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Libertarianism -- I just don't buy it.

MyDoorsAreOpen

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I judge any ideology and 'system' in terms of how good it is at uniting the most, and alienating the fewest.

Despite the fact that I can be a scofflaw and a very self-reliant person, I cannot bring myself to sympathize with Libertarians. The reason is that I don't think Libertarian policies, if put into action, would build very strong or cohesive community values. Go ahead and say I've spent too much time in Asia, but I think it's incredibly important for most people (granted not everyone) to see themselves as part of something larger than just themself, and bonding into a community necessarily involves submitting to decisions reached as a group, including a few that you personally might not like. To me, the prospect of having a network of support is worth this price. I bet most other people would also agree that this is a worthy tradeoff, if they took a good hard look at their life and the decisions they've made that have gone against what they personally might have wanted, but helped them bond better with others.

I take joy in flying under the radar and getting away with something I'm forbidden from doing. Don't we all? I've been arrested and fined and put on probation for drugs, and this has not made me a crusader for legalization. Nor has it made me curse the system. Not that I'd MIND legalization of pot, but the point is, it's more made me be like 'I'd better get back on top of my flying-under-the-radar game.' It's like getting to a higher level of an obstacle course or video game -- you don't get pissed the new obstacles are harder, you just accept that they're there and find a way around them Seriously, there is no rule that cannot be broken by someone crafty enough. Doing away with all government involvement into my life might make me freer to do what I want, but I also think it has the potential to make me lonlier and more fearful of other people.

What is real freedom, anyway? Big philosophical question. I really think freedom is something of a zero-sum game. The freer you are to do one thing, the less free you are to do something else. If I'm free to walk out my front door without being attacked or having to dodge lots of toxic pollution, it's because a good chunk of my income is NOT free for me to spend as I wish. I'm free to write an inflamatory opinion article in the paper, but this will decrease my freedom to patronize certain businesses whose owners I've offended. The freer I am to break traffic rules (ever drive in the third world?), the less free I am to go cheap on auto or health insurance, and the less free I am to bike or walk down a busy street. We all have to choose which freedoms matter more to us, and I fail to see how freedom from authoritative intervention into our private lives is THE freedom that's in the best interest of most. I don't want to live under the law of the jungle, nor do most people.

Most of all, if makes me perplexed to hear anyone try and convince me that Libertarianism is what any rational, thinking mind should arrive at. Just because you allow there to be authorities that make decisions for you to abide by doesn't mean you have to let them think for you. Indeed, I think the questioning of specific polices by rational, thinking citizens is what makes government, and its decisions that govern your life, better.
 
Libertarianism is one of those ideas like socialism - works great on paper, but fucking sucks to the core in real life.

Libertarianism doesn't work because most people are dumb and selfish, plain and simple. If people were at minimum more intelligent, it would work just fine - people would realize that working together and setting up systems is beneficial to everyone, so everyone would just do it (traffic law is a perfect example).

I mean, if you really look at it, no political or economic system actually works in real life in its pure form. Capitalism would lead straight to slavery, socialism would lead straight to everyone dying of starvation, and libertarianism would lead straight to everyone winning darwin awards (or dying at the hands of recipients!).

Now I do think your argument has one serious flaw: you talk about how "flying under the radar" is something you enjoy. You obviously like being challenged, and when you do a cost benefit analysis, you'd rather play that game than a different one. That's all well and good, but can you really make a political point by saying that *you enjoy* something? I'd like making lots of money by forcing other people to do my work for me. Does that mean I should go play up capitalism? Hardly.

Indeed, Libertarianism is exactly what any rational, thinking *mind* should arrive at. Whether living, breathing human beings should come up with it is another thing...

I always just call myself a Libertarian at heart. I'd love it to be that way, but if you don't wear a seatbelt and my car hits yours, my insurance goes way, way up. And if we don't have police, a robber will likely be at my front door in no time. It's all about cost-benefit. How much are you willing to give up for any one thing? What privileges do you have to get back to make your forfeiture worth it? And beyond that, what forfeitures will the general public be willing to make for a given privilege? (for example, people in Soviet Russia weren't real willing to work very hard and have their money taken away to get food and shelter in return)
 
Best party in the united states, and that is coming from a socialist.

It would be amazing if we could vote in a Libertarian.

Better than a Dem or Rep that is for sure.

Dems and Reps continually support personal income tax and other measures, and are all around a fucking joke as far as principals go.

If you want a serious examination of politics, check out "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell.

Even though everyone thought he was an anti socialist, he was a Democratic Socialist.

This book is about the Spanish civil war.

http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/index.html

I believe in Libertarian/Democratic Socialism, same as George Orwell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
 
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MDAO and kitty,

okay, let's hate libertarianism. because the idea that YOU own YOUR body and mind is rubbish. the government, of course, deserves to make our moral and health decisions based on the prevailing prejudices of society

The reason is that I don't think Libertarian policies, if put into action, would build very strong or cohesive community values.
what the hell?

libertarianism is not to get rid of values. society keeps its values

the difference is that A. the government does not get to enforce with violence and punishment any whimsical moral "values" society comes up with and B. individuals with differing values can live their lives according to their values, as long as they don't harm others...

you really don't need to throw people in prison and write thousands of laws to build 'cohesive community values'. in any case, shouldnt community values be freedom and a lack of problem-causing laws, hence, libertarianism naturally emerging?

a group of people values not taking drugs? okay, they don't have to take drugs, but do they have the right to do more harm to society and individuals with prohibition than drugs could ever hope to do?
 
There's harm and there's harm. The government violating someone's human rights is blatant harm, that we agree on. But there's a subtler sort of harm that comes in the form of behaviors that may feel right to one individual or small group, but which eat away at the moral fibers that enable a nation to feel and act as a single people. Polygamy is a good example. Most industrialized peoples have given it the thumbs down, because it tends to create a seething underclass of angry, sexually frustrated young men who have no one to marry. Wouldn't a libertarian, though, argue that the polygamist was doing no harm to anyone, and therefore he ought to be able to marry as many wives as he pleases? After all, that's his private personal life, and what right has the government to intervene in that? He sees a spark fly between one of his wives and another dude? In a libertarian utopia, he can shoot the guy dead for that, because he and his have been infringed upon.

This is probably the part where you say, 'But the society would still not tolerate polygamy, even in the absence of a government law against multiple marriage licenses.' Maybe. But two things come to mind. First, who's to say there wouldn't be a large enough minority of (probably wealthy and status-conscious) men who would choose to take more than one woman, and not give a flying fuck about what anyone else thinks of them? Who's to say this small minority wouldn't cause a critical imbalance in the gender ratio? I wouldn't live in a place that had 95 women for every 100 men. Second, the means people would use to settle issues like this would look like something out of the Wild West or an inner-city ghetto -- 'You live too large, you gonna die'. You'd see guys with harems getting murdered and starting turf wars. Hmm... that or the whole problem getting prevented at the getgo by one simple law that intrudes into my private life. Toughie.

I take a look at a place like Brazil or South Africa, where for anyone who can afford it, "police" and neighborhood infrastructure are bought from private corporations. I wouldn't trade for this.

Do I agree that punishing drug users is re-god-damn-diculous? Yes. But I think that if all recreational drugs were freely available, enough people (who wouldn't otherwise touch them) would abuse the harder ones and mar the productivity and integrity of the groups the belonged to that there would be serious consequences for everyone's wellbeing. I'm all for research into drug vaccines and antidotes, and I'm all for rehabilitation rather than incarceration. But I can't say I'm all for across the board legalization.
 
^no, libertarians don't want to legalize every crime, they want to legalize consensual crimes in particular

they hold the idea that my freedom* ends where yours begins, but they do not advocate "complete" freedom

edit: typo
 
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lib·er·tar·i·an Pronunciation (lbr-târ-n)
n.
1. One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
2. One who believes in free will.

P.S.

I am glad the OP thinks Cannabis prohibition is some kind of fucking fun video game.

Try going to prison for 10 years like some of the growers out there, and maybe you will see it isn't all fun and games.
 
I know what lebertarianism is.

What I was pointing at is that qwe's description is rather anarchic, and does not highlight what libertarianism is all about (IMO, selfishness).
 
Libertarianism is NOT about selfishness AT ALL. It *is* about self-promotion and self-sustenance, but not selfishness. If you are completely selfish in a libertarian society, you get fucked. If you refuse to work with others or share (or insert any other thing people tend to be taught when they are three years old), it is to the detriment of the whole. That's pretty obvious when you look at government funding for roads and those sorts of things, or any community progress that gets made as, well, a community, whether monetarily funded or not. I highly doubt everyone's going to go out and pave the roads in front of their houses on their own, much less the highways. And I really doubt that people are going to build an electrical plant to service a statewide area on their own.

And that's where my unfortunate argument comes in. People are just too dumb, lazy, and selfish to understand that. If you and I don't toss our 2 cents in the pot, our freeway doesn't get paved. Our streetlights don't get turned on. Our trash doesn't get collected. But people don't have the foresight to acknowledge that fact. That's why libertarianism doesn't work in the real world.

On the flip side, it's readily apparent that overbearing government doesn't work either. I'm definitely of the volition that the federal government should never pass a law unless they need to in order to prevent a state or local government from infringing on personal rights.
 
^sorry but none of your post is arguing against libertarianism, you're arguing against ending gov't maintenance of roads, which is not part of the libertarian platform..

libertarianism has nothing to do with selfishness, self promotion, or self sustenance. it has to do with the principle of freedom
 
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Jamshyd said:
So by qwe's definition, I take it that libertarianism is just another form of Anarchy?
i was actually thinking that MDAO was getting his libertarianism and his anarchism mixed up, but maybe it's just me. :\
 
libertarianism cannot be anarchy. In the american sense of hte word anyways, as they live and die by our constitution and as minimal of a goverment presence as possible, but still recognize the need for.. courts, police, military, and the 3 branches of government.
 
qwe said:
^sorry but none of your post is arguing against libertarianism, you're arguing against ending gov't maintenance of roads, which is not part of the libertarian platform..

libertarianism has nothing to do with selfishness, self promotion, or self sustenance. it has to do with the principle of freedom

ah, but many hardcore libertarians are against public roads... and public schools, and a lot of public services.

Roads from a hardcore libertarian perspective are seen as a corporate externality pushed upon the government from the auto industry, forcing everyone to pay for them, rather than be privately built and maintained... by . whatever private organization.. be it a corporation, a non-profit, a church, etc..

Think how much money the government spends in roads..everytime walmart decides to plop it's big fat ass somewhere. Who pays for that? You, me, our neighbors, etc..

And when you speak of freedom, what kind of freedom are you talking about? the entire reason libertarians are hardcore fiscal conservatives because they believe in economic freedom as much as they do in civil freedoms (such as... the ability to do drugs, be a prostitute, run a restaurant with an entire smoking section if you so desire, etc..) The heavier the taxes, the less economic freedom you have. You have no right to refuse to pay taxes. None at all.

That's not freedom.

Not that i agree with libertarians, but their arguement stays consistent most of the time. I consider myself such, but a left leaning one who realizes any philosophy taken too literally.. is not all that pragmatic.
 
^good points DD. i am left leaning on the economic side as well, i think certain socialist ideals cannot be ignored (everyone deserves food, shelter, power, medical, imho)

MyDoorsAreOpen has been specifically refuting the social aspect of libertarian philosophy, however (eg, polygamy)
 
^^^ Yes, because I believe that politics supervenes upon social protocol. I see the Libertarian movement (as a goal for decision-making that affects all), as a lost cause, because the conditions in society that would make Libertarian ideals attractive to the voting majority are highly unlikely to arise.

Individual Libertarians, in my experience, are people who are very certain that they, and only they, know what's best for themselves. But how reliable is this sense? Your knowledge of 'better' and 'worse' is not pure cold rational logic. It's also largely preferences you've picked up socially, values you've been taught unconsciously. How many times, in retrospect, someone else has known what's best for me far better than I did! It follows that when societies are large enough that not everyone knows and directly influences each other person, some behavioral guidelines need to be firmly laid down for all, if the whole nation is to socially cohere. Certain things need to be paid for by all and available for use by all. Certain things need to be available to none. These decisions, a.k.a. laws, are always flexible and up for debate and revision. But if we're to get beyond living in bands of 100 or so hunter-gatherers, they have to be there!

So you don't want your tax dollars used to build a boulevard to Walmart? Donate to some cause you WOULD support, and get a tax write-off for it.

Kitty, I think you're being a bit harsh when you say most people are dumb and selfish. Since I'm a dyed in the wool idealist and optimist, I'd prefer to say that everyone has some area where they shine. For some, perhaps most who call themselves Libertarians, that area is, as you put it, cost-benefit analysis. But not everyone is good at that, nor should everyone be expected to be. I don't build my own furniture or make my own greeting cards -- I rely on other people to do what I'm not good at or have deprioritized in favor of other pursuts. The government is there to mediate this task for people whose many talents don't include cost-benefit analysis. Like a banister on a dark staircase, you can grab onto and follow the law just because it's there, and if it's been well-crafted, it won't lead astray anyone who leans on it blindly. To those who don't need it to get where they're going, it's still useful to keep in mind for the purpose of socially fitting in.
 
I still think that Libertarianism is nothing more than than the right to be selfish and give others the freedom to be as selfish as yourself under the constitution. It requires a belief that people will do good to each other if left alone. That doesn't work today because people are inherently selfish, at least in my opinion.
 
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