do you consider yourself a libertarian?

yeah, but many libertarians advocate free movement of labour as well as of goods and capital.

while I don't agree with a lot of libertarianism, I do think i) their views are a lot better thought out than most non-libertarians and ii) libertarianism is overly criticised.

after all, why did you only pick him/her up on the economic issue? you could just as well have said, "well absolute social liberty means that mass child rape is OK, and isn't that a restriction on the liberty of many?" (only if you raise both spectres simultaneously, then webber/mrs shipley's point is confirmed, that there's no concrete difference, eg that they're both similarly meaningless rhetorical constructs, not actual political positions/programmes)

The best arguments against it, though, aren't arguments against the principle, but rather arguments that it wouldn't even achieve its own ends. I am unconvinced that a libertarian nation would really benefit even those who support it and think they'd profit from it, because the end situation it sort of points at is a world in which a portion of the nation trudges successfull, capitalistically along, but an entire remaining underclass is left to fester and rot. I'm simply not convinced that the libertarian ethic of not being obligated to serve or improve that underclass would sit so comfortably in action, if it really meant constant deaths and human misery and horrifying crimes or in an exaggerated case food riots. And I don't think those libertarians whose goal is partly a monetary one -- "why does the government take my money to give it to other people" -- realize how likely it is that pulling that net of services out would contribute to either (a) brutal near-anarchy, or (b) the erection of a massive police state designed to subdue and imprison the no-longer-served. Those really are the options, in a sense: a bureaucratic state of "palliative" services, or an honest-to-God discipline-and-punish police state. It's a sort of childish feat of imagination for libertarians to imagine we have neither, and it's one that proceeds from head-in-sand childish thinking: "it's not my responsibility."

haha oh dearie me no. Do you really believe this, even a bit?

we don't agree on grammar and vocabulary within a linguistic community because it's mandated from on high, we do it because we more or less agree the benefits when it comes to communication: we're all free, actually, to use any sound to mean anything we want, but we don't

Anyway so "if the community really wants to provide services to the disadvantages" -- hasn't the community already decided that they do want to, and thus repeatedly elected officials who preserve those programs? What metaphysical distinction is made by reducing government -- organ of the people -- to a simple policing force, and then shunting everything else it was meant to do to some other, unelected, less accountable entity? Just decentralization, which doesn't requite libertarianism to argue for it? Or is it that there's a small minority who don't want to provide those services, and resent that the government doesn't allow them to opt out of putting taxes toward them? Doesn't that sort of come down to a semi-childish complaint that they pay taxes to government but boo-hoo don't always get their own way in how its run, and thus fear it and want to dismantle it so it can't, in their opinion, "mismanage" itself anymore?

Mainly I find it ironic that in the US, at least, the bulk of visible libertarians are those on whom the power of the state is exercised the absolute least. (Apart from paying taxes, which is their real complaint.) Those who have steady contact with the state and those who have steady contact with problems the state's in a position to solve tend to want the state to get to it.

NB I realize arguments can be made about representative democracy as an exact expression of the public's desires BUT it's no less exact as an expression than the market capitalism libertarians prefer; the primary difference is that it's weighted by person and not by wealth, which is exactly where the Darwinism comes in. Allowing the state's previous role to become private and optional is really the exact same principle as saying we should have an interventionist state, except people's votes should be weighted to correspond to their assets.

No, I don't think this is what would actually happen, at least not in my lifetime - the invisible hand has slapped me in the face a couple of times too many. It'd require a change from a culture of individualism to a culture of personal responibility. But I do get peeved when libertarianism gets no respect in academic circles, whereas Communism (or whatever the euphemism is at the moment) is taken straight, even though it relies on as large a simplification of human nature (OK, message board evangelists do ask for it, but most of the ones I know are reasonable people). I do believe that NZ's taxes are too high, and govt spending is badly misguided. I still voted Labour.

Aside: You don't think people's votes are weighted to correspond to their assets now?

This is a very familiar complaint about Libertarians, and I have a suspicion that it comes from the European lack of understanding of individual rights which exist from the start, rather than 'rights' which are gifts from the state (i. e. the politicians who run the U. K. on behalf of the Queen, who has a lifetime lease from God). As we see in this thread, there are legitimate holes in the Libertarian position without making up exagerated and silly ones.

NB no offense but this is precisely the sort of stupid, childish, head-in-sand rhetorical posturing that I'm saying annoys me so much. You live in a one-person/one-vote democracy and it's fucking ridiculous to pretend otherwise; if you want to talk about the influence of economic clout and campaign contributions on election results, then talk about it, but it's so fucking pointless to do the 13-year-old's cynical eye-covering "ner-ner-ner the system's fucked anyway so who cares" thing. I mean, look at that statement, it's my exact problem: people make these claims that are provably untrue except as vague metaphors for rhetorical effect, and then they present them as actual supports for arguments about real government?

But how can you count on the privatizers to provide these services so that all can benefit, including those who most need them?

I realize I'm totally speaking in self-interest here, and from an American perspective -- I'm working without insurance right now, because I simply can't afford to pay the premiums and my rent. And I'm not exactly earning Wal-Mart wages.

I guess it's that Darwinist aspect of libertarianism is, to me, really disconcerting. Many who identify themselves as Libertarians to me are already in an economic position where they can say "Well, I can manage, I'm okay." It seems short-sighted and really damaging to the culture as a whole -- any social contract that might have existed before is absolutely shredded by these philosophies.

New Zealand is something of a testbed for bonkers libertarianism, as they've been deregulating everything that moves and cutting away all government intervention in the economy and social welfare provision.

amusingly the process has seen New Zealand slide inexorably down the league tables of national wealth per capita.

Collectivism is falling to pieces - in NZ, anyway, it happened when compulsory unionism got thrown out, and the current leftish govt is doing much for it.

how about "the current leftish govt isn't helping to stop the slide"

"Aside: You don't think people's votes are weighted to correspond to their assets now?"

NB no offense but this is precisely the sort of stupid, childish, head-in-sand rhetorical posturing that I'm saying annoys me so much.

Point taken - in this context it's a useless statement.

New Zealand is something of a testbed for bonkers libertarianism, as they've been deregulating everything that moves and cutting away all government intervention in the economy and social welfare provision.

Its true that New Zealand economy post 1984 and the Second labour government has been viewed as a test bed for deregulation of the economy. However something had to be done , we were in a real mess in 83 though clearly you dont remember those days?We had "petrol free" days, (you could only purchase fuel on certain days), crippling state debt and inflation and interest rates out of control.

What is in question is the "rate" and "order" of change that occured, not whether such change was necessary. Its true that few other countries have gone such a rapid transformation of their economy, still compare our current welfare, health and education provisions to the USA and Id say we have got the balance about right(except student loans).

amusingly the process has seen New Zealand slide inexorably down the league tables of national wealth per capita.

I dont find it all that funny. Economists of all persuasions agree that the NZ economoy under Muldoon needed drastic attention. To argue that increased govt spending and state asset provsion would have helped us is absurd. The loss of the access to the British market after EEC in 73 and reducded world demand for commodity prices, an aging unskilled poulation, increasing public debt to sustain an out of control welfare state etc etc has been whats crippled us. Our company tax structure, geographic isolation and small skilled labour and capital base are also going to make it difficult for us to compete in the future.

But hey blame de-regulation if you like. ps I voted labour too

clue: what does the word "absolute" mean to you?

If the principle is conceded that it is legitimate for the state to curtail certain individual freedoms for the public good, then "Libertarianism" must be argued as a relative, not an absolute position.

This may seem so obvious as not to be important; not so, because the continual, often deliberate and manipulative, confusion of abolute and relative is a ongoing part of the modus operandi. As previously said, much Libertarian rhetoric is based on the assumption that abstract principles like "freedom" and "individual liberty" are self-evidently and purely good things, that we can't have too much of them. If the "real" argument is something along the lines of, "well we accept that there has to be a trade-off between individual liberty and public good, but we think the line has been drawn in the wrong place", then that is the argument that libertarians are required to make. Not the simplistic and quasi-mystical invocation to pure principle that some use cynically and others, more worringly, actually seem to believe.

ArfArf is (korrektly) pointing out that libertarians also often play such games with definition, so the unfairness is not that unfair after all.

So it's not entirely just a caricature of their absolutism: they've actively assembled themselves as such and are happy to sink further into it. This is true of really any fringe party in the U.S. -- the only way to work the fringe is with some clever easily-digested panacea like "yes we are the flat-tax party," which occasionally makes them good launching pads for issues but rarely makes for a widely coherent platform.

Of course, the other side of the statement you put in as a 'position paper' (i. e. you don't believe it or claim anyone else does but it's there to make a point) is that in a Libertarian 'society' each child would have the absolute social liberty not to be killed by serial child killers. Or, as I sometimes put it, negative rights supersede positive rights. This is just a different side of the coin from Ayn Rand's 'mutual uncoerced consent.'

Hmmm. Does 'absolute social liberty' have any meaning 1 to a Libertarian 2 at all?

Following are two quotes from http://www.self-gov.org/libfaq.html

Drugs:
All of the hard drugs were legal before 1914, and there were few addicts. Studies show that even addicts can be productive, and also that they do not engage in crime when they can get their drugs inexpensively.

"We have addicts today despite drug criminalization. We also have the violence that is caused by drugs being illegal. Let's decriminalize drugs so we stop the violence and get help to those who need it."

I subcribe to this point of view, all drugs should be made legal. I want total souvereignity over my own body.

Guns:
"Libertarians,, like other Americans, want to be able to walk city streets safely and be secure in their homes. We also want our Constitutional rights protected, to guard against the erosion of civil liberties. In particular, Libertarians want to see all people treated equally under the law, as our Constitution requires. America's millions of gun owners are people too. "

I do not subscribe to the typically American point of view to gun ownership. Cfr Bowling for Columbine http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/flash-01.php

Take the skinheads bowling! --Camper Van Beethoven

fuck libertarians, fuck them all three holes.

blimey get me on this thread

The dude I was talking about in the batshit facebook thread considers himself a libertarian..

guess what's in my other window: facebook libertarians.

Groups
30 of 67 groups.See All

Libertarian Conservatives ▪ I ♥ Brisbane ▪ Have you ever disgraced yourself at a Law related function? ▪ SYDNEY IS BETTER THAN MELBOURNE! ▪ Mr Gormsby's Class 5F ▪ Ludwig Von Mises Appreciation Society(1881-1973) ▪ Global Warming is a Hoax ▪ I proudly support the State of Israel & I don't care that it's not trendy! ▪ Right-wingers have more fun ▪ Pro Tobacco ▪ ANTI-united nations, anti-EU ▪ In Support of the Death Penalty ▪ Capitalist Student Network ▪ Sydney University Liberal Club ▪ Abolish Welfare! ▪ The Justice J. D. Heydon Appreciation Society ▪ WorkChoices sucks - the labour market is STILL overregulated ▪ Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy ▪ The movement to legalise duelling ▪ I oppose WorkChoices on federalist grounds ▪ I always wear sun glasses because the sun never sets on the British Empire ▪ Young Liberal Movement ▪ Richard Dawkins Created the Meme ▪ The Will Ferrell is GOD Collective ▪ Chief Justice Harry Gibbs Appreciation Society ▪ Proud WASPs ▪ Justice Callinan Fan Club ▪ Flat Rate Tax ▪ The Anglo Saxon Group ▪ I support John Howard

hahaha i support palestine (like a football club) only because it's trendy.

lol richard dawkins, NO SURPRISE THERE.

proud member since oct 06

libertarianism in america = fundamentally a misreading of jefferson, who wanted a republic of local township-republics, who would vote on everything to do with themselves, athens-style, and leave only the major stuff (defense, welfare, etc) to the feds.

libertarians read this as getting RID of government, when it's really just a radical redistribution of it. their "ideal" country would provide no means of breaking up monopolies or even overthrowing a tyrant because libertarians fundamentally deny what hannah arendt took to be the most important thing in politics - the right of citizens to come together to make something happen, which they dismiss as "collectivism." (reducing all human experience to "collectivism" and "individualism," as libertarians inevitably do, is also pretty dumb: one could fairly argue that both existed in nazi germany.) an actual libertarian state would be impossible for the simple fact that libertarians wouldn't admit any laws to check the power of ANYONE "outside the state," so there'd be no way to prevent any ambitious and talented businessman from essentially running the country.

libertarians also assume that economics ALWAYS precedes politics, which is why their screeds (when they're not entertainingly arguing that blackmail should be legalized) are so unreadable.

Libertarians are cute, like handicapped puppies. They're special.

libertarians also assume that economics ALWAYS precedes politics, which is why their screeds (when they're not entertainingly arguing that blackmail should be legalized) are so unreadable.

more's the shame, then, that ofttimes (with some notable exceptions) their grasp of economics is pretty shitty. (i.e., there's a reason why the Austrian School isn't exactly in the mainstream among academic economists and it isn't b/c academic economists are closet "collectivists"/Commies.)

Given that no-one is self-identifying as libertarian, isn't this a strawman thread? I would at least start to defend *aspects* of libertarianism, but the thread is already marred by unhelpful simplifications.

Less strawman than gangbang, I'd say.

Expressing disbelief that class sizes impact test scores

Any libertarian worth his or her salt must upon principle desire a free and open marketplace for the delivery of education to our children. Something tells me that this free and open marketplace for would always have a certain number of schools that maintained a 15-1 ratio of students to teachers. They will be private schools for the children of the very wealthy, who don't give a flying fuck about their kids' test scores; they just care about their kids' education.

such schools not only already exist, aimless, but the ratio isn't 15-1, it is often 3-1 or even 1-1

obviously, the government hasn't gotten in their way

http://www.freeexistence.org/freedom.shtml

Apparently I should live in the Netherlands, Germany, Finland or Sweden.

a) i got really annoyed at a bunch of 'yeah, and cut government funding for the libraries -- i never use 'em because i can just buy books!' types on another board

i use and love libraries and want them to be funded by the government BUT one of my best friends exclusively reads books from the library, never buys, even used from a yardsale--and idk why but it actually bothers me. i think i'm projecting a supercilious intent into his obdurate anti-consumerism that may or may not be there

don't worry, some of us buy too many books to make up for it

the freest countries according to freeexistence.org

Rank Nation            Overall    Property   Taxes      Speech     Ltd Govt   Guns       Drugs      Corruption Inflation  Business   
1    Switzerland       76         90         71         94         66         60         45         86         88         82         
2    Chile             73         85         75         100        83         47         45         70         83         72         
3    Estonia           72         90         82         100        55         48         40         70         82         79         
4    Australia         71         90         63         100        62         20         55         79         85         89         
5    Canada            71         90         80         100        50         30         50         83         77         82

From Tim Bateman, far upthread:

as my Head of History at School once put it: 'The only good laws are the ones that create more freedom than they destroy.'

This assertion postulates that "freedom" is the highest possible good. This is not a self-evident proposition. Why should we take this on faith? Why must we promote freedom above "justice" or "happiness" or "community", or a score of other social ideals?

Next, it is entirely unclear to me how any law's amount of created or destroyed freedom would be quantified. If, for example, legally relegating a class of humans to slavery were to allow greatly expanded "freedom" for a somewhat larger class of slave owners, wouldn't that meet this teacher's criteria for a "good law"?

During the Enlightenment this sort of saying used to be scorned as 'cant'.

xp. ah, chile, were abortion is illegal in all cases, so free, just the best freedom.

Libertarians smell like wee.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, August 26, 2002 7:24 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wonder if Tim Bateman was related to Jay Bateman?

as my Head of History at School once put it: 'The only good laws are the ones that create more freedom than they destroy.'

the problem that most libertarians can't get their heads around is that there are many forms of "freedom" (or liberty) and that they often conflict with one another. so "maximizing freedom" is not really an achievable goal because one freedom may get in the way of another.

sorry for that freshman poli-sci stuff but i have a few libertarians in my FB feed and it drives me nuts when they treat 'freedom' like it's this singular transparent thing.

the problem that most <people> can't get their heads around is that there are many forms of <political idea> and that they often conflict with one another. so <political idea> is not really an achievable goal because one <political idea> may get in the way of another.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, August 18, 2016 4:11 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ftfy

how is this not a Tim and Eric skit pic.twitter.com/Pv6knmMdqt

— go birds 🦅 (@LarryWebsite) February 8, 2018

hahahahahaha

i am a little concerned by that guy's indignation about needing a license to make toast and i kinda want him to have to pass a test before he can operate any technology with a heat source

No way

they're doing a bit

Toasterman is insane looking though

guys you really need to watch more video clips from the libertarian convention

^^ this is also what I say to anyone who says I don't understand the libertarian party

there was also a moment where a nude fat man bounded across the stage and everyone loved it

omg that twitter thread has more clips

these are all... something

I take it back, it was a underwear-clad near-nude man, and he appears in that twitter thread :)

https://youtu.be/RqZVVvp95nc
best of toasterman

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmKViuyUcAA1CCg?format=jpg&name=small

Hell yeah baby! We stan our queen

Nice!

so she’s clearly gotta be “Deep State” now on the Q, right??

no

Legalize child labor.

Children will learn more on a job site than in public school.

— Libertarian Party NH (@LPNH) June 7, 2021

Yes. Children should especially learn how to pick our crops. Since they are already low to the ground they are ideal for picking lettuce, strawberries, cucumbers and similar edibles. Their job site would be open air, they'll get lots of exercise, and they'll learn every day what it feels like to be devalued, exploited and abused. Invaluable lessons to carry them through their miserable lives.

counterthought - children will learn more watching Libertarians being set ablaze and screaming for their lives

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/237/129/e97.jpg