Armacing

Suburban/Rural areas have schools and first responders. And when it comes to mass transit, I find it interesting that Davidson county voters shut down that effort when they learned that they would carry the burden for funding the mass transit system alone. When it became obvious that little to no State or Federal money (from outside Davidson county) would cover the cost, they balked. This is not an insignificant fact, but rather an important event that provides valuable insight into the true nature of Public Transit.... Except in very large cities, public transit that is subsidized by state and federal funds is a money losing (wealth destroying) endeavor. Think about it this way: Why not just build mass transit on credit and use the ticket fees to pay off the loan? The answer is obvious: There are not enough riders willing to pay high enough ticket fees to cover the cost of building the system. But what does that mean? It means that product (mass transit) is not valued as highly as other products that consumers are willing to spend their money on (voluntarily). So why would you want to concentrate billions of investment into a capital asset that produces a product that consumers don't want? Do some consumers want it? Yes. Do enough consumers want it to fund it through ticket sales revenue? No. So it doesn't get built - - at least not in free market America. The Soviet Union and other centrally planned states had plenty of experience building massive wealth destroying industries and cities, but all it did was make them poorer. Would certain specific businesses benefit from mass transit in Nashville? Possibly. Would those same businesses buy tickets to give to their employees or purchase municipal bonds to fund the system? No, obviously not, because if they would then some entity would have already taken advantage of that demand and created a mass transit system. The very fact that government is left as the only entity capable of providing mass transit is proof that nobody wants to pay for it themselves, but a lot of people want to use the tax-collecting apparatus of government to force other people to pay for it. Tennessee taxpayers decided they would rather wait in traffic for hours rather than pay for mass transit through taxes. Thank goodness they have that choice rather than being forced to pay for a system they don't want.

Agreed, the national Libertarian party is a joke because they decided after 1996 to abandon their principles and play down their most controversial policy positions in a futile effort to get elected to local offices. That was their plan: Build political influence from the ground up by starting small and growing the number of elected libertarians. The only problem is, you can't piecemeal Libertarianism because it is a comprehensive economic/political/moral philosophy that builds on itself. Everything is interconnected, every issue is interconnected. Now they can't propose real solutions to so many of our present day problems because doing so would call attention to the true nature of their classical liberalism, which is radical by Democratic/Republican standards. So, my opinion is the Libertarian party needs to disband so it's philosophical successor can rise from the ashes with a more orthodox adherence to the principles of liberty, which necessary entails proposing radical solutions to problems rooted in oppression. If done properly, that new party could capture the extreme left from the democratic side and the extreme right from the republican side and leave the mainstream parties to fight over the shrinking population of centrist voters.

As a Libertarian I prefer freedom, and when the State needs to step in and protect that freedom from an oppressive county government, then I am 100% in favor of that. Unlike you, I'm not done with this issue... I'm just getting started.

I got my population statistics from this site: https://tnsdc.utk.edu/2021/08/12/2020-population-of-tennessee-counties-and-incorporated-areas/ Your sales tax data on page 15 showed the following for 2022 YTD State and Local tax revenue: Davidson = $96,307,311 ÷ 715,884 people = $134.53 per capita Williamson = $32,286,801 ÷ 247,726 people = $130.33 per capita That's only a difference of $4.20 per capita, meaning Davison county per-capita tax revenue is only 3% higher than Williamson. Where are you getting 25%? Not only is it business friendly, it's good for every single citizen. The state made sure housing would be *available* because regulating the price of housing below the market price is certain to create a housing shortage. Have you even heard of Venezuela? Government owned/run public transit is a boondoggle that destroys wealth by sinking billions into a capital asset that generates zero profit and actually loses money every year. By preventing that the state allowed capital to remain deployed in the economy for profitable business ventures. That's a huge economic win. So according to your standards China must have the highest quality of life in the world, right? Their per-capita infection rate is far below even the best US state... Absolutely. Organized labor in the US is more of a government institution because of the favorable legal treatment, and anything the state can do to limit the influence of federal regulators inside TN is a huge win for the state. I have no problem with employees organizing on their own, but once the government gets involved then it introduces massive economic inefficiencies that lower the standard of living for everyone. Tell that to the people who were working part-time at Wal-Mart or Dollar General before Nissan/Volkswagon/GM/Hankook/Nokian/Wacker/Denso/LG opened their factories in counties other than Davidson. I'm sure people in Michigan/Illinois/Ohio take great comfort in knowing they live in a RICH state every time their company chooses to close their factory and consolidate production into one facility that just happens to be located in Tennessee where there is no union. You might want to call Amazon and Oracle and let them know this right away then. Speak for yourself, I feel great! How about *you* strive for better using your own money and leave the rest of us out of it?

Only since you asked... I will offer up this policy position that is sure to raise some eyebrows: Libertarians don't believe in immigration limits. I think all a person needs to do to become a US citizen is pass a background check to make sure they're not a violent criminal in their home country, pass a health check, and sign their name to a list of people who want to become US citizens. Done. I bet we could re-locate 10% of the world's population into our country during the first decade of that policy. By the second decade we could become more populous than India. Labor shortage solved.

Davidson county has more population, so it's natural more tax revenue comes from there. On a per-capita basis Williamson county and Davidson county are practically equal. And Sevier county surpasses both of them by a long-shot. The question is what is enabling business to exist in Davidson county? What's the name of that stadium downtown? Nissan? Are there any Nissan factories or headquarters in Davidson county? Nope... I wonder where they could be? What's the name of that arena downtown? Bridgestone? Why is Bridgestone here and not in Akron Ohio? Because of the Bridgestone manufacturing that is... you guessed it... outside of Davidson county in Middle Tennessee. And because there is no income tax here. How many of those recent tech company announcements would have happened in TN if we had a state income tax? None, I say. And you can thank the rural counties for that because Davidson county residents (and Shelby) were the most pro-income tax back in the early 2000's during that whole fiasco. More recently: State blocked the AMP BRT project. State blocked Nashville affordable housing regulations. State overrode Nashville authority on COVID restrictions. Those are all small examples, but the biggest impacts are how the "Red" critical mass helps keep taxes low and organized labor at a minimum, which keeps new manufacturing moving to TN. Manufacturing may not mean much to you, but it's a primary source of well-paid middle class jobs in a lot of counties, especially in the rural counties. And unlike tourism that is "non-essential" and prone to collapse during an economic downturn, manufacturing is a lot more reliable and pays much better wages for full time work with benefits.

The job of "buying up all the housing" is made easier by the government's complicity: Limiting the supply of housing to such a low level that it becomes an attractive target for investment firms to corner the market. If the free market were allowed to function and housing supplies could fluctuate with demand freely, then the investment firms would not be so quick to dump billions into a market that is not rigged in their favor by artificially limited supply. How about we completely de-regulate housing and land use and let the market build wide open? I would love to see those residential-property investment firms take a huge loss in terms of real-estate values and drastically lower rents. In my opinion it would serve them right for building a business model around government oppression. For a freedom-loving libertarian such as myself, nothing is quite so sweet as watching a huge corporation who's revenue was back-stopped by the government suddenly whither under the mercilessly unyielding pressure of the free market.

It's interesting how common the belief is that Nashville/Davidson is supporting the surrounding counties when the opposite is clearly true. All of the manufacturing occurs in the surrounding counties, Davidson has very little manufacturing left. And remind me again where all of the corporate executives live... is it Davidson county? Nope - Williamson. Without Williamson county Davidson county would be a shell of its present form. If Davidson county included all surrounding counties and they were all under the jurisdiction of the Metro Nashville government, Nashville would be an economically declining failed city like Buffalo or Detroit or Cleveland. And it's not just the counties immediately surrounding Davidson that support Davidson. The rest of the state has the critical mass of "Red" voters to overpower the "Blue" voters in Davidson to prevent it from enacting anti-business legislation. So the rural counties continuously save Davidson from itself by preventing Davidson from destroying the tax revenue sources you seem to value so much.

Vote Libertarian in 2024!!

Here is a somewhat amusing hit piece bemoaning the impact of gentrification in Nashville... https://dnyuz.com/2022/07/06/the-shrinking-of-the-middle-class-neighborhood/

If anything, the recession is a massive "buy signal" for equity to move into housing if prices are temporarily depressed and all other asset classes are under-performing at the moment. The simple truth is that people need housing, so it's a great investment regardless of where we are in the economic cycle. But the financial resources of those real-estate companies are not infinite... it would be possible to build so many houses that investment firms simply can't afford to buy them all. But doing that would require some major changes to laws that currently restrict the supply of housing.

Here is a mildly interesting fluff piece hosted on MSN that ponders the unique trajectory of Nashville's tourism industry over the past few years... https://www.msn.com/en-in/lifestyle/travel/nashville-in-usas-tennessee-is-being-transformed-by-luxury-tourism/ar-AAYVkuM

It's the developer's community too. Each person gets one vote on what the community looks like and that is what they do on their own property. Then, after everyone is done bringing their own unique vision of good architecture into reality on their land, we can all step back and see what the aggregate "nature of our community" looks like.

There is already a mechanism (without zoning) that prevents developers from building whatever their wallets allow: The market. Developers are strongly incentivized by the market to build the housing that is most in demand by consumers (future home owners). Your appraisal of the situation skews dramatically in favor of existing residents and completely ignores the housing demanded by future residents. Instead of telling developers (and their customers: new residents) to fight an up-hill battle against the entrenched NIMBY's and their government, why don't you just expose the NIMBY's to the reality of the free market? When they NIMBY's complain, why don't you tell them "change is hard"? You feel at liberty to lecture developers about why it's necessary to restrict their ability to provide housing demanded by customers. You feel at liberty to restrict the types of housing products offered to new customers and the locations where housing can be offered in the formats desired by customers. Why so much animosity to growth and change in an urban environment that is supposed to be characterized by dynamism and perpetual change?... with residents who know what it means to live in a constantly growing and changing city with new types of people arriving in large numbers? The zoning laws you justify with lofty ideals such as context and community consensus have the real-world effect of making housing more scarce for low-income and minority residents.

I've been saying this for years and was basically called a libertarian kook for saying it... Great to see freedom and property rights are coming back in vogue!

This development definitely benefits from being so close to an entertainment venue!

For that price you could buy 100 acres of land and build your own course... ...which I recommend you get started on right away! The course isn't going to build itself.

Nashville Ranks 4th in per-capital single family home building permits according to this article from Redfin (below). Also noteworthy: Minneapolis experienced a decrease in average rent that this article attributes to the city's elimination of SFH zoning in 2018. "Minneapolis is an apt example of how housing options and rental affordability improves when local governments change policies" with the words "change policies" being code for "get out of the way and let the market function". https://www.redfin.com/news/metros-building-new-construction-q1-2022/

I was half-joking with that answer.

How about Memphis? That's kind of "out west" and still very affordable, and still within TN. If you want to move to the Southwest you just have to know its a desert and water will always be a problem with or without the drought. If you know that going into it, I think you could still enjoy living there. Las Vegas was already the driest major city before the drought, so it's nothing new. To me, East Tennessee appears to be the "undiscovered country" that is still cheap but has a lot to offer in terms of outdoor activities. I think you should re-consider this strategy because you are missing out on the single biggest hedge against inflation by not owning a home. By a being a renter, not only will your rent go up with inflation (meaing you will save less unless your salary beats inflation), but you're missing out on capital appreciation. If I were you, I would buy a house no matter how far out you have to go to afford it. Even if you don't live there and just rent it out, you will still gain that appreciation over the long term. It's Atlanta 2.0 ... Just as many on this board have predicted. 100% Agree. Nashville has not changed their zoning fast enough to allow the types of high-density construction necessary to keep housing affordable in Davidson Co. And the NIMBY's are more powerful in Davidson Co versus the rural counties.

If people have so much of an asset that it is useless to the point of being purposefully discarded, that is not scarcity, that is abundance. Are you confusing "scarcity" in the economic sense with "poverty" in the political sense? It's possible to have a society that, as a whole, does not suffer from extreme scarcity of certain assets, however within that society certain individuals will still be "poor" due to their lack of those assets. However, that has more to do with those people not having any valuable goods or services to trade with other people in society. It is not a reflection of a society that is suffering from scarcity in the broadest sense, but rather a reflection of the uneven distribution of skills and assets which characterizes (and has characterized) every society from Soviet Russia to the tribal highlands of Papua New Guinea to Singapore. However, when comparing those three economies, it's pretty obvious which one has the least scarcity in the broadest economic sense, and it's no coincidence that one is also the most free market/capitalist. I agree with your list of outrageous violations of freedom being examples of perversion of the concept of property rights. I'm sure you are familiar with the Libertarian stance on all those issues, and it invariably upholds the doctrines of individual liberty and un-restricted voluntary exchange between individuals. I should point out that it is *your* system of unrestrained democracy that allowed those examples of oppression to arise and persist. The idealized Libertarian concept of a constitutional democracy involves greater limitations on the majority's ability to oppress the minority. The only other option would be a benevolent dictator or monarchy. But the examples you bring up are really more of an indictment of the failings of democracy than the concept of private property. Sticking to just the private property issue: A person has a right to keep the fruits of their labor - don't you agree? Yes, I think that is a valid statement, except perhaps for some uninhabited islands that were discovered relatively recently and haven't experienced any violent changes of ownership. However, that historical fact in and of itself is not a valid reason to discard an orderly system of private property ownership. It is most definitely an argument against the violent taking of land from peaceful owners - a practice which your government engages in on a regular basis - and which Libertarians oppose. The moral high ground is not from the property rights, it's from the non-violent peaceful exchange of property versus the violent confiscation of property. Ownership arising from peaceful exchange is morally superior to ownership arising from violent confiscations, whether that violent confiscation is incremental/fractional through regulation or outright via nationalization. That's the moral high ground of the Libertarian position: Peaceful exchange is better than violent confiscation. Now, you tell me why violent confiscation is better than peaceful exchange in your socialist system. You are once again complaining about an inescapable reality of life on earth: Scarcity in the economic sense. The answer to this scarcity is more free trade, not less. If land is scarce, you should be allowing everyone to employ the land they have to maximum utility and engaging in the widest possible variety of business on their land. Instead it seems you are interested in curtailing the free use of land, thereby limiting its utility and making it even more scarce in the economic sense. But it is true that when it comes to "discovering" natural resources, it is a finders-keepers rule. That just has to do with how resources are scattered over the face of the planet unevenly. Whoever puts in the work to search around and find them, they get to keep the spoils from their labor and ingenuity. If someone else chooses to have kids, they do so with full knowledge of what resources they will be able to gather and use to support their family. Another person's decision to have children does not in any way invalidate the work done by someone else to find and/or obtain scarce resources... Just as any bad decision by someone in society does not entitle them to be rescued by someone else who made smart decisions in the arena of asset accumulation. People need to interact peacefully based on voluntary exchange and a meeting-of-the-minds when it comes to trading value-for-value. Not declaring that their "needs" give them the right to take someone else's property violently. That would just devolve into a barbaric system of socialism based on violence. That doesn't change the fact that the system is designed to ensure those paying the taxes will not receive the benefits. That is moral outrage: Property taken violently with no value given in exchange. Your trapeze analogy would only be valid if the "safety net" consisted of a large group of people forced to stand under the trapeze act at gunpoint with their hands held up above their heads to catch the falling idiots. Let's flip your statement that you try to use to justify violence: You shouldn't begrudge people who have natural talents/luck/training/confidence just because some people don't have those things... And you never know... sometimes even the biggest idiot can become successful in business. Uhh... I think you know the Libertarian perspective on defense contractors and government suppliers and involvement in foreign wars. Don't forget: You are not talking to a Republican here. That example of national defense being a government service that everyone benefits from equally was just an example. There are others such as police, courts, international treaties, etc... Let's take this example. For this to be a valid comparison to your welfare/safety-net, the fire fighters would need to make an assessment about how "excessive" my house is before deciding whether to save part of it or any of it at all. They may decide to put out my neighbor's house because his house is small and he is poor, but they may decide to let mine catch fire and burn because my house is huge and nobody really needs that big of a house. The fire fighters will be around if I get a small house and it catches on fire, but they will do nothing if I have an excessively large house that is burning. That is a valid analogy to your welfare/safety-net system: Unequal treatment, unequal service provided, but equal outcomes at the most basic poverty level. For this to be a valid comparison to your welfare/safety-net system, the medical testing should be provided free to people who can't afford it, using funds taken from people who can afford it. Let's say that is the scenario (because it is for most public health clinics), and in response to that scenario, I offer the Libertarian perspective: People should be free to chose whether or not they fund a charity clinic through voluntary donations, because they know that funding a charity clinic will provide protection to them as well as those served by the clinic. However, if they chose not to fund the charity clinic and take their chances with community spreading of diseases, that is also their right as free individuals. Yep, my turn: In a Libertarian society, ER's would not be required to admit uninsured or unconscious people who do not have ID. You can't force someone to work for you just because you need their services - that's slavery and it's illegal under a Libertarian government. It's not a dodge, it's using your same materialistic/selfish mindset against your scenario. The very premise of your example where someone's assets are taken by force is vindictive, so I flipped that back on to you and showed you just how vindictive people with assets can behave when their assets are under threat of confiscation from vindictive poor people who try to take those assets by force. Those poor people are willing to inflict bodily harm on the rich people just to get the material wealth - - it doesn't get more vindictive than that. You'll find no discomfort about that topic with me: I could spend all day discussing the depravity or your socialist system based on violence, and have fun doing it! As a Libertarian, I would rather everyone just receive equal benefits and pay equal taxes and not even go down the road of unequal treatment in the first place. I would just showing you what un-equal benefits for un-equal taxes would look like, so take your pick of any of the ideas you came up with above if you want to see what the unequal-unequal scenario would look like. But that is not the Libertarian way. Those stats are all good reasons why women should be allowed to terminate their pregnancy at any time. Keep in mind I don't support any limitations on a woman's freedom to choose, so I think a States-Rights approach will result in major problems for states that do restrict freedom, which will become obvious, and result in the removal of those restrictions in time, or the development of some other solutions. But allowing states to do dumb things at the state level is the only way to avoid having the whole country experience dumb laws with no way to get away from them - as far as I can tell. Maybe you have a better idea about a system for allowing stupid laws to be implemented at a smaller local level so everyone else can see the terrible outcome and prevent it from happening in more places - I am open to suggestions. OK, I like the idea of your willing acceptance of duty kicking in at birth, but I still think the woman is immune to all charges of prenatal child abuse because it's her body and she can do with it whatever she wants. 100% agree with your statement about ending the pregnancy as early or as late as she wants. Here's where you flip from discussing the mother's freedom to do anything with her own body over to the separate issue of killing the fetus. From a Libertarian perspective, that is not merely a voluntary separation of two people who were engaged in free association (which is the mother's right) - that little detail about killing the fetus crosses over into the realm of violent behavior, which is a big no-no in a Libertarian society. The free market will determine whether or not those genes live/thrive/procreate, not an individual doctor or committee or government or even the mother. If the child grows up to survive on earth as a productive member of society who does not inflict violence upon others and engages in free and voluntary trade - that is the test of quality genes and they will have passed the test. Those who can't do those things - those are the genes that need to be removed from the gene pool, and the 2nd law of thermodynamics will take care of that unsavory duty. Libertarian perspective: It's definitely her decision to end the pregnancy, but not her choice about killing the kid. Two separate issues entirely. I like the distinction, but I still think the Libertarian perspective would be that she has a duty of care related to the drug dependent child, and that she shouldn't be charged with a crime for giving birth to a drug dependent child. Well in a Libertarian society there are no "illegal substances" and I doubt you will be able to come up with a logically coherent philosophical framework for why some substances should be illegal that does not also run afoul of all the statements you previously made about women being free to make choices with their bodies even if those choices are medically harmful. It's only hoop jumping if you know for a fact that 100% of the fetuses will die outside the mother. And you don't know that with 100% certainty, do you? Now this... is groundbreaking! I have to give you credit for perhaps being the first person to ever clearly outline why the fetus needs to be killed during an abortion: Self Defense. Bravo! I literally laughed out loud at the sheer genius of this argument! I am, of course, obliged to one-up you and respond thusly: The castle doctrine does not apply if the house guest is invited in voluntarily. So I could only see your castle doctrine being useful in cases of rape. In the case of consensual sex, the visitor was invited in the "home", and you can't invite someone inside and then kill them and claim "Castle Doctrine". It's not an unlimited license to kill whoever is inside your home - they have to be an un-invited intruder. As discussed previously, cases of rape are known immediately and quick countermeasures can be taken to prevent pregnancy, so the castle doctrine is of limited practical utility. Still though, it is tempting to say that it holds up as a valid reason to kill the fetus that was involved in the violent "breaking and entering" crime that occurred. On the other hand, let's say there is a thief who entered a house, stole a bunch of things and maybe shot a few people, and then escaped out the back window. If you discovered (or had reason to suspect) that the thief also brought their kid into the house during the break-in and left them hidden in the hall closet: Are you then free to throw open the door to the closet and gun down the kid?... or even let them live in the closet for 6 months with food and water and then throw open the door and gun down the kid? At some point the kid goes from being party to a violent intrusion to a welcomed house guest. I would argue that allowing the rape-fetus to develop to the point of viability as a baby that can live outside the mother is tantamount to letting that kid hide in the closet for six months with the homeowner's knowledge. You can't really claim they are uninvited at that point if you have been giving them food and water and letting them stay there - so Castle Doctrine does not apply. Maybe they would commit suicide, but that is their voluntary choice. Are you advocating for a system that pre-emptively kills people because they are likely to commit suicide in the future based on someone else's assessment of their future mental wellbeing? At the national level, no contraband. At the state level it comes back to the whole States-Rights-as-a-petri-dish-of-liberty concept. If a state starts making drugs (of any kind) illegal then it will become a comparative hotbed of crime and every other state will get to watch it descend into chaos. Lesson learned without the entire country having to suffer through that hell as we are now. If my neighbor is going to set off a miniature atomic bomb on their property that has absolutely zero effect on my property... well... then I hope they invite me over to watch that because how often do you get to see an atomic bomb go off? As long as the sonic boom doesn't cross over to my land, I don't care if they sonic boom on their land. In fact, I'm sure there are hundreds of sonic booms going off in my neighborhood after the annual chili cookoff at the county fair, but they don't affect me, so who cares? Really, they can do anything ranging from starting a cult to watching cable news on their land and as long as it doesn't affect me on my land then I don't really care. And choosing to wear seatbelts should be voluntary. That goes back to your earlier comment about keeping the gene pool pure, don't you think?

You know what? I would actually be OK with that... because we need height at any cost! Even if I can't look at it, just knowing it's there will make me feel better.

However their disagreement would be merely an emotional reaction to their injured national pride, and not based on any real fact-based arguments. Correct! The things I say are true based on their own merits, regardless of who says them.

Then they are choosing to stay and live under that law. Economic refugees often lack funds (hence the need for their move in the first place), but they move anyway knowing a little short-term hardship will pay off with long term prosperity in a land of freedom. So my rationale does not ignore the plight of those oppressed by state laws, but rather it accepts the possibility of oppression at the state level in order to avoid oppression at the national level, which is inescapable for all practical purposes. Now, before you say "It's not inescapable at the national level, they could leave the country", I will pre-emptively respond "If there is a lack of freedom in the US then it is bound to be worse outside of the US because no other country protects freedom to the degree that the US does". This really is the last bastion of freedom in the world and you need look no further than the restrictions on free speech that exist everywhere outside our borders - that's just one example.

Another example of this approach: As a libertarian I really hope California passes laws guaranteeing universal health care, universal basic income, universal child care, free college tuition, as well as a wealth tax and corporate taxes to cover the entire financial burden of those programs. That would be awesome in my opinion because the resulting economic collapse in CA would guarantee I would never see those laws passed in Tennessee.