Got destroyed in an argument

[AtarashiiSekai]

Somehow in my high school music class, we ended up in some political debate about the government's role and the nature of working... The person involved was a libertarian (in the American sense of the term) and he was arguing that the people who refuse to do a minimum-wage job when offered one deserve to be poor, and that most people, if given a chance, would never work and stay home and sit on their fat lazy ass and soak up government help. I just stumbled and was laughed at the whole time.

Comrades, could you help me out? Thanks! :)

[Brutus]

Why would they sit at home when they can work and fully enjoy the fruits of their labour under socialism? Why wouldn't they want to accumulate more commodities, and how can one do that? By working.
I'm not much help, but hopefully it'll give you some food for thought

[ellipsis]

Working a minimum wage job, you'd still be poor.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Ask him if he's ever had a degrading, soul-crushing, alienating, demoralizing minimum wage job. Then ask him why anybody(whether minimum wage or not) should subject themselves to enslavement by the capitalist class or being on the dole. Also should point out that you're most likely in poverty if you're living off of the minimum wage. I mean what's his point then? People that accept a minimum wage job deserve to be poor because they have a minimum wage job?

[Aussie Trotskyist]

Yeah, although the few libertarians I've exchanged words with believe the left is designed for people to be lazy, this is not the case.

Under socialism, people are compensated ('paid', but because money is slowly eliminated, that wouldn't be the right word), an equal amount to their work (somehow, libertarians think this is how capitalism works :rolleyes:). Under communism, all work for the benefit of the community. It would be assumed, therefore, that if a man doesn't work (and he is completely able to) he is not fed or housed.

You have to ask an anarchist about an anarchist society, but I'd imagine the principle would be the same.

[Rusty Shackleford]

In the spoiler is some data on living standards in socialist vs various capitalist countries. (not completely relevant, but useful.)

First of all, how many people, when looking for work, refuse a job they just got? And of those people that potentially refuse a job, how many of them have a better job waiting for them?



"The Soviet Union did much better then many comparable capitalist third world nations (in the per capita gdp sense) of 1928, despite losing 26-27 million in the second world war and 10s or 100 of billions of damages.

Although the most interesting observation is how most countries in the 20th century have essentially stayed in their respective categories of income, very few went from relatively rich to poor (East Asian Tigers: Japan, SK, Taiwan), and very few from relatively poor to rich (Southern cone of Latin America). The USSR, on the other hand, went from an HDI development comparable to colonial India to be the second world power.

In order to see the overall progressive nature of these societies relative to capitalism, examine the statistics around the Physical Quality of Life Index. At the level of economic development socialist states were equivalent with middle income capitalist states. At every indicator they proved to be superior to these countries as well as often equivalent and sometimes exceeding the high income capitalist states. According to a 1982 study published in Critical Sociologist examining the averages of the 13 socialist countries during the mid-1970s, the PQLI for socialist countries was 88, compared to the middle income capitalist countries’ 66 and the high income capitalist countries’ 89. Life expectancy at birth was 68 for socialist countries, compared to the 60 for middle income capitalist countries and 69 for high income capitalist countries. Infant mortality per thousand was 41 for socialist states, compared to the 78 for middle income capitalist countries and 31 for high income. Literacy was 93% compared with the middle income capitalist countries’ 62% and high income capitalist countries’ 87%. Secondary school enrollment for socialist countries was 62% compared with the middle income capitalist countries’ 42% and high income capitalist countries’ 75%. Higher education enrollment for socialist countries was 15% compared with the 10% for middle income capitalist countries and 21% percent for high income capitalist countries. Women as percentage of labor force was 44% for socialist countries compared to the 26% for middle income capitalist countries and 33% for high income capitalist countries. The unemployment rate for socialist countries was non-existent, compared to the 7.4% for middle income capitalist countries and 2.3% for high income socialist countries. The annual inflation rate was 2% for socialist countries compared with the 21% for middle income capitalist countries and 13% high income capitalist countries. The Income of the lowest 20% of socialist countries was 9.9% of national income compared with the 4.6% of national income for middle income capitalist countries and 5.1% of national income for high income capitalist countries. Income of the highest 5% of the population was 11.3% of national income compared with the 28.3% of national income for the middle income capitalist countries and 17.7% for high income capitalist countries. The gini index for socialist countries was .244 compared with the .506 for middle income capitalist countries and .400 for high income capitalist countries. A 1988 study published in the Journal of Public Health Policy, a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, showed that socialist countries retained this advantage. This data is even more impressive if one considers that the majority of these states began as lower income societies."

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_02-2010.xls

[Oswy]

Somehow in my high school music class, we ended up in some political debate about the government's role and the nature of working... The person involved was a libertarian (in the American sense of the term) and he was arguing that the people who refuse to do a minimum-wage job when offered one deserve to be poor, and that most people, if given a chance, would never work and stay home and sit on their fat lazy ass and soak up government help. I just stumbled and was laughed at the whole time.

Comrades, could you help me out? Thanks! :)

Such arguments treat the economic arrangements that exist under capitalism normatively, arrangements in which one group of people monopolise - through force - the earth, its resources and the productive forces which grow out of them for their advantage and the disadvantage of the remainder who must suffer exploitation or alienation. Poor people are routinely demotivated in capitalist society because it is a society which does not reward them, financially or socially, but is instead organised for the maximum benefit of an owning class. The point about capitalism being treated normatively by libertarians and other defenders of capitalism is a very important one to remember because it reduces most of their points, including their 'strongest', to a form of question begging.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I have been on so many revleft discussions that I have become excelent at debate.
No one deserves to be poor, and even if one did. Who would decide who deserves to be poor? The economy? The economy gives more money to the rich and steals money away from the poor. The poor worker has to work 10 hours per day (overtime included of course) to feed his family, and often his money does not last till the end of the month. Meanwhile the rich man in his penthouse does not have to do anything, he just tells others what to do for him, and they bring him gigantic ammounts of money. Who deserves to have money? The man who works like a horse to feed his family, or the man who does not work, but gets paid in astronomical ammounts?

And that is how you break an american libertarian's argument.

[tuwix]

Somehow in my high school music class, we ended up in some political debate about the government's role and the nature of working... The person involved was a libertarian (in the American sense of the term) and he was arguing that the people who refuse to do a minimum-wage job when offered one deserve to be poor, and that most people, if given a chance, would never work and stay home and sit on their fat lazy ass and soak up government help. I just stumbled and was laughed at the whole time.

Comrades, could you help me out? Thanks! :)

I've answered similar question a few day ago and a I reiterate my answer:

I think you should attack base of their ideology which is free market. Use a definition that confirm that market is regulated by nothing (from dictionary.reference.com or wikipedia ). And then show that its is just impossible to be a market that is regulated by nothing. If there is a state or not, there always is someone who interferes with freedom of market through taxes or rackets or whatever.*

You can also deny their freedom showing that wage labor is a paid slavery and slavery has nothing to do with freedom.*

[Oswy]

It's also worth pointing out that any US-style libertarian worthy of the name doesn't beleive in things like 'minimum wage', they believe that wages should be determined by whatever the prospective employer and prospective employee are able to negotiate. It follows that where there are more people who need work than there is work available the employer can force the unemployed into a race to the bottom - the workers willing to accept the lowest wage and worst conditions are hired, everyone else can go starve. That's real libertarianism. Such libertarians have no problem with scenarios in which employees are required to suck their bosses' dicks every morning in order to keep their job because the employee can always resign and be 'free' to starve. If the libertarian in your class defends minimum-wage you should point out that he's a fake.

[Zealot]

You got destroyed and laughed at with such a poor argument? It really isn't that hard to refute. It's essentially the "incentive" argument which I'm guessing was used even during the time of Marx since it is responded to in the Manifesto:


It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.

According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.

Kropotkin also had a good response to this, which I saw quoted in a recent thread somewhere:


They fear that without compulsion the masses will not work.

But during our own lifetime, have we not heard the same fears expressed twice? Once, by the anti-abolitionists in America before the emancipation of the Negroes, and, for a second time, by the Russian nobility before the liberation of the serfs? "Without the whip the Negro will not work," said the anti-abolitionist. "Free from their master's supervision the serfs will leave the fields uncultivated," said the Russian serf-owners.

This "incentive" argument is basically a threat argument since it essentially claims that without being threatened or "incentivized" by a shitty minimum wage job (lol) everyone would sit around scratching their asses while waiting for food to fall from the sky. This is, obviously, absurd to say the least.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

The arguements about 'entitlement' and who's deserving or not...we're all fucking human beings, we all have an inalienable right to live, to have food and shelter, to enjoy some level of comfort (not just live in a barn with some slop in bucket).
The thing about capitalism that has always eaten at me and what makes me continue to believe it's wrong and needs to go is; there are some who have so much wealth and leisure time that they won't even manage to enjoy it all in their lifetime, even their kids or grandkids won't manage to consume it all. They don't need it, they just have it and guard it jealously.
Meanwhile, there are some (considerably more) who just die because of lack of the most basic needs of life.
That needs to be addressed, because no one has any choice about where they are born, don't always have a choice about where can go to better themselves, can't always obtain even a basic living.
No one fucking 'deserves' to suffer, to die, to beg, to hope in vain just because there are some in the world who think they 'deserve' to 'have it all' and fuck the human cost.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a pointless rant. Hope the point didn't get too lost.

[redblood_blackflag]

It's also worth pointing out that any US-style libertarian worthy of the name doesn't beleive in things like 'minimum wage'

Below are two excerpts which explain why the "US Style Liberarians" dont believe in "minimum wage," but the "US Style Libertarians" aren't libertarians, they're "Libertarians" -



We have already seen some of the harmful results of arbitrary governmental efforts to raise the price of favored commodities. The same sort of harmful results follow efforts to raise wages through minimum wage laws. This ought not to be surprising, for a wage is, in fact, a price. It is unfortunate for clarity of economic thinking that the price of labor’s services should have received an entirely different name from other prices. This has prevented most people from recognizing that the same principles govern both.
Thinking has become so emotional and so politically biased on the subject of wages that in most discussions of them the plainest principles are ignored. People who would be among the first to deny that prosperity could be brought about by artificially boosting prices, people who would be among the first to point out that minimum price laws might be most harmful to the very industries they were designed to help, will nevertheless advocate minimum wage laws, and denounce opponents of them, without misgivings.
Yet it ought to be clear that a minimum wage law is, at best, a limited weapon for combatting the evil of low wages, and that the possible good to be achieved by such a law can exceed the possible harm only in proportion as its aims are modest. The more ambitious such a law is, the larger the number of workers it attempts to cover, and the more it attempts to raise their wages, the more certain are its harmful effects to exceed any possible good effects.
The first thing that happens, for example, when a law is passed that no one shall be paid less than $106 for a forty-hour week is that no one who is not worth $106 a week to an employer will be employed at all. You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemployment. You do harm all around, with no comparable compensation.
The only exception to this occurs when a group of workers is receiving a wage actually below its market worth. This is likely to happen only in rare and special circumstances or localities where competitive forces do not operate freely or adequately; but nearly all these special cases could be remedied just as effectively, more flexibly and with far less potential harm, by unionization.
It may be thought that if the law forces the payment of a higher wage in a given industry, that industry can then charge higher prices for its product, so that the burden of paying the higher wage is merely shifted to consumers. Such shifts, however, are not easily made, nor are the consequences of artificial wage-raising so easily escaped. A higher price for the product may not be possible: it may merely drive consumers to the equivalent imported products or to some substitute. Or, if consumers continue to buy the product of the industry in which wages have been raised, the higher price will cause them to buy less of it. While some workers in the industry may be benefited from the higher wage, therefore, others will be thrown out of employment altogether. On the other hand, if the price of the product is not raised, marginal producers in the industry will be driven out of business; so that reduced production and consequent unemployment will merely be brought about in another way.
When such consequences are pointed out, there are those who reply: “Very well; if it is true that the X industry cannot exist except by paying starvation wages, then it will be just as well if the minimum wage puts it out of existence altogether.” But this brave pronouncement overlooks the realities. It overlooks, first of all, that consumers will suffer the loss of that product. It forgets, in the second place, that it is merely condemning the people who worked in that industry to unemployment. And it ignores, finally, that bad as were the wages paid in the X industry, they were the best among all the alternatives that seemed open to the workers in that industry; otherwise the workers would have gone into another*. If, therefore, the X industry is driven out of existence by a minimum wage law, then the workers previously employed in that industry will be forced to turn to alternative courses that seemed less attractive to them in the first place. Their competition for jobs will drive down the pay offered even in these alternative occupations. There is no escape from the conclusion that the minimum wage will increase unemployment.
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

* If there were options. This part seems to ignore the reality of imposed scarcity in the "job market," but this is addressed in various ways throughout the book itself- this excerpt being part of it overall, as the end result is an increase in unemployment/decrease in available positions.




The Libertarian Contradiction
Perhaps the best illustration of how the belief in "authority" warps thinking and gets in the way of achieving freedom is the fact that there is a "Libertarian" political party. The heart and soul of libertarianism is the non-aggression principle: the idea that initiating force or fraud against another is always wrong, and that force is justified only if used in defense against aggression. The principle is perfectly sound, but trying to make it a reality via any political process is completely self-contradictory, because "government" and non-aggression are utterly incompatible. If the organization called 'government" stopped using any threats of violence, except to defend against aggressor, it would cease to be "government." It would have no right right to rule, no right to "legislate," no monopoly on protection, and no right to do anything which any other human being does not have the right to do.

One excuse for libertarianb political activism is the claim that society can transform from its current authoritarian arrangement into a truly free society only if it does so slowly and gradually. However, that has never happened, and it never wll happen, for a very simple reason: either there is such a thing as "authority," or there is not. Either there is a legitimate ruling class with the right to rule everyone, or each individual owns himself and is beholden only to his own conscience. The two are mutually exclusive paradigms. It is impossible for there to be an in-between, because whenever there is a conflict between what "authority" commands and what one's individua judgement dictates, it is impossible to obey both. One must outrank the other. If "authority" outranks conscience, then the common folk are all the rightful property of the ruling class, in which case freedom cannot and should not exist. If, on the other hand, conscience outranks "authority," then each person owns himself, and each much always follow his own judgment of right and wrong, no matter what any self-proclaimed "authority" or "law" may command. There cannot be a "gradual shift" between the two, nor can there be a compromise.

Trying to convert libertarian into a political movement requires a mangled, perverted hybrid of the two options: the idea that a system of domination ("government") can be used to achieve individual freedom. Whenever a "libertarian" lobbies for legislation or runs for office, he is, by his own actions, conceding that "authority" and man-made "law" is legitimate. But if one actually believed in the non-aggression principle, he would understand that the commands of politicians ("laws") cannot trump that principle, and any "law" that is contrary to the principle is illegitimate. This goes for the idea of "unalienable rights" as well. If an individual has an inherent right to do something, then, by definition, he does not need any permission from tyrants to do it. He does not need to lobby for a change in "legislation," and does not need to try to elect some master who will choose to respect his rights.

Anyone who actually believes in the principle of non-aggression- the underlying premise of libertarianism- mustbe an anarchist, as it is logically impossible to oppose the initiation of violence while supporting any form of "government," which is nothing but violence. And libertarians cannot be constitutionalists, and the constitution quite plainly (in Article I, Section 8) claims to bestow upon some people theright to initiate violence, via "taxation" and "regulation," among other things. The principle of libertarianism logically rules out all "government," even a constitutional republic. (Anyone who tries to describe a "government" which commits no acts of aggression will describe, at best, a private security company.) Nonetheless, so many people have been so thoroughly trained into the authoriarian mindset that even when they can see the obvious moral superiority of living by the non-aggression principle (the basis of libertarianism), they still refuse to give up the absurd notion that the right to rule ("authority") can be used as a tool for freedom and justice.

There is a fundamental difference between arguing about what the master should do- which is what all "politics" consists of- and declaring that the master has no right to rule at all. To be a libertarian candidate is to try to do both of these conflicting things. It obviously legitimizes the office the candidate seeks to hold, even while the candidate is claiming to believe in the principles of non-aggression and self-ownership, which completely rule out the possibility of any legitimate "public office." In short, if the goal is individual freedom, "political action" is not only worthless, it is hugely counter-productive, because the main thing it accomplishes is to legitimize the ruling class's power. The only way to achieve freedom is to first achieve mental freedom, by realizing tat no one has any right to rule another, which means that "government" is never legitimate, it is never moral, it is never even real. Those who have not yet realized that, and continue to try to petition "the system" to make them free, are playing right into the hands of the tyrants. Even petitioning for lowers levels of "taxation" or "government" spending, or asking for things to be "legalized" or "deregulated," or begging for other reductions in "government" control over the people, still do nothing to address the real problem, and in fact add to the real problem, by unwittingly repeating and reinforcing the idea that if the people want freedom, they need to have freedom "legalized." Political action, by it's very nature, always empowers the ruling class and disempowers the people.

If enough people recognizde and let go of the "authority" myth, there is no need for any election, any political action, or any revolution. If the people did not imagine themselves to have an obligation to obey the politicians, the politicians would literally be ignored into irrelevance. In fact, the belief in "democracy" dramatically reduces the ability of the people to resist tyranny, by limiting the ways in which they can resist it. For example, if 49% of the population wanted lower levels of "taxation," but maintained their belief in "authority," they could accomplish exactly nothing via "democracy." On the other hand, if even 10% of the population wanted no "taxation" at all and had escaped the myth of "authority" (including the "democratic" kind), they could achieve their easily by simple non-compliance. Using the U.S. as an example, if twenty million people, less than 10% of American "taxpayers"- openly refused to cooperate with attempts by the IRS to extort them, the ruling class would be powerless to do anything about it, and the infamous Internal Revenue Service, along with the massive extortion racket it administers, would grind to a halt. It would be utterly impossible for 100,000 IRS employees to continually rob millions of Americans who felt no obligation to pay. In fact, it would be impossible for any agency to enforce any "law" which even afraction of the public could disobey with no feeling of shame or guilt. Brute force alone could not achieve compliance.

Any large population of people that did not perceive obedience, in and of itself, to be a virtue, and felt no inherent duty to obey the commands of those claiming the right to rule, would be utterly impossible to oppress. Wars occur only because people feel obliged to go into battle when "authority" tells them to. (As the saying goes, "what if they had a war, and nobody came?") As long as the people can be duped into perpetually begging for freedom to be "legalized," they wlil be easy to subjugate and control. As long as a person's perceived duty to obey "authority" outranks his own personal beliefs and individual judgment, his beliefs and opinions are, as a pricatical matter, irrelevant. Unless and until a freedom advocate is willing to disobey the master- to "break the law"- his supposed love of freedom is a lie, and will accomplish nothing.

Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition, pgs 144-146,

[Thirsty Crow]

Somehow in my high school music class, we ended up in some political debate about the government's role and the nature of working... The person involved was a libertarian (in the American sense of the term) and he was arguing that the people who refuse to do a minimum-wage job when offered one deserve to be poor, and that most people, if given a chance, would never work and stay home and sit on their fat lazy ass and soak up government help. I just stumbled and was laughed at the whole time.

That is the point of communism.

Well, not to soak up governemnt help. And probably not to sit on our lazy asses. But to have all of the enormous productive powers of mankind in such an asocial arrangement as to significantly reduce necessary working hours per capita and provide everyone with at least their basic needs such as housing, food, utilities. And have shitloads of free time on our hands.

[Oswy]

Below are two excerpts which explain why the "US Style Liberarians" dont believe in "minimum wage," but the "US Style Libertarians" aren't libertarians, they're "Libertarians"...

Yeah, these ultra-capitalists who self-identify as libertarians (they seem to dominate the term in US political culture at least) will offer any amount of explanations within a normative capitalist economic framework to defend their positions, like their rejection of a minimum wage. Though some are more inclined to reject things like minimum wage on principle (as it is a state interference with free market exchanges) while others want to persuade us of some technical, pragmatic, reason for rejection. Taking the latter approach is risky for them of course, putting what is believed to 'work' before what is philosophically acceptable.

Personally I won't be sucked into debates over things like minimum-wage because by doing so we allow the argument to take place within a normative economic framework (i.e. within the framework of the capitalist system itself, rather than deconstructing the whole enterprise).

In simple terms the employer/employee exchange under ultra-capitalist libertarianism amounts to a fight between people desperate for wage labour to go as low as possible, hence my usual reference to the blowjob scenario - which the libertarians have no answer for.

[redblood_blackflag]

Somehow in my high school music class, we ended up in some political debate about the government's role and the nature of working... The person involved was a libertarian (in the American sense of the term) and he was arguing that the people who refuse to do a minimum-wage job when offered one deserve to be poor, and that most people, if given a chance, would never work and stay home and sit on their fat lazy ass and soak up government help. I just stumbled and was laughed at the whole time.

Comrades, could you help me out? Thanks! :)


He really has no basis to say what "most people" would do, or what anyone would do, to be honest. That isn't something you can actually know, though an individual might be able to guess based on other examples-- this really means nothing, in the end, though.
Nobody can know what anyone will do, in any situation.

The part about deserving to be poor isn't any type of argument, really.
He might be trying to articulate something about if they are unwilling to produce or work, why should others be forced to take care of them- but it seems he's just putting his opinion and subjective values out there, and not really debating "politics" in any way.

Something could be said of corporatism and monopoly limiting people's opportunity in the first place, which can drive them to the position of collecting welfare or what have you.


Other than that, I personally don see much to argue here, as theyre really not making any type of point, just saying things that could never be proven.

[AtarashiiSekai]

He really has no basis to say what "most people" would do, or what anyone would do, to be honest. That isn't something you can actually know, though an individual might be able to guess based on other examples-- this really means nothing, in the end, though.
Nobody can know what anyone will do, in any situation.

The part about deserving to be poor isn't any type of argument, really.
He might be trying to articulate something about if they are unwilling to produce or work, why should others be forced to take care of them- but it seems he's just putting his opinion and subjective values out there, and not really debating "politics" in any way.

Something could be said of corporatism and monopoly limiting people's opportunity in the first place, which can drive them to the position of collecting welfare or what have you.


Other than that, I personally don see much to argue here, as theyre really not making any type of point, just saying things that could never be proven.

They laughed at me when I said that no one would want to be lazy and people would want to work eventually. They claim they know tons of people who were like that, who deserved to be poor because they wouldn't work even if they were offered minimum wage jobs when they were offered it.

He says he was a 'constitutionalist' who believed that the constitution was not a living document and was to be followed in original terms. I tried to maintain decorum and not burst into laughter after hearing that. XD

He somehow came to the conclusion that all they need to do is either start a business or suck it up and take a job, but not get things like food stamps and welfare.

[Nakidana]

Somehow in my high school music class, we ended up in some political debate about the government's role and the nature of working... The person involved was a libertarian (in the American sense of the term) and he was arguing that the people who refuse to do a minimum-wage job when offered one deserve to be poor, and that most people, if given a chance, would never work and stay home and sit on their fat lazy ass and soak up government help. I just stumbled and was laughed at the whole time.

Comrades, could you help me out? Thanks! :)

Just a short comment on debating; you have to realize that there is a difference between written debate and oral debate. Written debate gives time for reasoned argument while oral debate is really more about "dissing" the other guy and playing the crowd than anything else. If you can make fun of the other guy and have the crowd laughing and cheering then you've "won" the debate regardless of whether your reasoning is flawed. Also the crowd might've been on his side initially, maybe he has more friends in the crowd than you do.

Anyway, this doesn't mean you shouldn't know anything about the issue. You need to be able to answer quickly and with wit. In order to answer quickly knowing the issue inside and out and having had the debate many times before helps an enormous amount. He'll hardly have stated his argument before you've shot it down. So in order not to stumble, you need to know the issue.

About the wit, well, it's really something that comes with practice. Also, listening to other debates helps a lot. So, watch YouTube videos of debates and just get into a lot of debates at school. And of course, write on forums, really helps a lot.

[BIXX]

Being an anarcho-communist (a position that 99% of the people at my school regard as contradictory) in a high school with many many rich white kids, I end up in debates like this a lot. I also end up going off on a long explanation for which my peers barely understand. However, the more you debate with YOUR PARENTS, the better. If they agree with you, have them play DA, and switch it up, play DA and have them argue your position. But your parents will on average be able to come up with better arguments than your classmates ever could, plus, it'll increase your reasoning skills far more.
My style of spoken debate is to know the very basics of what I'm arguing for, and as soon as a debate seems to be coming, figure out how my personal tendency would solve that issue. Constantly be working out new ideas in the back of your head, while making sure to refute every point they come up with as soon as it comes out of their mouth, while at the same time, adding in a little thing to compare it to that will either make bystanders laugh at your opponent, or appeal to their emotions, such as finding real world examples to compare it to or hypothetical situations that would occur under their system.

[ckaihatsu]

[S]ome are more inclined to reject things like minimum wage on principle (as it is a state interference with free market exchanges)


Since (some) libertarians often like to *appear* "left" by merely taking a baby step away from the status quo, it would be most telling to see what proportion of their political time is spent on which issues, exactly.

Libertarians *can* be roundly critical of imperialist war efforts, making them 'left nationalists' (my term), but if they decide to spend most of their time and efforts on free-market-oriented rhetoric then they're really not being helpful at all.

[ckaihatsu]

He somehow came to the conclusion that all they need to do is either start a business or suck it up and take a job, but not get things like food stamps and welfare.


This is the kind of issue that allows us to definitively place a libertarian on one side of the fence or another -- using the class divide we can use a which-class-benefits context to counterpose one class' interests against the other's.

So, if the libertarian position is inherently critical of the status quo, then which side, left or right, will it side with -- ?

On this issue of government economic support, inquire which should be the *priority* for a minimalist-state ideology: To radically downsize the existing military apparatus and all forms of corporate handouts, or to go after the population of individuals who are personally assisted by social service programs -- ?


Also:

Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

http://s6.postimage.org/fzydhpbsd/2432077150046342459rdnvq_H_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/fzydhpbsd/)

[Comrade #138672]

And have shitloads of free time on our hands.That would be bad. What would these people do with all that free time? Watch porn all day long? Set buildings on fire out of boredom? Become terrorists? :( Hard work creates Personality, Morals and Values. :rolleyes: Without all that, how could we get rich from you by sitting on your backs?

[o well this is ok I guess]

"factory after factory, automation after automation, and they still want us working eight hours. The fuck is the point of that?"

Argument done.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

His premise is clearly moronic, since, as human society clearly precedes capitalism, wage labour, etc., and we're not all dead, obviously people (generally) have been inclined to work to support themselves and their communities without capital's metaphorical gun to their backs.
Secondly, given the character of existing labour and production, geared towards making hideous sneakers and poison snack foods, I think there's a strong ethical argument for not working (since most available work is liable to make the world shittier, rather than better, especially when we're talking about minimum wage).
Finally - dignity. Why should anyone be compelled to suffer a boss who says, essentially, "I'd pay you less, but it's illegal." Minimum wage is an insult, and nobody should have to work for less than they can live on.

Also - high school. Tell him to fucking move out of Daddy's house and live without any financial support.