A short thought

[fpb]

If you believe in the free market, you MUST NOT allow a monopoly or a cartel to happen. If you do not regard a monopoly or cartel as the worst thing that can happen to a free market, you do not believe in free markets at all. And you will have a sweet time making sure, because businessmen, as a rule, hate competition.

Comments

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

"how does one cope with a man like that?"

Try courtesy.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I did. He did not.
Please notice the reaction of fishlivejournal, a wholly uninvolved stranger, to the episode. That should tell you how it looks.

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

Now that I've had time to have a look at Superversive's own LJ - you both come across as incredibly frustrated, having beaten your heads against brick walls one time too many.

And further, having been talking to each other in different languages. Frex, the tyrant/totalitarian dispute. Your position, if I understand it correctly, is that there is no practical difference between the two, that tyranny inevitably becomes totalitarianism?
That's a *practical* consideration, where he has been making a *technical* distinction. Neither of you can really address what the other is saying because you aren't actually talking about the same thing.
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Maybe reversing roles will help. Suppose you and he were discussing a historical matter: one in which both you and he mourn the lack of primary documents, and agree that the secondary documents have been compromised. All well so far. However, the subject of tertiary documents comes up - and he treats them as the same as the secondary documents.
Now sure, he would be correct in so far as they are also compromised, but as a historian I assume you would object to having secondary and tertiary documents treated identically? Even if, for practical purposes in this case, they were equally unreliable?

Hope you don't mind my sticking my oar in!