn't what makes a government a government)

It is one of the things.

then you say that is because government is "sovereign authority" which means militarily dominant. You have conflated two very distinct concepts "administrator of ownership"

No. Now you have changed my correct statement -- "possession and use" -- to an incorrect one: "ownership."

and "military dominant".

No. A force can be militarily dominant in an area without administering possession and use of land, but it is consequently not the government of that area. See the US occupation of Iraq. It is YOU who are conflating military dominance with government.

A government isn't a government unless it is the latter

Disproved above.

but that is not equivalent to doing the former.

I never said they were equivalent.

Having conflated military dominance with administration (registration? arbitration?) of land ownership

Again, that is a false claim about what I clearly wrote.

you then assert that the only question is "will it discharge that function in the interest of, and to secure and reconcile the equal rights of, all the people, or will it do so only in the narrow financial interests of a greedy, privileged, parasitic overclass that claim to own the land." Plainly this is not the only question

It's the only question relevant to the point at issue.

but aside from that you assert a narrow binary between one option that makes no sense: equal rights for all people? There is not and never has been any such thing nor could there be any such thing ever, the very existence of government itself of any kind is a profound negation of any possiblity of equal rights for all people;

False.

its less real or possible than pink unicorns.

No, it is quite possible, and has been achieved (of course, we are not talking about the anti-scientific nonsense of zero tolerance -- children, criminals, the insane, etc. do not get equal rights with law-abiding adults).

And another option that conflates any ownership of land with a bunch of perjoratives.

No, that is again just false. I stated the nature and implications of private landowning quite clearly, and you have provided no facts or logic to the contrary, nor will you ever be doing so. It is self-evident and indisputable that the landowner qua landowner is a pure parasite, as he takes a portion of production without contributing anything to production.

So yeah wilful gibberish.

No, that more accurately describes your "contribution."

[SolarCross]

We can't read everything. I have read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, though, as well as millions of words of economic theory and history.

Hasn't done you any good though.

True. It's not only superior knowledge but superior intelligence and honesty that make my thinking superior to yours.

Ok you imagine you are intelligent and honest. Nice.

And history has comprehensively and conclusively proved him wrong. Every single one of the freest, fairest, and most prosperous countries in the world is governed by one of the "five-hundred-king" parliaments Chuck was talking about.

Every single one.

Except for the few most prosperous countries, which are almost all constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies or undemocratic autocracies. Brunei, Qatar, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Norway, Oman, Kuwait, British Virgin Islands, Macau, Sweden, Denmark..

The very least prosperous countries are in order of poverty (poorest first): Malawi (multi-party presidential democratic republic), DR of Congo (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Burundi (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Liberia (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Niger (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Madagascar (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Ethiopia (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Central African Republic (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Uganda (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Togo (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Guinea-Bissau (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Gambia (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Eritria (Single party nationalist presidential republic), Rwanda (democratic presidential republic), Somalia (Federal republic), Nepal (Federal parliamentary republic), Mozambique (democratic presidential republic), Guinea (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Tanzania (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Mali (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Burkino Faso (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Afghanistan (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Zimbabwe (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Sierra Leone (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Haiti (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Benin (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Comoros (federal presidential republic), Bangladesh (parliamentary republic), Burma (presidential republic, South Sudan (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Tajikistan (dominant party presidential democratic republic), Kenya (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Cambodia (parliamentary constitutional monarchy), Chad (Single party presidential republic), Senegal (multi-party presidential democratic republic)...

[Pants-of-dog]

No one has perfect knowledge, least of all yourself, so really I won't be lectured by you.

I am not asking you to have prefect knowledge. I would like you to have enough basic knowledge that you can discuss these things intelligently.

Political Science - Have you read "The Prince" by Niccolo Macheivelli?

I read it in 1993.

The "48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene & Joost Elffers?

No. I am not in jail, nor do I need to read self-contradicting best-sellers. If I want a beach book, I will read historical fiction.

The "Art of War" by Sun Tzu? If not there are some gaps in your knowledge POD.

1995.

Economics? POD's economics is bag snatching.

Is it bag snatching when I point out to you that London goldsmiths became banks because Charles (the one shortened by Cromwell) stole the money hoarded in the Tower of London?

The virtue isn't knowledge it is rigorous thought. Knowledge is merely fuel for rigorous thought. A little fuel consumed by an efficient mind produces more valuable truth than gallons of junk propaganda being spewed through the lying little mind of a zombie progressive. You might well know the communist manifesto by heart but that does not make your thinking superior to mine.

You are correct. My thinking is not superior to yours because I have read many more books than you have. Nor is it because I have also read them critically and with a certain amount of contextual knowledge in terms of history, politics, and economics.

It is probably because I was raised by intellectuals who bequeathed to me a genetic predisposition for being smart, and taught me the value of a good education.

Cromwell and other rebels want in on the game of power, the use of force for fun and profit. Anyone who wields power is a dictator and if dictators are bad then the fewer of them the better. If an absolute monarch is one dictator, democracy is a teeming multitude of dictators.

This is not an argument. It is merely using words improperly in order to create an emotional reaction in the reader.

Think about it. If everyone is a dictator, who are they oppressing?

You had better have one King than five hundred.

-King Charles II of Britain

This is the same king who passed the Clarendon code, which made every religion except Anglican basically illegal.

Religious freedom is not important, right?

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. - Plato

...nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior.

Plato, Gorgias

Apparently, Plato also thought slavery was cool and natural.

Man is insatiable for power, he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.

-Count Joseph De Maistre

You should read up on "argument form authority" and "argument from tradition". Just because some old dead guy said it, doesn't mean it's right. Especially authoritarian theocrats.

The very least prosperous countries are in order of poverty (poorest first): Malawi (multi-party presidential democratic republic)

Why are you assuming that Malawi's economic situation is caused by the fact that it has been a democracy for about twenty years?

Why are you ignoring the fact that it is one of the least developed nations in the world, is landlocked, has to deal with legacies of colonialism and imperialism, has an HIV/AIDS problem, and a history of ethnic conflict that ended six years ago?

[Potemkin]

...nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior.

Plato, Gorgias

Apparently, Plato also thought slavery was cool and natural.

Actually, he had a point. It is perfectly just for the strong and the clever to dominate the weak and the stupid. This is, in fact, the only form of 'natural justice' which can possibly exist. We can see it all around us in the natural world. However, I take a different lesson from this undeniable fact than Plato does - Plato, using the 'argument from nature', seems to implicitly claim that we should copy nature in this respect (because it's 'good' to be natural, right?), whereas I see it merely as evidence that human notions of right and wrong are historically and culturally constructed, and cannot be either defended or refuted by appeals to the 'natural order' of things. In other words, there is no such thing as 'natural justice' or 'natural rights'. We must consciously create justice, and create human rights.

[SolarCross]

Why are you assuming that Malawi's economic situation is caused by the fact that it has been a democracy for about twenty years?

Why are you ignoring the fact that it is one of the least developed nations in the world, is landlocked, has to deal with legacies of colonialism and imperialism, has an HIV/AIDS problem, and a history of ethnic conflict that ended six years ago?

I am not assuming anything and if you look closer at the poor list you will notice Malawi is not the only democracy there.

Its an odd thing but apart from the US and Switzerland all of the top countries are absolute monarchies, constitutional monarchies or autocracies. All the bottom ones are multi-party democracies apart from Cambodia (now near the top of the poor list) which restored its monarchy in 1993.

Cambodia's government has been described by Human Rights Watch's Southeast Asian Director, David Roberts, as a "vaguely communist free-market state with a relatively authoritarian coalition ruling over a superficial democracy."

I'd bet that barring any major upsets Cambodia won't even be on the poor list in a few decades.

This is the same king who passed the Clarendon code, which made every religion except Anglican basically illegal.

Religious freedom is not important, right?

King Charles II was a Roman Catholic, why would he author laws that penalised his own faith? The Claredon code was a creature of parliament (democracy).

Charles's English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. He acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance.

Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it.

Looks like POD's superior intellect doesn't like to get its facts straight.

EDIT ADDITIONAL

I've tried to find out a bit more about this seizure of gold bullion from the Tower of London by Charles I since POD keeps bringing it up.

In Britain, the modern age of banking began in 1640 when King Charles I, needing cash to pay the (English) army that he was raising against Scotland (of which he was also king!), seized the gold bullion that many merchants and nobles had placed in the Tower of London for safe-keeping.

The 2nd Bishop's War (founded on a difference of religious opinion) soon petered out and, with Parliament and its powers of taxation recalled, the bullion was returned to its owners.

in 1642, further warfare broke out with the English Civil War between the King and Parliament. London was the stronghold of Parliament and was the safest city in the Kingdom. So those who desired not to have their bullion seized by one side or the other placed their gold in the hands of goldsmiths in the city, who naturally had their own methods of safe-keeping.

The Tower of London was the place for safe keeping of the nation’s wealth. In 1640, Charles I seized bullion belonging to merchants and noblemen to fund a war against Scotland. While the money was later paid back, the lesson was learnt and the merchants withdrew their cash and placed it in the hands of goldsmiths. Overcome with temptation, these goldsmiths started lending gold entrusted to them for safekeeping – the birth of fractional reserve banking.

So the context carefully omitted by POD was that the money was taken for paying the army to suppress a rebellion and it was repaid. At the time that the goldsmith's withdrew their gold from the mint the English Civil War had started and the mint was in the control of Parliament. So they plainly didn't trust parliament either.

[Pants-of-dog]

I am not assuming anything...

Yes, you are.

...and if you look closer at the poor list you will notice Malawi is not the only democracy there.

I just picked the first one on the list. I could probably pick any other at random and come up with the same argument: that they have not been democracies long enough to affect their economy, and that the history of the nation probably has far more to do with it.

Its an odd thing but apart from the US and Switzerland all of the top countries are absolute monarchies, constitutional monarchies or autocracies.

Where did you get that list anyway?

According to the people who measure prosperity, the top then countries are;

1. Norway. Norway is a constitutional monarchy, which is a multi-party democracy, since parliament holds the actual reins of power.
2. Switzerland (federal parliamentary republic), i.e. multi-party democracy.
3. Canada. A commonwealth nation, and thus (like Norway) a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
4. Sweden. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
5. New Zealand. A commonwealth nation, and thus (like Norway) a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
6. Denmark. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
7. Australia. A commonwealth nation, and thus (like Norway) a constitutional monarchy, i.e. democracy.
8. Finland. Parliamentary republic, i.e. a multi-party democracy.
9. The Netherlands. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
10. Luxembourg. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.

10 out of the top ten most prosperous countries are multi-party democracies.

All the bottom ones are multi-party democracies apart from Cambodia (now near the top of the poor list) which restored its monarchy in 1993.

And we already discussed that and you ignored all the other factors that I pointed out.

Cambodia's government has been described by Human Rights Watch's Southeast Asian Director, David Roberts, as a "vaguely communist free-market state with a relatively authoritarian coalition ruling over a superficial democracy."
I'd bet that barring any major upsets Cambodia won't even be on the poor list in a few decades.

In other words, you are fine with oppressive dictatorships as long as there is a free market.

King Charles II was a Roman Catholic, why would he author laws that penalised his own faith? The Claredon code was a creature of parliament (democracy).

Charles's English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. He acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance.

Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it.

Looks like POD's superior intellect doesn't like to get its facts straight.

Let us look at the text you quoted above in context, shall we?

Charles's English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. He acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his early reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the secret treaty of Dover, an alliance with his first cousin King Louis XIV of France. Louis agreed to aid Charles in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay Charles a pension, and Charles secretly promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oates's revelations of a supposed "Popish Plot" sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles's brother and heir (James, Duke of York) was a Catholic. The crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories, and, following the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, some Whig leaders were executed or forced into exile. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and ruled alone until his death on 6 February 1685. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed.

I italicised the parts that you selectively quoted.

Please note the part that I bolded. It seems that the only way to get religious freedom would be to have the cousin of the king pay for him to fight a war, and pay him personally, and convert.

That sure sounds like religious freedom for the common people. It also points out that monarchies seem to invade other countries more often.

EDIT ADDITIONAL

I've tried to find out a bit more about this seizure of gold bullion from the Tower of London by Charles I since POD keeps bringing it up.

"]In Britain, the modern age of banking began in 1640 when King Charles I, needing cash to pay the (English) army that he was raising against Scotland (of which he was also king!), seized the gold bullion that many merchants and nobles had placed in the Tower of London for safe-keeping.

The 2nd Bishop's War (founded on a difference of religious opinion) soon petered out and, with Parliament and its powers of taxation recalled, the bullion was returned to its owners.

in 1642, further warfare broke out with the English Civil War between the King and Parliament. London was the stronghold of Parliament and was the safest city in the Kingdom. So those who desired not to have their bullion seized by one side or the other placed their gold in the hands of goldsmiths in the city, who naturally had their own methods of safe-keeping.

The Tower of London was the place for safe keeping of the nation’s wealth. In 1640, Charles I seized bullion belonging to merchants and noblemen to fund a war against Scotland. While the money was later paid back, the lesson was learnt and the merchants withdrew their cash and placed it in the hands of goldsmiths. Overcome with temptation, these goldsmiths started lending gold entrusted to them for safekeeping – the birth of fractional reserve banking.

So the context carefully omitted by POD was that the money was taken for paying the army to suppress a rebellion and it was repaid. At the time that the goldsmith's withdrew their gold from the mint the English Civil War had started and the mint was in the control of Parliament. So they plainly didn't trust parliament either.

As long as we agree that private banking started because kings could (and did) arbitrarily and unilaterally seize the assets of citizens.

[Truth To Power]

We can't read everything. I have read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, though, as well as millions of words of economic theory and history.

Hasn't done you any good though.

IMO others can judge that more objectively than you.

True. It's not only superior knowledge but superior intelligence and honesty that make my thinking superior to yours.

Ok you imagine you are intelligent and honest. Nice.

Or at least, more so than you, as proved by:

And history has comprehensively and conclusively proved him wrong. Every single one of the freest, fairest, and most prosperous countries in the world is governed by one of the "five-hundred-king" parliaments Chuck was talking about.

Except for the few most prosperous countries,

What is your source for this list, and how does it measure prosperity?

which are almost all constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies or undemocratic autocracies. Brunei, Qatar, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Norway, Oman, Kuwait, British Virgin Islands, Macau, Sweden, Denmark..

Nope. Constitutional "monarchy" is exactly the "five-hundred-king" parliamentary democracy Charles was decrying, and it includes Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Singapore, Norway, the BVIs, Sweden, and Denmark. The rest of the your list are mostly just places that have more oil than people, and oil prices happen to be high right now. 20 years ago, when oil prices were bottoming out, those places were not on any list of most prosperous countries. Is it inferior knowledge that leads you to imply that places that happen to have a lot of oil are prospering because of good government? Or is it inferior intelligence, or inferior honesty?

The very least prosperous countries are in order of poverty (poorest first):

Again: source and criteria?

Malawi (multi-party presidential democratic republic), DR of Congo (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Burundi (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Liberia (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Niger (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Madagascar (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Ethiopia (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Central African Republic (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Uganda (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Togo (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Guinea-Bissau (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Gambia (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Eritria (Single party nationalist presidential republic), Rwanda (democratic presidential republic), Somalia (Federal republic), Nepal (Federal parliamentary republic), Mozambique (democratic presidential republic), Guinea (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Tanzania (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Mali (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Burkino Faso (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Afghanistan (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Zimbabwe (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Sierra Leone (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Haiti (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Benin (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Comoros (federal presidential republic), Bangladesh (parliamentary republic), Burma (presidential republic, South Sudan (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Tajikistan (dominant party presidential democratic republic), Kenya (multi-party presidential democratic republic), Cambodia (parliamentary constitutional monarchy), Chad (Single party presidential republic), Senegal (multi-party presidential democratic republic)...

In most cases, these descriptions of government models are nominal only, and do not describe the actual political situation. Most in fact have no functioning parliamentary democracy and are in effect ruled by a king answerable to no one; some have no functioning government at all.

Your claims are ridiculous and dishonest. Inevitably.

[SolarCross]

...and if you look closer at the poor list you will notice Malawi is not the only democracy there.

I just picked the first one on the list. I could probably pick any other at random and come up with the same argument: that they have not been democracies long enough to affect their economy, and that the history of the nation probably has far more to do with it.

There are all sorts of circumstances which will affect a people's prosperity but if form of governance were not one of them then we would expect to find the distribution of democracies and monarchies in the ranking of prosperity to be broadly even. This is plainly not the case though, theoretically and empirically, form of governance does have a (big) impact on prosperity and in any ranking of wealth such as by GDP per capita the top countries are predominantly monarchies and autocracies while the bottom ones are democratic republics. If democratic republics were really better than monarchies, as you believe as a matter of your progressive faith, then the reverse would be true but it isn't.

Where did you get that list anyway?

It is compilation of three different rankings of GDP per capita made by the World Bank, IMF and the CIA that I found on wiki

According to the people who measure prosperity, the top then countries are;

1. Norway. Norway is a constitutional monarchy, which is a multi-party democracy, since parliament holds the actual reins of power.
2. Switzerland (federal parliamentary republic), i.e. multi-party democracy.
3. Canada. A commonwealth nation, and thus (like Norway) a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
4. Sweden. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
5. New Zealand. A commonwealth nation, and thus (like Norway) a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
6. Denmark. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
7. Australia. A commonwealth nation, and thus (like Norway) a constitutional monarchy, i.e. democracy.
8. Finland. Parliamentary republic, i.e. a multi-party democracy.
9. The Netherlands. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.
10. Luxembourg. Also a constitutional monarchy, i.e. multi-party democracy.

10 out of the top ten most prosperous countries are multi-party democracies.

That's a very eurocentric list, even so 8 of 10 are constitutional monarchies. Did you know less than a quarter of the world's governments are monarchies. The rest being some kind of republic. Only 5 out 196 of world's nations are absolute monarchies yet four of those five absolute monarchies are in the top 12 (world bank gdp per capita ranking)? So tell me why 8 of 10 on your list of top countries are constitutional monarchies instead of being 8 of 10 republics?

As an aside it is well to clarify something about a constitutional monarchy, it is label for a state of affairs somewhere between an absolute monarchy and a full blown democratic republic. Which is a huge range of variation. Since Magna Carta in 1215 it could be argued the English monarchy has been a constitutional monarchy but there is huge difference between the scope and powers enjoyed by Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century and that of Queen Elizabeth II in the 21st century. It is a very broad label.

Cambodia's government has been described by Human Rights Watch's Southeast Asian Director, David Roberts, as a "vaguely communist free-market state with a relatively authoritarian coalition ruling over a superficial democracy."
I'd bet that barring any major upsets Cambodia won't even be on the poor list in a few decades.

In other words, you are fine with oppressive dictatorships as long as there is a free market.

Don't trust people who say "in other words" I guarantee to you they are invariably slithering liars.

[Nunt]

So tell me why 8 of 10 on your list of top countries are constitutional monarchies instead of being 8 of 10 republics?

These are countries that managed to transit gradually from a medieval feudal system to a modern democracy. Rather than through a revolution, they gradually hollowed out the power of the monarchy and gave it to democratic institutions. The conditions that allow this sort of transition (the monarch is not a suppressive dictator) and the process of this transition (no bloody revolutionary war) are probably conducive to economic growth. But even so, I imagine if these countries were republics, they wouldn't be ranked much lower on that list.

Libertarian Monarchism: I really dislike the term. I don't think libertarianism and monarchism can be combined. In order for something to be called 'libertarian' the NAP must be guiding rule of society. No entity or person should have the legal right to violate the NAP. If someone does have the legal right to violate the NAP, then it cannot be called libertarian.

In order for something to be called a monarchy, there would need to be a person or family with a special authority over a geographic area. The only way such a monarch could exist in a libertarian society is when the people unanimously accept the monarch's authority by choice.

One dissident thinker who chooses not the accept the monarch's authority and the monarch is no longer a monarch but simply a person with high social regard by a propertion of society. One dissident think who is forced to accept the monarch's authority and the society is no longer libertarian as the NAP is legally violated.

So which one is the hollowed word in Libertarian Monarchism?

[Rei Murasame]

I agree with Nunt on this, to me it seems obvious that Monarchy is always based on violations of the NAP. Thematically and conceptually it just is:

Right to Rule
[youtube]l3qRZ7Is_Os[/youtube]

Notice that as this video continues to go backwards in time, you end up with crowns and diadems positioned atop axes and fasces. It is not by accident.

The 'right to rule' simply cannot be libertarian.

[SolarCross]

Any form of governance is a thematic and conceptual violation of the NAP and the more cooks spoiling the broth the worse it gets. Super small government, smaller than a minarchy, is an absolute monarchy. Smaller than that is anarchy and in an anarchy the level of uncertainty shoots goes up dramatically and with it violence, NAP violations. On the spectrum of power absolute monarchies are a libertarian sweet spot between the Reign of Terror (anarchy) on one hand and the mob voting themselves your house, a share of your business, indoctrination of your children on the other (democracy).

[Truth To Power]

Libertarian Monarchism: I really dislike the term. I don't think libertarianism and monarchism can be combined. In order for something to be called 'libertarian' the NAP must be guiding rule of society. No entity or person should have the legal right to violate the NAP. If someone does have the legal right to violate the NAP, then it cannot be called libertarian.

The NAP as stated is not compatible with a post-nomadic economy because of the problem of land tenure.

In order for something to be called a monarchy, there would need to be a person or family with a special authority over a geographic area. The only way such a monarch could exist in a libertarian society is when the people unanimously accept the monarch's authority by choice.

A landowner is effectively king of the area of land he owns. See Saudi Arabia.

One dissident thinker who chooses not the accept the monarch's authority and the monarch is no longer a monarch but simply a person with high social regard by a propertion of society.

No, the dissident just has to either submit or leave the king's property.

One dissident think who is forced to accept the monarch's authority and the society is no longer libertarian as the NAP is legally violated.

Landowning violates the NAP anyway.

So which one is the hollowed word in Libertarian Monarchism?

Libertarian, obviously. But that's the case for any feudal "libertarianism" that countenances appropriation of natural resources -- land -- as private property.