do you consider yourself a libertarian?

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

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

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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.

Milo OTM.

anyone who wants to defend libertarianism or refute any of my points is entirely welcome.

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.

my understanding of libertarianism is that they believe that government exists to prevent people from violating the rights of others. if government couldn't pass laws to check the power of private citizens, wouldn't that just be anarchy?

also i don't think that libertarians deny citizens a right to do things together. maybe you meant they don't want government to make citizens do things together?

i'm not a libertarian but this is some stupid straw-man bullshit, like saying that republicans are gonna steal the 2008 general election.

Ahh well, I guess at least we've learnt that Will Ferrell is acceptable to libertarians.

my understanding of libertarianism is that they believe that government exists to prevent people from violating the rights of others. if government couldn't pass laws to check the power of private citizens, wouldn't that just be anarchy?

since libertarians inevitably oppose any effort to interfere with businesses' right to do whatever they want (rarely bothering to distinguish between, say, enron and the mom and pop store down the street), it's hard to see how their high and mighty john stuart mill principles really translate into anything, in practical terms, except "every dog for himself." as for anarchy, plenty of the best-known libertarian thinkers basically were anarchists - murray rothbard, for one.

also i don't think that libertarians deny citizens a right to do things together. maybe you meant they don't want government to make citizens do things together?

government "making people do things together" is mainly an issue in the kind of society libertarians claim they want - a society where the citizens ask nothing and get nothing from their government. a country where people are actually involved in their government, on a community by community level, isn't likely to give way to tyranny (and the fact that the united states, despite the fact that the vast majority of cities don't measure up to jefferson's ideal of the township-community, has never fallen under a dictatorship is some testament to the effectiveness of this system).

by contrast, all libertarians can offer is some dickensian ideal state where every businessman is a benevolent ebenezer scrooge (post-conversion) who takes care of any problems we might have (and hey, if you're not satisfied, you could always just become rich yourself!) libertarians are right about a lot of the problems in america, but they're clueless when it comes to what to do about them.

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.

-- paulhw, Tuesday, 14 August 2007 00:15 (6 hours ago) Link

i guess you must be a libertarian.

louis, i'm toying with that. c-word though.

I think it was Boyd Rice, of all people, who said something along the lines of "Libertarians are just anarchists without the leather jackets."

That said, as far as pure logic goes, taking the study of rhetoric into account and all that, it's one of the more attractive political philosophies, wouldn't you agree?

Most of the anarchists I know (and most of the anarchists throughout history, I think) are left-leaning, so they do believe in collectivism and collective action, just not authority. I guess libertarianism is close to right-wing anarchism, but that has always been a weaker strand in the history of anarchism.

I guess anarchism and libertarianism have a similar philosophical idea in their core, but the conclusions and political actions they've reached from from that have been quite different.

those conclusions and political actions again:
"let's sit this one out (feat.self-regarding commentary)"

i think only quite young and able-bodied people can really sign up for libertarianism.

young, able-bodied and COMIC BOOK GUY

i think only quite young and able-bodied

and rich and privately educated and fucking superior. it's a fucking SCOURGE at cambridge.

that group has quite an amusing wall-posting:

As a true Tory I have little time for Libertarians. Why take something as wonderfully sensible and straightforward as conservatism and make an ideology out of it? The strength of Tories is that we don't need to waste our time with committees and mission statements and all that nonsense. All the same, I still think that as a mostly leftist gathering, someone really ought to tell you all to go to hell.

Go to hell.

You think he's joking?

since libertarians inevitably oppose any effort to interfere with businesses' right to do whatever they want (rarely bothering to distinguish between, say, enron and the mom and pop store down the street), it's hard to see how their high and mighty john stuart mill principles really translate into anything, in practical terms, except "every dog for himself."

libertarians only appose govt. regulation. that doesn't mean individuals or groups cannot interfere, protest, boycott, and expose big business anyway. also why do you mention John Stuart Mill? (or did you mean utilitarianism?). i don't know that libertarianism advocates "every dog for himself" although coming from the right collective action is often demphasized. libertarianism is part of the US social fabric and if you accept that there are libertarians on the left too then the wobblies and people who lived in communes and hunter s thompson and dorothy day are libertarians too.

also i don't think that libertarians deny citizens a right to do things together. maybe you meant they don't want government to make citizens do things together?

by contrast, all libertarians can offer is some dickensian ideal state where every businessman is a benevolent ebenezer scrooge (post-conversion) who takes care of any problems we might have (and hey, if you're not satisfied, you could always just become rich yourself!) libertarians are right about a lot of the problems in america, but they're clueless when it comes to what to do about them.

this is just silly.

i get the sense that a lot of people are taking libertarianism as something like the social darwinist or randian 'survival of the fittest' and assuming that naturally follows from reducing the size of the state.

i like the mark s comment about linguistic communities and message boards. libertarians and anarchists aren't against order as such just power with the former focusing on the state and the latter on capitalism.

well gosh darn if the libertarians haven't gone all out to correct that impression.

xpost

I think Wobblies were more anarchosyndicalists than "libertarians on the left", whatever that means. Like I said, the core philosophy in these two is quite similar, so we have to take practice into account, and in practice anarchists have leaned on the left and libertarians on the right. Also, it seems quite true that libertarians have focused more on opposing the state and defending free enterprise, whereas anarchists on opposing capitalism and defending workers's issues. Have there ever been any self-proclaimed working-class libertarians?

it's a difficult question because the word has been comprehensively taken by the right. its meaning has shifted so far (as with 'conservative' i guess) that using the word just confuses things.

i was thinking though, that it seems to have spread among basically apolitical young people far more than the anti-globalization movement c. 2001 did.

probably because libertarianism is the most anti-political ideology i can imagine.

ooh, interesting footnote from george woodcock's anarchism:

"Sébastien Faure, who founded Le Libertaire in 1895, is often credited with having invented the word libertarian as a convenient synonym for anarchist. However <Joseph> Déjacque's use of the word as early as 1858 suggests it may have had a long currency before Faure adopted it." (p263, Pelican edn, 1963)

Déjacque also ran a magazine called Le Libertaire, in New York (1858-61): he was an upholsterer.

(haha he also FORESAW ILX: "In Déjacque's world of the future, the great metropolises of the 19th century will disappear, and on their sites will rise enormous monumental; meeting halls, called cyclideons, each capable of holding a million people, and conceieved by Déjacque as 'altars of the social cult, anarchic churches of Utopian humanity'. There, in the total liberty of discussion, 'the free and great voice of the public' will be heard...", ibid., p264)

"we have to take practice into account, and in practice anarchists have leaned on the left and libertarians on the right"

anarchists:
http://www.wolfstone.com/images/20010222Twins.jpg

libertarian:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/27/45017300_07a6caaa47.jpg

i do think people attracted to the libertarian movement are linear thinkers. whereas i am all over the place. ts: hedgehog or fox?

Have there ever been any self-proclaimed working-class libertarians?

Karl Hess, Barry Goldwater's speech writer became a welder after his political fallout w/the Republicans.

From Wikipedia:

The first known use of a term that has been translated as "libertarian," in a political sense, was by anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque[16] who used the French term "libertaire" in a letter to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1857.[17] The word stems from the French word libertaire (synonymous to "anarchist"), and was used in order to evade the French ban on anarchist publications. Many anarchists still use the term (e.g., terms translatable as "libertarian" are used as a synonym for anarchism in many non-English languages, like French, Italian and so on), and in the English language socialist anarchism and communist anarchism are often referred to as Libertarian socialism or Libertarian communism respectively to distinguish it from authoritarian Marxist varieties of socialism and communism. In the United States, however, Libertarian refers to members of the American Libertarian party, whose politics might be described as classical liberalism. Those who support similar policies but are not members of the Libertarian party are known as libertarians in the United States and much of the English speaking world.

I think the American meaning of libertarianism as an ideology separate from anarchism has become more and more prominent, and hence "libertarian" as a synonym to "anarchist" is losing it's value. At least the Finnish anarchists I know consider "libertarian" more of a swear word than something they'd call themselves.

the key diff between these 19th-century libertaires and the present-day ones seems to be the issue of property

(haha i so don't have time to be looking this up at the moment)

also:
http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/79/83/22668379.jpg

Also, I think these days many non-authoritarian communists call themselves "autonomists" rather than libertarian communists. What's the difference between that and left-wing anarchism, heaven only knows.

yeah i'd never call myself a libertarian either, but people's own labels aren't always very trustworhty.!

the key diff between these 19th-century libertaires and the present-day ones seems to be the issue of property

And this is probably still one of the key differences between anarchists and libertarians today. I know few anarchists who wouldn't find the idea of private property and money problematic.

lots of key diff between european anarchists and USian ones

"Have there ever been any self-proclaimed working-class libertarians?"

Karl Hess, Barry Goldwater's speech writer became a welder after his political fallout w/the Republicans.

-- artdamages, Tuesday, August 14, 2007 1:51 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

i dunno if this is an actual joke, ie made up, but it's killing me with rofls.

mark has hit the nail on the head. there's this crazy right-wing nz philosopher (ie lecturer in philosophy) who writes for 'the times', and he's all blah blah legalize kiddie porn blah blah no government is best government, but the notion that private property is anything less than divinely ordained never arises. it's like the one single thing in the world that doesn't melt into air.

re Hess: Nope, it's legit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Hess

From a cursory read, Karl Hess sounds like he would have been fun to party with.

I don't think people consider themselves 'Libertarians' because whatever aspects of the core ideology they agree with, very few people can get on board with the purest form of the ideology. The purest form, we all agree, is kind of nuts, but where are these pure Libertarians, and why do people find such joy in railing against them? Aren't there larger groups of idiots that deserve more attention?

not by that logic, no