What's libertarianism exactly about?

Don't bother telling me that libertarians are conservatives on weed, because that's bullshit.

Rather, I'm asking for a careful definition of what libertarianism is. You don't need to make it 18,000 words long; 18 will suffice as long as you can address libertarianism's main points.

It's time to re-legalize drugs and let people take responsibility for themselves. Drug abuse is a tragedy and a sickness. Criminal laws only drive the problem underground and put money in the pockets of the criminal class. With drugs legal, compassionate people could do more to educate and rehabilitate drug users who seek help. Drugs should be legal. Individuals have the right to decide for themselves what to put in their bodies, so long as they take responsibility for their actions.

From the Mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke, to conservative writer and TV personality, William F. Buckley, Jr., leading Americans are now calling for repeal of America's repressive and ineffective drug laws. The Libertarian Party urges you to join in this effort to make our streets safer and our liberties more secure.

http://www.lp.org/issues/relegalize.html

I just scratch my head and wonder.

Reading the lies of a bunch of liars is going to make me well-informed!!!

BTW, I have read their website, and I'm still of the opinion that they're just Repukes on crack.

the site still gives an overview of their fundamental beliefs - not all of its lies.

From http://www.lp.org/intro/ which is which they describe as an "Introduction to Libertarianism"

What Is The Libertarian Party?
The Libertarian Party is your representative in American politics. It is the only political organization which respects you as a unique and competent individual.

The LP represents nobody because they can't get elected, and their lying about shows how much they respect you.

America's Heritage
Libertarians believe in the American heritage of liberty, enterprise, and personal responsibility. Libertarians recognize the responsibility we all share to preserve this precious heritage for our children and grandchildren.

Those are not "Anerica's" Heritage. They were around long before Europeans discovered North America. And "personal responsibility" is definitely not part of America's heritage. However, it has been a main theme of Bush'*s campaigns.

Free and Independent
Libertarians believe that being free and independent is a great way to live. We want a system which encourages all people to choose what they want from life; that lets them live, love, work, play, and dream their own way.

Unless what you want is government services. Then they hate you for your choices.

Caring For People
The Libertarian way is a caring, people-centered approach to politics. We believe each individual is unique. We want a system which respects the individual and encourages us to discover the best within ourselves and develop our full potential.

As long as they don't need any help from anybody else. Their push for "independence" and "personal responsibility" means that their "caring", like conservatism's "compassion", ends when it means doing more than talking about how much they "care"

The original question was about libertarianism, and you're spouting off about Libertarians and Libertarianism.

Hope that whole reading comprehension bit works out for you, one day.

On Edit: that was a bit harsh on my part. It seems, no matter how many times I and others of similar mind here clearly and in detail the differences between big L and small l libertarianism, people consciously decide to ignore the plain truth.

but IMHO any difference that exists is insignificant. Beleive it or not, people can look at the evidence and come away with a different conclusion than you.

I'm sure you honestly believe there's a difference but IMHO any difference that exists is insignificant. Beleive it or not, people can look at the evidence and come away with a different conclusion than you.

Of course, and I'm not disputing that different conclusions can be reached by different people, but Big L libertarianism is represented by a party, a platform, certain policies, etc.... whereas small l libertarianism is a philosophy, beholden to no particular group of people and not at all locked in to specific programs or policies.

Those alone make a world of difference, but I fail to see how you can come to the conclusion that the difference is 'insignificant'.

Like Benjamin Franklin, I believe that things should be judged by the effects they lead to. I don't see how the small "l" leads to anything much different than the big "L". They both only address the issue of force, and ignore problems caused by other factors.

government is evil, no (little) law enforcement, etc...
I think a good illustrative example would be the debate for Mass. governor last fall when the libertarian candidate, Carla Howell, was asked "would you support pilots carrying guns on planes?" She went on to state "I think that everyone on planes should be carrying a gun". Sorry to say it, but libertarians are conservatives on crack, they have an unworkable philosophy in reality that is great on paper, similar (on the opposite end of the spectrum) to utopians b/c they disregard many of the fundamental flaws in human nature.

you miss the point

i'm basing my analysis on all the libertarians whom I have met throughout my life (and that's probably under 20 people), and their explanations to me, as well as the libertarian candidates whom I have seen in local and statewide elections. From what I have seen from them, it is an unworkable philosophy, tho when I get a chance, I'll have a read on that.

They can put anything they want on their website. You find out what people really believe when "the rubber meets the road". You are right to judge libertarianism by judging libertarianas. If you judged Repukes by what the RNC website says, you'd conclude that they are "compassionate"

thanks:) that's why i said I'd "read it later", all the ones I have met have seemed to be "on message", i.e. they all elucidated the same beliefs, which seemed incredibly selfish, naive, and unrealistic in my estimation:)

Carla was indeed talking nonsense.
Libertarian(small l) principles that many people share are that each airline should be able to protect their business as they see fit, arming their crew if necessary, as it is in their self-interest and therefore good business to not have hijackings. This would be no different than all the countless businesses in the country that have a private security service to protect their valuable assets.

The airline's have always been prohibited from protecting their own business from hijackings.

"I got mine, so screw the rest of you."

Roughly the same attitude as an 8th Century Visigoth.

Main sentiment: don't want my taxes to support your kids (parents, highways, police). I bet Ken Lay is one!

Found some good information from the page.

Guess which are more likely to be Libertarian?

I got mine. Screw you if you don't have anything.

There are simply too many people who find it impossible to discuss this topic rationally and in a calm, logical manner.

Just look at some of the 'answers' that have already been offered.

Go for it

I have no agenda which would require me to lie about my political beliefs. My candor and posts here should make that quite clear.

Regardless of how they may have come to be there, human beings exist in an objectively real world. Reason (regardless of how it may have been acquired) is man’s only means of discerning that reality. In fact, man’s survival is contingent upon his recognition of reality in objective and absolute terms, and his willingness to act in accordance with the dictates of reality, by choice. Failure to recognize reality and failure to choose one’s actions accordingly, will ultimately end in death. Hence all sane human beings evaluate their world, and form values upon which their choices are predicated.

Each individual rational human being is driven by his own values. Inasmuch as each man may know only the specific workings of his own mind, each individual is uniquely qualified to determine his values, and his alone. No man may claim to accurately represent the mind or the values of another. Hence each man’s values may only be advanced by evaluating the world, forming rational conclusions, and acting for himself.

The free-will choice to act in accordance with one’s own values is recognized by other more traditional names, the most recognizable of which is “the pursuit of happiness”. Whether actions are seemingly motivated by traditional religious pursuits, or by the advancement of family, or friends, or charitable concerns, the pursuit of individual happiness (advancement of one’s own values) is the true motivator. Men seek to please their Gods, or to protect their children, or to help others, because it pleases them to do so.

In order to pursue the rational advancement of their values, individuals must be free to act in accordance with the dictates of their own will. In recognition of the fact that the will of individuals may conflict in advancement of their values, a rational restrictive boundary is created at the intersection of competing wills. This boundary reconciles the potential for conflict, by defining as a right, any action in accordance with the dictates of the will of the individual actor, which does not infringe upon the ability of other individuals to do likewise.

The only means which men have at their disposal to infringe upon the rights of others are initiated force, threat of initiated force, and fraud. Recognition of this truth provides the foundation of a moral code. Initiated force, threat of initiated force, and fraud, are immoral inasmuch as they act to infringe man’s pursuit of his happiness as he defines it. All initiated force, threat of initiated force, or fraud, are immoral, whether perpetrated by an individual or by a collection of individuals sometimes known as government.

I am happy and ready to answer all criticism of the above.

This is one of the simplest and most direct examples of the libertarian philosophy that I have seen written.

As a small-L libertarian myself, I utterly refute the weary canards that people use to describe me. I am not a republican in ANY sense of the word. I DO NOT smoke pot or use other drugs (though I do favor their legalization). I am not obsessed with my own property and I am not against resaonable and rational uses of authority by the government.

In some ways, libertarians are extreme republicans- and in some ways we are extreme democrats. Our views tend to go beyond the "comfort zone" of both parties, that is why we tend to be reviled by both parties.

CA's example of what constitutes an "immoral action," i.e. initiated force, threat of initiated force, and fraud should be sufficient dictum for government's role in our lives. From this concept of force, a rational set of standards, practice and regulation can be brought to bear.

I would supplement this concept with the notion that once we have removed a large degree of governmental "protection" and "interference" from our lives there will be voids that need to be filled, such as welfare, education and likely other current governmental roles such as are found in the FDA, etc. These aspects of American society and business would not be simply abandoned- they would be adopted by public and private foundations and the work would carry on in largely the same manner.

As a libertarian, I DON'T WANT a society of no laws, no regulation, no standards. I merely see a better way of providing those things to society- apart from government. Libertarianism is much more "of the People," than any other form. It places the responsibility for all of society on our shoulders. It is closer to the essence of freedom.

I don't ask that people agree with my libertarian philosophy, I know it is radical, only that you understand it and not resort to debasing it with the nonsense that we tend to see on threads like this.

Unlike CA, I am unfortunately not available for a prolonged tete a tete on these matters as I now have obligations to attend to. But thanks for reading this!

what about American Libertarianism?

Sorry if I created that impression.

As to American Libertarianism, are you specifically referring to what is espoused by the Libertarian Party?

The organized party is embraced the radical libertarian viewpoint to the exclusion of moderates such as myself. How can I get around to lowering taxes when they're waxing poetic on the justification for the personal ownership of nuclear weapons?

I've been libertarian since before I knew there was such a party, but the party as it stands today is filled with the extremist elements, and they're going for shock value to get publicity. That is not where I stand at all.

I can describe significant differences between the official LP platform and my own personal beliefs. When I point them out I am told in self-smug tones that I can't be a libertarian at all.

Cheers, Terwilliger.

And game theory.

Mans greatest genius is the ability to color his individual reality through faulty logic, incomplete data, and preconceived ideas. The Idea that "man’s survival is contingent upon his recognition of reality in objective and absolute terms" is false one only has to look at history, religion, the many branches of pseudoscience and the fact that man is still here.

Rationality has never been a human characteristic except in bad fiction.

What keeps mankind alive is there tends to be at least a few individuals in each society who are willing to sacrifice their own wellbeing for the greater wellbeing of society at large. When society's have more people who cheat the system by not contributing to the welfare of that society than there are people sacrificing for the wellbeing of it that society collapses or when a individual fools people to sacrifice for his wellbeing above the wellbeing of society that society will also collapse.

The groups and the individuals recognition of responsibility of the individual to the welfare of the group and the group to the individual apart from ones on self interest is the foundation of a moral code. Without the concept of group welfare there can be no moral code other only the mighty have the right to the pursuit of happiness only the mighty have the ability to enforce their will.

I have said before in other threads on this subject libertarianism could work if it wasn't for human nature, but then so could communism.

Mans greatest genius is the ability to color his individual reality through faulty logic, incomplete data, and preconceived ideas.

Agreed.

The Idea that "man’s survival is contingent upon his recognition of reality in objective and absolute terms" is false one only has to look at history, religion, the many branches of pseudoscience and the fact that man is still here.

I demure only in that it seems to me that man has survived despite those things that you mention.

Rationality has never been a human characteristic except in bad fiction.

We disagree, in as much as that it can only apply on a microlevel, i.e., to individuals. On a societal level, you are quite correct.

What keeps mankind alive is there tends to be at least a few individuals in each society who are willing to sacrifice their own wellbeing for the greater wellbeing of society at large. When society's have more people who cheat the system by not contributing to the welfare of that society than there are people sacrificing for the wellbeing of it that society collapses or when a individual fools people to sacrifice for his wellbeing above the wellbeing of society that society will also collapse.

Agreed, although what you are describing isn't necessarily related to libertarianism.

The groups and the individuals recognition of responsibility of the individual to the welfare of the group and the group to the individual apart from ones on self interest is the foundation of a moral code. Without the concept of group welfare there can be no moral code other only the mighty have the right to the pursuit of happiness only the mighty have the ability to enforce their will.

Again, there is nothing in libertarianism that prevents the inculcation in individuals the concept of valuing the group as well as the individual. History shows societies cannot exist without this. Your presumption that this would not exist in libertariansim, as in "only the mighty have the right to the pursuit of happiness only the mighty have the ability to enforce their will" is unjustifiable in that such an environment is not condusive to liberty.

I have said before in other threads on this subject libertarianism could work if it wasn't for human nature, but then so could communism.

Oh, I agree. I am human, and as such, realize that pragmatism is usually what saves the day. As I stated elsewhere on this thread, libertarianism is basically a Platonic Ideal, and it can never be achieved in its true, perfect form. It is, after all, a human construct.

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for it to the greatest degree possible.

I must say, it is refreshing to finally encounter a valid and well-thought out critique of this philosophy, rather than the pig-eyed, philistine objections that have thus far dominated commentary.

Thanks.

too willing to give you their simplistic views of libertarianism.

They will use the extremist position of some in the radical fringe of the libertarian mindset in order to belittle what they don't understand.

Most libertarians are more like democrats than republicans, especially on social issues such as the war on drugs and other divil rights issues.

Most of the uninformed will say something trite such as 'libertarians are just republicans that smoke weed', which is about as accurate as saying 'democrats are just people trying to take away your guns and your money and give your job to minorities'.

It's very childish and shallow.

A LOT of very uninformed people are far too willing to give you their simplistic views of libertarianism.

It's so much more easy than thinking, you see.

The cap-libs have co-opted the capitalised 'Libertarian' term. The term 'libertarian' was understood to mean 'socialist libertarian' til recently, and still is in Europe.

The basic tenet of cap-libism is that all or almost all government and laws should go away, with the contract becoming the only 'law' apart from laws against 'force and fraud' and in favor of 'the natural law of property'. That is, each law would be in essence a private law involving only the parties to the contract, only 'force and fraud' laws and the 'natural law of property' being superior. (Exactly how 'force' and 'fraud' would be defined, however, is not so easy to pin down.) But that's really all there is to it, it's quite a simple system in essence: natural law of property, no force or fraud, all relationships to be by contract.

What seems clear to most people outside that paradigm, though, is that there are a number of unacknowledged assumptions, the principal one being that conversion to a Libertarian system would start the clock from zero with everyone continuing in ownership of their current property, but no longer having any responsibility for the common infrastructure. Cap-libs seem to find it difficult to acknowledge their debt to the social structure that allowed them to be born, grow to adulthood, become educated, etc. They always seem to feel in a foggy sort of way that it would have happened somehow regardless. It's probably quite unfair of me, but I'm always irresistably reminded of early-adolescent boys, awash in testosterone, fantasising themselves master of all the power, money, and nookie in the world.



To soc-libs, on the other hand, government isn't the enemy, it's just us (or should be). So we don't need to make it go away, we only need to stop it being a ruling class. It would make perfect sense to delegate someone the power to, say, decide where a road should go and tax us to build it. But it should be delegation -- the power should stay in our hands, with the delegatee being our employee, not our ruler. The 'lib' part comes in because we soc-libs believe we have no right to dictate how someone else should live, as long as they do their share of the common work. The 'soc' part is because we understand that systems are imperfect, and someone might find hirself without work to do because of decisions taken by the majority. So everyone has the responsibilty of working and contributing, but also the right to meet their needs from the common wealth if the community isn't smart enough to keep them in work.

.

Your body? What goes in it? Who it touches with their consent?

None of my damned business.

That said I believe that Government IS the People, or at least should be, and Society must provide (or make certain that it is provided) Health, Education, Utilities (Local Government) Housing and Safety.

I don't believe that a person with ten dollars deserves more Democracy that a person with 50 cents either.

You're definitely a soc-lib :)

It's all a bunch of number two.

who are scared of going all the way.

its hard to get rich when someone can steal or destroy your wealth

talking about..the debate goes on...and on...

My point was that the Libertarians that I know want to do away with government and this is one of the founding principles of Anarchism. Since libertarians attempt to participate in the sysytem that they want to get rid of (government) they have not gone all the way to completely disavow government and therefore they have not become Anarchists.

Libertarianism does recognize the need for limited gov't, and hence the participation in the system is quite logical.

No libertarian I've ever met desires to 'go all the way'd and become an anarchist. Otherwise, they'd be anarchists, not libertarians.

I said the Liberatarians that I know...They have no logical end to limited govenment.

Anarchism means 'the state of having no ruler' not '...no government' or '...no authority'. Anarchists believe in property rights. What we don't believe is that we're so stupid or indolent that we need a ruling class over us.

Better brush up on Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon and Goldman.

Libertarians are (overly) fond of property rights.

Also known as sociopaths, social darwinists, narcissists, or greedy bastards.

Tilt. Game over. You lose.

Sociopaths? Social Darwinists? Narcissists? Or, Greedy bastards?

Where's the mischaracterization?

Sociopaths? Social Darwinists? Narcissists? Or, Greedy bastards?

Where's the mischaracterization?

By all means, back your statement up with something other than bluster, and perhaps someone, somewhere, will actually begin to take you seriously.

Perhaps even most. But not all. There are anarchic cap-libs, too, who advocate a sort of feudal statelessness, which is quite anarchic -- every wealthy person their own ruler.

if they were "hardcore" they would be down with abolishing property rights.

but yeah, that is one main difference between libertarians and anarchists, anarchists do not believe in property rights.

that's libertarianism

The libertarians that I know do not have a satisfactory (logical) answer to the bounds of limited government and at some point the scale of logic used to define the limits to government erradicates the boundry and they become supporters of no government which is the foundation of Anarchism...

They want ALL the services government provides, they just don't want to pay for it.

No, I'll wait. Go ahead.

and anything not specified in the constitution (with the exception of the 2nd amendment) is anathema to you. Am I wrong?

Please support your claim that libertarians want all the gov't services but just don't want to pay for them.

If the words "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" dosen't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on. - Terence McKenna
 

Great quote!! but I will withhold judgement of McKenna...Until 2012!! (beware the time-wave!)


:)

Please pick up some Alex de Tocqueville or Lysander Spooner some time. I do believe that libertarians like me have some connection with the European anarchist movement. I'm not saying we're alike but there is some common ground.

In its most sophisticated, Kantian form, libertarianism is a theory that advocates treating individuals as ends in themselves and never as means to an end. You can put Nozick here.

Other flavors include--

Utilitarian libertarians -- usually economists, they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and believe laissez-faire economics does this. Classical liberals like Mill come to mind.

Burkean conservatives -- Hayekians and Burkeans fall under this category. Social institutions are a product of hundreds of years of trial and error, and all rapid social intervention is doomed to folly.

Randies -- Pretend philosophy; Virtue is selfishness.

recently join this forum because they feel completely lost these days (many have liberarian leanings, have voted Repub in the past, and now feel cheated).

So I'd hate to see a whole thread trashing them. I respect a lot of people with individualist libertarian leanings--people are are furious with the Patriot Act, for example.

learned utilitarianism at the lap of his father James Mill and Jeremy Bentham but he ultimately rejected it in realizing man had a higher calling.

He said and I'm paraphrasing "better to be an unsatisfied human being than a satisfied pig."

This is where the schism between traditional and clasical liberalism begins.

a totalitarian dictatorship of "property owners" - according to liberatarian theory, a "property owner" has unlimited rights while on "his property" - the same as a king in a kingdom.

under libertarianism, unless you own property you have no rights, except over your own body - unless it's on someone else's property of course.

In practice, it's quite true - Republicans who like to smoke pot.

On edit: This kind of libertarianism and the libertarianism being promoted by the LP has NO place in the Democratic party. That's why it's the Republican party that has a "Liberty Caucus" - a front group for libertarians in the Republican party.

libertarianism is the same as a totalitarian dictatorship

Yeah. Ranks right up there with "All sex is rape!"

it was that all heterosexual sex was rape because it involved penetration.

how is it different?

The "Real Property" (As opposed to "Personal Property") types have latched onto "Property" as if it were a God.

Oh well. I still think no-knock raids suck, but that's just me.

This kind of libertarianism and the libertarianism being promoted by the LP has NO place in the Democratic party. That's why it's the Republican party that has a "Liberty Caucus" - a front group for libertarians in the Republican party.

Do I, as a libertarian, have no place on Democratic Underground? Ban me please.

The thing is, I've known some Democrats who lean libertarian and won't vote for a Republican.

(By George Harrison. With an earlier sketch of the notion in "Taxman.")

"My property is more important than your rights or the collective interest" is another way to put it.

It is the Libertarian and Green parties in Georgia who are fighting this electronic voting machine issue tooth and nail.

The Georgia Democratic party is terrified to do anything but whisper about the machines and the Republicans defend them as is.

I say more power to them because it may be up to the 3rd parties to save our democracy. The 2 major parties don't seem to care.

not that there's anything wrong with that




Oh, it's also a convenient hiding place for the intellectual sissies who can't admit they are conservative republicans.
:nuke:

are not liberterians. They are authoritarians. They want freedom in the economic sphere and controls in the social sphere.

As the axiom goes, they want to take government out of the marketplace and put it in your pants or bedroom.

:-(

For some insite see:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

I am a Democratic voter who is a libertarian, often
here I read disdain for libertarians without distinction
between it's varied forms. Usual because of Rand or
the american Libertarian party which is oriented towards
rightwing economics.

To me the main thing is opposition to authoritarianism.

Including both right and left forms like stalinism
and fascism. I have no problem with socialist or
capitalist economic structures as long as they are
democratic, non-coercive, pragmatic and humane.

In my own personal experience, this appears to be the commonest kind of libertarian. What I mean is that most of the libertarians I have met have been college students who want to legally smoke pot. They really have no idea about the high philosophies of Libertarianism, nor do they seem to care. Call them "one issue libertarians."

As an example, I lived with a libertarian for a while as an undergrad, and he was of this type. He voted libertarian in every election. All he knew about about the Libertarianism was its anti drug law position. Judging from his actions and morals, I would say that he would have been shocked to learn fully what it means to be a libertarian.

...a social disability in which one thinks that s/he is the master of his/her own universe and that "survival of the fittest" is an acceptable social structure. ;)

What right does the government have to tell me what to do with my body as long as I am not infringing on somebodys else freedom?

What does "infringing on somebodys else freedom" mean? How do you know when you are doing so?

can't be merely contingent. It has to have a significant impact on another person. For instance I could say all Pukes are ignorant but I am not harming them in any fundamental way so I should be allowed to do so.

If I want to sit in front of my computer and watch porn and masturbate all day that is my right. Some might be offended at my non-productive use of my time but their offense is not grounds for prohibiting me.

If I want to smoke a fat one after work that is my right. As long as I don't drive and endanger others.

My right to swing my fists ends at another's jaw.

No problem there, though. Even so, if we extend your scenario a bit and decide it is your right to shoot heroin and overdose, are you harming others as well? Surely others in the same plan help defer the costs of your irresponsibility?

However, 'body' wasn't in my definition. I said that Libbies believe that they are masters of their own universe. If you have an accident or develop some condition that prevents you from working, should the society that you have contributed to NOT support you?

family by overdosing on heroin is merely contingent.

Perceived social harm is not an adequate predicate for you to control my life .

...forcing others to pay for your (hypothetical) irresponsibility is contingent? This makes no sense, of course. By that standard having you run over my mailbox is more harmful to me than the increase in insurance premiums that your overdose would cause.

Under a Libertarian system, you wouldn't be responsible for his premiums. The safety net is reduced so if he wants to overdose and can't pay for it, he dies. In that case, it is a "survival of the fittest" mentality. But it's not Social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism puts you and he into competition. You have the right to hurt him to improve your own station. Conservatism taken to its extreme would support this. If a monopoly wants to destroy all its competition, it can do that in an economic system with no controls. Most libertarians don't take that view. They recognize the need for limited controls. What they don't accept is the government's ability to change and destroy. That means regulation and taxation.

It's a fine line and runs into problems. But it is not an oppressive philosophy.

The Libertarian view is philosophically and realistically bankrupt.

prohibit certain sexual practices that have a greater likelihood of the participant getting AIDS or say, hepatitis.


People with AIDS and hepatitis certainly put a greater strain on the medical system than heroin addicts.

The state?

The church?

Men with guns?

I choose to be the master of my own universe.

I agree to let you do the same.

Where is the problem?

How are you going to avoid an asteroid strike on your house? Congenital heart disease? Earthquakes? Freak storms? Political upheaval?

All you can truly control is what you personally do and how you react to what others do. You cannot control *anything* else. Period.

Asteroid strike: I will remain in denial that
such a thing could or will happen. Living in an
earthquake prone area I have great skills in this
area.

Heart disease: Get on the treadmill and eat more
veggies.

Earthquakes: See above. I keep some extra water
around.

Freak storms: Sounds fun.

Political upheaval: Vote, donate money, contact
reps, hang around DU and keep an small ammo supply.

Which of these above items do you think I would be
better off farming out to some petty bureaucrat?

You are probably mistaking me for something you
think I am?

Whatever.

is doing! They sneak around and vote for the bastards and don't have the balls to admit it! The ones I know are cutthroat union busting 'I've Got Miners'! Their perents worked like dogs to pay for their education and they go get their business degrees and learn to despise people who work for a living!

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There's some fairly good research that says that's not so. Quite a lot of anecdotal evidence too. At least if we define 'greed' as 'acquisitiveness for its own sake, as a dominant personality trait', where someone goes on seeking to acquire wealth beyond any actual need, and is willing to sacrifice many other things in its service.

Some of the most interesting research is going on now. It pairs two people (A & B) who are not members of a first-world or urban culture. They are told that the two of them will share a respectable amount of money (usually on the order of a week's earnings) iff person A can make an offer that person B will accept. If B doesn't accept the offer, neither one gets anything. The received Capitalist economic wisdom states that A will be very stingy but B will take whatever is offered, because it's found money. But what they're finding, in almost every case, is that B will walk away from an offer that seems too low. The received wisdom is simplistic. Also interesting is that in most cultures A will spontaneously make an offer of 35-45%, and that's usually enough...but in a few cultures, the offer is automatically and instantly 50%. It's very nice research.

Greedy behavior seems to manifest transiently during times of scarcity -- an impending storm will see people hoarding, for example, who don't ordinarily hoard. But we also see altruism in times of scarcity, too -- as when people share what little they have with needy strangers. Very few people seem to have the 'greedy bit' always turned on, but it's been recognised as a psychopathology at least as far back as Baruch Spinoza in the 17th c.

If everyone plays along nicely with this utopian scheme, all would be well. Also, hell would be a cold place.

"The main point of departure from the conventional understanding of democracy is that the more value you add to society, the more votes you get."

This is really nothing more than aristocracy isn't it?

Also known as sociopaths, social darwinists, narcissists, or greedy bastards.

In their eyes people who do good, care about others, are merely fulfilling their own goofy needs. Humanity is just another organism struggling to fulfill a predetermined biological function. Things like compassion, sacrifice, are seen as essentially selfish. i.e., if you give up your kidney to save someone elses life, it isn't an act of compassion or humanity, but due to some inner greed on your part.

In their eyes, Gandhi, MLK, the Buddha, Jesus, and their like, were simply answering some personal need. Same goes for Hitler, Pol Pot, Donald Trump, or Bush.

A simplistic philosophy for simpletons.

Scathing.

Who said people are fulfilling "goofy" needs?

They need not be goofy the need may be grand and wonderful.

The compassion and sacrifice thing sounds more like Rand
being anti-religious than anything I would consider as
libertarian.

A simple dismissal of an complex and varied idea.

I believe many libertarians are religous and
don't dismiss the values sited in your post.

Bringing libertarians into the Democratic party
for 2004 can only help the party.

I think people should be open minded about each others
beliefs in order to build the largest party possable
in 2004 to stop Bush.

Also known as sociopaths, social darwinists, narcissists, or greedy bastards.

Up is down. Right is wrong. Black is white.

In their eyes people who do good, care about others, are merely fulfilling their own goofy needs.

Oh, bullshit. There is zero evidence to support that contention.

Humanity is just another organism struggling to fulfill a predetermined biological function. Things like compassion, sacrifice, are seen as essentially selfish. i.e., if you give up your kidney to save someone elses life, it isn't an act of compassion or humanity, but due to some inner greed on your part.

Put up or shut up: support your statement with even the slightest evidence that this is representative of libertarianism.

In their eyes, Gandhi, MLK, the Buddha, Jesus, and their like, were simply answering some personal need. Same goes for Hitler, Pol Pot, Donald Trump, or Bush.

Where are you getting this cartoonish nonsense?

A simplistic philosophy for simpletons.

No, a simple philosophy that simpletons are apparantly unable to understand, but easily capable of purposefully mischaracterizing.

In their eyes people who do good, care about others, are merely fulfilling their own goofy needs.

In their eyes, Gandhi, MLK, the Buddha, Jesus, and their like, were simply answering some personal need. Same goes for Hitler, Pol Pot, Donald Trump, or Bush.

Humanity is just another organism struggling to fulfill a predetermined biological function. Things like compassion, sacrifice, are seen as essentially selfish. i.e., if you give up your kidney to save someone elses life, it isn't an act of compassion or humanity, but due to some inner greed on your part.




_____________________________________________________________________

"Each individual rational human being is driven by his own values. Inasmuch as each man may know only the specific workings of his own mind, each individual is uniquely qualified to determine his values, and his alone. No man may claim to accurately represent the mind or the values of another. Hence each man’s values may only be advanced by evaluating the world, forming rational conclusions, and acting for himself."

The free-will choice to act in accordance with one’s own values is recognized by other more traditional names, the most recognizable of which is “the pursuit of happiness”. Whether actions are seemingly motivated by traditional religious pursuits, or by the advancement of family, or friends, or charitable concerns, the pursuit of individual happiness (advancement of one’s own values) is the true motivator. Men seek to please their Gods, or to protect their children, or to help others, because it pleases them to do so.

In order to pursue the rational advancement of their values, individuals must be free to act in accordance with the dictates of their own will. In recognition of the fact that the will of individuals may conflict in advancement of their values, a rational restrictive boundary is created at the intersection of competing wills. This boundary reconciles the potential for conflict, by defining as a right, any action in accordance with the dictates of the will of the individual actor, which does not infringe upon the ability of other individuals to do likewise.

The only means which men have at their disposal to infringe upon the rights of others are initiated force, threat of initiated force, and fraud. Recognition of this truth provides the foundation of a moral code. Initiated force, threat of initiated force, and fraud, are immoral inasmuch as they act to infringe man’s pursuit of his happiness as he defines it. All initiated force, threat of initiated force, or fraud, are immoral, whether perpetrated by an individual or by a collection of individuals sometimes known as government."
______________________________________________________________________
"No, a simple philosophy that simpletons are apparantly unable to understand, but easily capable of purposefully mischaracterizing."

"All initiated force, threat of initiated force, or fraud, are immoral, whether perpetrated by an individual or by a collection of individuals sometimes known as government."

Sounds good, but.. Gandhi, MLK, Mandela, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc, all threatened, initiated, and in some cases used force. We're they "immoral"? "Libertarian" anarchists fought on the side of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Were they not libertarians?

How do libertarians (as you envision them) deal with entrenched power? How do they deal with entrenched wealth? Do you think that the capitalists of General Dynamics, GM, I.G. Farben, Texaco, etc, are going to surrender and redistribute their wealth because you tell them it's "immoral"? Is BushCo going to disband the military because the use of force is "immoral"? Is the "force" used by corporations, by means using overwhelming wealth, against the poor of the third world, moral? i.e American corporations bought up most of the land in the Dominican Republic that was used to grow bananas, then sold bananas at a discount price, thus forcing the small farmers out of business and left them to starve. i.e. Corporations using the same force of wealth, buy up huge tracts of timber and denude the environment. Immoral? If so, how will the libertarians stop them without the use of "force" - i.e. Forcing them to comply with environmental laws by threatening "force".

I'll be waiting for your reply.

Your nice theory has holes in it.

Sounds good, but.. Gandhi, MLK, Mandela, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc, all threatened, initiated, and in some cases used force. We're they "immoral"?

What a quaint understanding of history you have. Every one of those individuals that you mention initially had force used against them, and several would only utilize non-violence in any case. Do you realize how laughable your attempt it at deconstructing non-initiation of force is? Probably not, but let me help you: they didn't initiate force, they responded to another party's initiation of it. That is explicitly not immoral.

"Libertarian" anarchists fought on the side of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Were they not libertarians?

In their minds, perhaps. Libertarians are not anarchists. Anarchists are not libertarians. Do let's try and keep up, hmmmm?

How do libertarians (as you envision them) deal with entrenched power? How do they deal with entrenched wealth? Do you think that the capitalists of General Dynamics, GM, I.G. Farben, Texaco, etc, are going to surrender and redistribute their wealth because you tell them it's "immoral"?

That is a non-sequitur. In a libertarian society, there is no corporate personhood, for one thing, and I have never suggested that they should 'surrender and redistribute' their wealth. Having wealth is not immoral.

Is BushCo going to disband the military because the use of force is "immoral"?

Idiotic question, stemming for your misunderstanding of non-initiation of force.

Is the "force" used by corporations, by means using overwhelming wealth, against the poor of the third world, moral? i.e American corporations bought up most of the land in the Dominican Republic that was used to grow bananas, then sold bananas at a discount price, thus forcing the small farmers out of business and left them to starve.

That didn't occur in a libertarian society, now did it? Fraud is actionable in such a case, as should be patently obvious.

i.e. Corporations using the same force of wealth, buy up huge tracts of timber and denude the environment. Immoral?

No, not immoral. If a corporation can find a willing seller of property, and they purchase it, and consequently harvest all the timber on it, that is perfectly acceptable. If such a harvest could be shown to violate the property rights of neighboring individuals, that will be addressed in the courts.

If so, how will the libertarians stop them without the use of "force" - i.e. Forcing them to comply with environmental laws by threatening "force".

It's not immoral, and you have no clue about initiation and non-initiation of force.

I'll be waiting for your reply.

There you go, Sport.

Your nice theory has holes in it.

Uh-huh. Sure.

You do well at self congratulation. "I won, because I say so".

I suggest you try looking up Libertarian Anarchism in a dictionary.

"Force" was "initiated" by the people of India against the British to drive them out. If you don't consider strikes and civil disobedience the use of "force" then your idea of it is extremely limited and naive.

"Force" was initiated (justly) by the government of the US against the southern states when they decided to protect their "property rights" (i.e. slavery, and the "right" to secede).

"Force" was initiated by the A.N.C. to overthrow a legally constituted government in South Africa.

Martin Luther King initiated "force" (boycotts, demonstrations, trespass), against legally constituted laws in the south.

Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, Paul Revere, etc, initiated "force" against laws legally passed by the British Parliament of which the various colonies were subject to.

Your understanding of the word "force" is rather tortured.

You attempt the fallacies of the "libertarian philosophy" by saying that "it didn't happen in a 'libertarian' society". Where is this "libertarian society" you admire?

You say that my question about BushCo is idiotic because of my "misunderstanding of "non-inititiation of the use of force". Please enlighten me. If "non-initiation of force" is a tenable ideal, what are the troops doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia, etc.?

"if the property rights of neighboring individuals then that would be addressed by the courts" Only "property" rights? What if the denuding of the forest also destroys the habitat of threatened species? Does the property owner have the "right" to destroy the environment?

Do you deny that those with great wealth have more power than those without? Do you deny that those with great wealth "initiate force" by wielding that power? i.e. Firing employees who attempt to organize unions?

"Having wealth is not immoral". Here is the basic argument. If you, as a libertarian, are stranded on an island with others, and, by chance, by your own work and forethought, accumulate a great deal of food, and the others around you are starving, is it immoral to withhold that food? I, as a socialist, believe that it is. You?

The fault that I find most with libertarians is the denial that humans are social animals. Allowing the dominance of the strong over the weak is not "freedom". Defining "force" in the narrow terms of physical force, is stubborn naivete.

The corporations who bought up the land in the Dominican Republic and sold their product at a lower price, thus forcing the small growers out of business, did so with the full backing of the law. That the politicians in power were "lobbied" by the corporations is neither here nor there. After all, the peasant farmers could have lobbied. The rich have no more power than the poor..do they?

Don't forget to tell me how you've scored a homerun, or touchdown, or some other sports cheer for yourself.

You do well at self congratulation. "I won, because I say so".

I suggest you try looking up Libertarian Anarchism in a dictionary.

I suggest you either admit to the fact that you are purposefully mischaraterizing certain aspects of libertarianism, or just come out and say that you never had any intention of actual honest discourse.

"Force" was "initiated" by the people of India against the British to drive them out. If you don't consider strikes and civil disobedience the use of "force" then your idea of it is extremely limited and naive.

This could turn into quite a long litany of pointing out exactly where you're wrong, but I'll try to keep it short. The Indians did not intiate force. They responded to force already and originally initiated by the British in depriving them of rights, self-goverance and their territory. In other words, they used force, but they didn't intiate such use; they responded to it.

Of course, you're dishonest, so why would anyone expect you to portray the circumstances of colonial India in their entirety?

"Force" was initiated (justly) by the government of the US against the southern states when they decided to protect their "property rights" (i.e. slavery, and the "right" to secede).

Yawn. Force was initiated by the Confederate States. A little bombardment in a harbor down Carolina way.

"Force" was initiated by the A.N.C. to overthrow a legally constituted government in South Africa.

Legality is meaningless in this case. The black SA's were being deprived of liberty, sort of the big, macro-characteristic of this entire concept of libertarianism. Force was initiated by the racist gov't. Read your history.

Martin Luther King initiated "force" (boycotts, demonstrations, trespass), against legally constituted laws in the south.

Zzzz... See above.

Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, Paul Revere, etc, initiated "force" against laws legally passed by the British Parliament of which the various colonies were subject to.

This is getting boring. See above.

Your understanding of the word "force" is rather tortured.

My understanding of the word is quite exact and precise. Your misrepresentation of history is, alas, predictable.

You attempt the fallacies of the "libertarian philosophy" by saying that "it didn't happen in a 'libertarian' society". Where is this "libertarian society" you admire?

It's never existed yet, in case that missed your most acuate powers of observation. Every discussion of libertarianism is theoretical. Perhaps this has added to your confusion in that you cannot process abstract concepts.

You say that my question about BushCo is idiotic because of my "misunderstanding of "non-inititiation of the use of force". Please enlighten me. If "non-initiation of force" is a tenable ideal, what are the troops doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia, etc.?

What are you talking about? Those troops shouldn't be there. We iniatied force. It's immoral and wrong. Your comment was about Bushco. 'disbanding' the armed forces, which is an entirely different matter.

"if the property rights of neighboring individuals then that would be addressed by the courts" Only "property" rights? What if the denuding of the forest also destroys the habitat of threatened species?

Too damn bad. It's not the gov't place to protect them. Perhaps some concerned party will come along and buy up the habitat before it's destroyed. Perhaps not.

Does the property owner have the "right" to destroy the environment?

Most certainly. Just not the environment around his property.

Do you deny that those with great wealth have more power than those without?

Certainly not? Why would you make such an absurd assumption?

Do you deny that those with great wealth "initiate force" by wielding that power? i.e. Firing employees who attempt to organize unions?

That is a facet of a contractual situation, it is not initiating force. If such activity is prohibited by the employer on his premises, than I have no problem with that whatsoever.

"Having wealth is not immoral". Here is the basic argument. If you, as a libertarian, are stranded on an island with others, and, by chance, by your own work and forethought, accumulate a great deal of food, and the others around you are starving, is it immoral to withhold that food? I, as a socialist, believe that it is. You?

Of course it's immoral. It's also irrelevant. That is an issue with one's own humanity. It exists today and would exist in a libertarian society as well. It's up to one's own conscience.

The fault that I find most with libertarians is the denial that humans are social animals. Allowing the dominance of the strong over the weak is not "freedom". Defining "force" in the narrow terms of physical force, is stubborn naivete.

Libertarianism in no way whatsoever denies that humans are social animals and to maintain that it does is simply lying.

The corporations who bought up the land in the Dominican Republic and sold their product at a lower price, thus forcing the small growers out of business, did so with the full backing of the law. That the politicians in power were "lobbied" by the corporations is neither here nor there. After all, the peasant farmers could have lobbied. The rich have no more power than the poor..do they?

Oh, please. Fraud (bribery) and misrepresentation are both actionable in libertarianism. That they were 'lobbied' is precisely here and there, so to speak.

Don't forget to tell me how you've scored a homerun, or touchdown, or some other sports cheer for yourself.

Your facile denial of historical fact is appalling for someone who trumpets knowledge of history. Try reading "The Road to Secession" to see who initiated your definition of force. If force is defined only in physical terms, i.e. the bombardment of Ft. Sumpter, you are ignoring the seizure of other forts by the US before the bombardment of Sumpter.

"It's not the government's place to protect them." Just what do you define as "government" - or do you not believe in democracy? If the will of the people says that it's the provenance of Government to protect the environment do you say it isn't?

"just not the property around his environment." So, you waver in your defense of "property rights". If a corporation is using non-environmental methods and pollutes the air, then that corporation can be forced to clean up it's mess?

"That is a facet of a contractual situation, it is not initiating force. If such activity is prohibited by the employer on his premises, than I have no problem with that whatsoever."

So, "legality" now counts? If a corporation buys (merges) with a company that formally was unionized and bans the unions, the workers should sigh and shrug their shoulders in the face of this "force"?

"Of course it's immoral. It's also irrelevant. That is an issue with one's own humanity. It exists today and would exist in a libertarian society as well. It's up to one's own conscience."

And your solution to solving the problem if one insists on being "immoral"? Would it be moral to initiate force to save yourself and your family from starving by taking the accumulated food? Is saving your own life immoral? Is saving the lives of others immoral? Does property rights outweigh the right to life?
And, you're right. It is going on today. The corporations are literally starving millions of people in order to fatten their coffers. Do the people being starved have the right to defend themselves against this "force"?

Further, your contentions about "initiating force" in history are simplistic at best. The Indians were responding to force. The South Africans were responding to force. The American Revolutionaries were responding to force. The Civil Rights movement was responding to force. Despite, in each case, the "force" they were "responding" to was initiated "legally" by the powerful. Yet, you defend legality in "contracts" initiated by the contracts.

You say that "in a libertarian society" the smallholders that were crushed by the corporations would find relief in the law. How about now? What is their resolution? The courts are against them. They have no money for lawyers. What's left? The arbiter of the AK-47 and dynamite? That's what our forefathers resorted to.

"Certainly not? Why would you make such an absurd assumption?"

Because in your ideal society, you apparantly, believe that those with power would not wield it. That the wielding of that power would not constitute "force". High paid lobbyists are not wielding "force" when they coerce (or if you prefer - convince) politicians to pass laws in their favor to the detriment of others that are less powerful?

"Libertarianism in no way whatsoever denies that humans are social animals and to maintain that it does is simply lying."

Well, I guess that our argument is about how society is to be treated and lived in. I believe that the poor and weak are every bit as valuable as the powerful and wealthy. And, that it is the duty and responsibility of the wealthy and powerful to protect and aid the poor and weak, even if it means sacrificing some of their wealth and power.

Sure there has been a "libertarian" society - it was called feudalism.

As to my previous comments about libertarians being "sociopaths", "narcissists" and "greedy bastards", I think that you've proven those observations quite adequately with your comments about the environment, unions, and legality.

One final question? What in the world are you doing on D.U.? Virtually all of the Democratic candidates and democratic beliefs voiced here being antithetical to your beliefs?

Your facile denial of historical fact is appalling for someone who trumpets knowledge of history. Try reading "The Road to Secession" to see who initiated your definition of force. If force is defined only in physical terms, i.e. the bombardment of Ft. Sumpter, you are ignoring the seizure of other forts by the US before the bombardment of Sumpter.

You seem to wish to spin things off into the realm of irrelevancy to cover your inability to admit that you do not understand the concept of force other than your contrived usage of it to support your position. I am well aware of the history and causes of the Civil War, and your example fails in the face of completely out-of-proportion Southern actions prior to Ft. Sumter.

"It's not the government's place to protect them." Just what do you define as "government" - or do you not believe in democracy? If the will of the people says that it's the provenance of Government to protect the environment do you say it isn't?

The government has no place in protecting endangered species on private property. I can't make it any clearer than that, and that has absolutely nothing to do with 'believing in democracy'. The will of the people is one thing, actions on private property that in do not result in damage to other, surrounding properties are not within its purview.

"just not the property around his environment." So, you waver in your defense of "property rights". If a corporation is using non-environmental methods and pollutes the air, then that corporation can be forced to clean up it's mess?

Absolutely not. The problem is that you don't understand them, and you parade this again and again. If a corporation pollutes its holding in such a manner as it pollutes or negatively effects surrounding property, it can be forced under law to offer redress to the aggrieved parties. This isn't rocket science.

"That is a facet of a contractual situation, it is not initiating force. If such activity is prohibited by the employer on his premises, than I have no problem with that whatsoever."

So, "legality" now counts? If a corporation buys (merges) with a company that formally was unionized and bans the unions, the workers should sigh and shrug their shoulders in the face of this "force"?

That would depend entirely on the contractual language governing continuance under a M&A situation. Exactly like it is right now.

"Of course it's immoral. It's also irrelevant. That is an issue with one's own humanity. It exists today and would exist in a libertarian society as well. It's up to one's own conscience."

And your solution to solving the problem if one insists on being "immoral"? Would it be moral to initiate force to save yourself and your family from starving by taking the accumulated food?

Ah, the perpetual desire to reduce macro concepts down to irrelevant minutiae. You gave the situation of an island with a few people, one of them possessing great amounts of food, the others near starvation. Tell me, given that there is no gov't there, how would a socialist or a democrat respond? You have reduced the entire paradigm down to such a level where labels no longer apply.

Is saving your own life immoral?

Yes.

Is saving the lives of others immoral? Does property rights outweigh the right to life?

Do you understand why your questions do not apply here? Of course not.

And, you're right. It is going on today. The corporations are literally starving millions of people in order to fatten their coffers. Do the people being starved have the right to defend themselves against this "force"?

To the barricades, communard. It also happened with great frequency in socialist countries. Only in those cases, replace 'corporations' with 'government'. Bad things happen no matter what structure a society applies to itself.

Further, your contentions about "initiating force" in history are simplistic at best. The Indians were responding to force. The South Africans were responding to force. The American Revolutionaries were responding to force. The Civil Rights movement was responding to force. Despite, in each case, the "force" they were "responding" to was initiated "legally" by the powerful. Yet, you defend legality in "contracts" initiated by the contracts.

Again, you seem to have a difficult time with abstracts. There is a platonic ideal that libertarianism assumes. It, like all other similar ones, can never be reached, but it is used as the measuring stick, if you will. It doesn't matter that what they were responding to was executed legally; the conditions imposed on them deprived them of the ability to have and exercise personal liberty, and were, therefore, immoral. They were enforced under color of law, therefore they were initiations of force.

Contracts, on the other hand, cannot be construed as initiation of force. If a party is coerced into signing a contract, this is actionable.

You say that "in a libertarian society" the smallholders that were crushed by the corporations would find relief in the law. How about now? What is their resolution? The courts are against them.

If the courts are bought and sold, it's not a libertarian society, genius.

They have no money for lawyers. What's left? The arbiter of the AK-47 and dynamite? That's what our forefathers resorted to.

That option is available to all people at all times and is not indicative of libertarianism.

"Certainly not? Why would you make such an absurd assumption?"

Because in your ideal society, you apparantly, believe that those with power would not wield it.

I make no such assumption, thanks. I'm quite sure that they would.

That the wielding of that power would not constitute "force".

It would not.

High paid lobbyists are not wielding "force" when they coerce (or if you prefer - convince) politicians to pass laws in their favor to the detriment of others that are less powerful?

You're playing words games now. Coercion is force. To equate coercion and convincing is dishonest and transparent. Politicians can be bought in any society, including a libertarian one.

"Libertarianism in no way whatsoever denies that humans are social animals and to maintain that it does is simply lying."

Well, I guess that our argument is about how society is to be treated and lived in. I believe that the poor and weak are every bit as valuable as the powerful and wealthy. And, that it is the duty and responsibility of the wealthy and powerful to protect and aid the poor and weak, even if it means sacrificing some of their wealth and power.

As do I. Not under coercion from gov't, however.

Sure there has been a "libertarian" society - it was called feudalism.

That is the final confirmation that you have no idea what either means. Tell me, what property rights did serfs have under feudalism. Oh, that's right, they didn't. What legal redress did they have? They didn't. What document strictly defined the powers of the gov't? There was no such document. And on and on and on....

As to my previous comments about libertarians being "sociopaths", "narcissists" and "greedy bastards", I think that you've proven those observations quite adequately with your comments about the environment, unions, and legality.

I think you have severe vocabulary-based mental dissonance. And it grows boring. If an individual treats private property in such a way that you define as 'polluting', that individual is magically, somehow, 'narcissitic'.

Get real.

One final question? What in the world are you doing on D.U.? Virtually all of the Democratic candidates and democratic beliefs voiced here being antithetical to your beliefs?

I don't expect you to understand this, but there are a number of causes that libertarians and left-leaning democrats see eye-to-eye on, the most important one the monstrosity of the War on Drugs.

What in the world are you doing at D.U. when you refuse to enter into honest discourse?

Corporations using the same force of wealth, buy up huge tracts of timber and denude the environment. Immoral? If so, how will the libertarians stop them without the use of "force" - i.e. Forcing them to comply with environmental laws by threatening "force".

Er... honest question - to where does this slippery slope lead?

I intend to buy some tens of acres of adjacent property - barren pasture, doubtlessly trafficked by all manner of fauna - plow this under and plant crops. I also intend to pump as much water out of the ground and into my private water tower, and use this for irrigation.

Would that be, um, okay?

How about if I have the 100 acres of timber I inherit from my family at some point in my life, harvested? Timber company takes everything over 25 years old, or x inches in diameter based on species, and leaves everything else? Can I do that, or do I need a permit from some agency? To sell my timber?

Do I actually get to, like, own actual land?

Such a cavalier attitude towards valid property rights, I frankly find quite disturbing.

So, you own property, 10 acres, 100 acres, whatever. You own it, right? "Ownership" implies control - you can do with it as you like.
If that's the case then try these tests:

1. Sell the property that you own and control to North Korea.
2. Declare "your" 10 acres a new nation, secede from the union and refuse to pay taxes on "your" property.
3. Make "your" property a nudist colony.
4. Grow opium on "your" property.
5. Invite Saddam Hussein to take refuge on "your" property.
6. Walk around "your" property in the nude.
7. Decide that you don't like the trees on "your" property and
set them afire.
8. Lease your property to a nuclear facility as a nuclear waste dump.
9. Donate "your" property to Fidel Castro.
10. Place no trespassing signs around your property and harbor criminals.

etc., etc.

Property rights are an illusion. Simply "owning" it doesn't relieve you of the responsibilities owed to the society around you.

I didn't propose doing things in flagrant violation of federal / state / local law. I asked whether it would be all right, in your view, to plow a field and/or timber harvest a wooded parcel. At what point does the State no longer get to control what I do with the land that, on paper, and in terms of the State's tax rolls, I "own?"

The honest answer, not often plainly stated by the arch-left - not outside of Cuba, China or North Korea, anyway - is, "Ideally, never. All property, down to the last blade of grass, should be wholly owned and controlled by the State."

If you believe it, great. Good luck with it. I don't.

You give simple slogans as responses to statements against libertarianism. Where is your evidence that proves the critics of libertarianism wrong.



Your version of libertarianism doesn't match the information that is available, you may want to look into labeling yourself something other than a libertarian. Your views are so different than the Libertarian party and all of the documents and fiction that the Libertarian party bases itself on. So different in fact that you take great pains to separate yourself from it when it gets brought up in any discussion of libertarianism maybe you can call yourself a personalfreedomanarian instead.

I don't think that word means what you think it means. You give simple slogans as responses to statements against libertarianism. Where is your evidence that proves the critics of libertarianism wrong.

Here's the problem: I'm not reponding with simple 'slogans', I am pointing out the absurdity of the claims made by those here who think they actually know what libertarianism is, and attempt to attribute to it things not representative of it. It does not fall to me to prove anything other than what I have asserted. In post #34 I did so. Feel free to critique that all you wish.

However, in the 'simple slogan' response that you are referring to, I don't have to 'prove' anything. It is up to the individuals whose comments I was responding to to prove the veracity of their ridiculous claims.

Your views are so different than the Libertarian party and all of the documents and fiction that the Libertarian party bases itself on.

Have you bothered to read this thread at all? Even skimmed over it? The Libertarian Party does not represent libertarianism, as has been shouted from the rooftops here for well over 100 posts now.

So different in fact that you take great pains to separate yourself from it when it gets brought up in any discussion of libertarianism

Why do I even bother? I only seperate myself from it to the extent that others, yourself included, operate under the specious assumption that the LP and libertarianism are one and the same.

They're not.

Got it yet?

I feel for you and your confliction over Libertarian Party and libertarianism. But the fact is the two are linked like it or not. you would likely be better served calling yourself a rationalist rather than a libertarian.

But as long as you do call yourself a libertarian small L or not, here on a board devoted to what can be termed a whole lot of social liberals, you have to prove with real world examples of how free market morality works better for society at large than social liberalism. We already believe in social liberalism we don't need proof, and a philosophy treatise on libertarianism is not proof its a load of BS(on edit this is not to say that a philosophy treatise on libertarianism is pure BS but in #34 you did run a little long and dry) designed to stretch out an answer to an essay question. You need to show as in a actual real working libertarian society barring that explain how a libertarian society is going to be different than say Somalia or medieval feudalism.

1. When I refer to libertarianism, I'm always talking about capitalist libertarianism, though not necessarily about the LP. I view the term "libertarian socialist" as an oxymoron; sometimes, the label left-libertarian (e.g. Dean) suffices, whereas in other times the most appropriate label is moderate anarchist.

2. The fact that libertarians support legalization of drugs doesn't make them Republicans on weed. They also support free sex, AFAIK, and they're much more right-wing on taxes than most conservatives.

3. The LP platform point that private charities work better than government welfare is contrary to historical facts from the early 19th century in Britain and the late 19th century in the USA, as well as to modern facts from India (thousands of people die from starvation there every year - and no, I don't have a link).

4. Libertarianism is not the only philosophy that regards people as ends in themselves. Liberalism does, too, even though it diverges in that it views government as a prerequisite of a complex society, which serves people better than a simple one.

5. I presume that it's possible to define libertarianism by defining libertarian freedom and then stipulating that libertarianism supportings maximizing it. The problem is that I don't understand what it exactly means and what its priorities are (liberalism's, btw, are generally life, then liberty, then happiness/quality of life, then property rights, and finally respect og ideology).

6. A question to Character Assassin and other libertarians: if a conglomerate ousts the government, becomes the sole proprietor of the market, and consequently oppresses people just like a socially conservative government does, then will libertarianism support it?

(Costa Rica). They are generally considered the "extreme right wing". However, they do have interesting positions. They are pro gay rights (they are pushing an ammendment to the Constitution to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation), yet they are opposed to affirmative action for women in politics.

They are opposed to monopolies, both public and private. Here, electricity and telecommunications are owned by the government and no private company can participate in the market. They want to abolish this, but they are also opposed to monopolies by corporations.

So, I don't agree with most people here... they are not THAT bad. In general I think they lack a sense of community, but they are not fascists who want corporations to run everything around. At least that's not the idea of the libertarian ideology (even in its right wing variation).

6. A question to Character Assassin and other libertarians: if a conglomerate ousts the government, becomes the sole proprietor of the market, and consequently oppresses people just like a socially conservative government does, then will libertarianism support it?


I can say with near certainty that no true libertarian would support such a coup. Our government was formed legitamately, by consent of the people, and framed within the context of our Constitution which stipulates all of the powers and limitations that such a government would posses. Almost all public offices are held by elected representatives.

And probably most importantly, by design, our government was envisioned NOT TO HAVE BUSINESS INTEREST in the doings of American society. Government was not supposed to be a landlord, business partner, bank or lending company- for all the reasons that we here on the DU fear: A creeping pestilence of fascism, the blending of government and business, something that is happening with increased frequency today.

Democrats and republicans are both to blame for the corners that we are being painted into. Libertarians are the only ones with the plan to stop it.

A question to Character Assassin and other libertarians: if a conglomerate ousts the government, becomes the sole proprietor of the market, and consequently oppresses people just like a socially conservative government does, then will libertarianism support it?

A monopolistic economic system, based on an overthrow of an elected gov't by an oppressive single corporate entity has nothing to do with either the promulgation of liberty or any of the basic tenets of libertarianism.

It's closer to fascism than anything else. Why would you think libertarians would support that?

Is this what even educated, smart, intellectual people think of libertarianism? That such an abuse of power could be misconstrued as being even tacitly supported by us?

I tell you this: all the libertarians that I know would take up arms with the multitude of weapons we possess (for this very reason,) and fight to put down that abomination of a government- or die trying.

I see that we have much work to do here, again not in trying to necessarily win any converts here, but in simply presenting this philosphy correctly so that everyone understands it.

...Look at Micro$oft for a moment. They have a monopoly on OS's, and they use it to advance other software of theirs such as M$ Office and Internet Explorer. This hameprs competition and hurts the consumer who has to pay higher prices except during those time periods when M$ sells things at a loss price in order to kill the competition, as well as reduced quality that comes from a substantially smaller profit motive to innovate.

Given that, it would seem likely that libertarians would support trust-busting M$ in order to give the word processor, spreadsheet, browsers, and even programming language (is vB really better than C++ and Delphi?) markets their competition back. However, the Ayn Rand Institute absolutely lambasted any regulation of Micro$oft's actions on the grounds that "Microsoft is punished for being successful."

Moreover, not all market strucutres other than monopoly promise competition. Oligopolies feature an incentive to collude and form cartels; you don't think that OPEC would've been formed if the oil-producing countries didn't profit from it, do you? There's exactly one agency that can prevent cartellization: the government. The consumers can't, unless you find an oil producer that doesn't do any business whatsoever with OPEC and has stations in the US.

Now, the invisibile hand can be just as oppressive as a conscious government or a corporation. Take the Great Depression for a moment; you can't blame workers for it, because they reached a point that many would work for food; you can't blame investors for not investing in a falling market unless they were rich enough to single-handedly change its tide, and they weren't; and you can't blame the government because it practiced laissez-faire until 1933. When there occur such recessions, society must make a choice between substantially increasing taxes and having people starve because of something that isn't of their own doing. I have no idea what is your take on it, but I think that without life, no other right makes sense.

MICROSFT: isn't in fact a monopoly, in my opinion. Believe it or not I've never used a Windows PC. I've owned several Macs and I do my work as an editor on an Avid which runs on the Mac. Furthermore, there are emerging alternatives to windows such as Unix and Linux. Libertarians don't object to one company having a dominant role in a particular sector of the economy, but we do object to protectionism, tarifs and corporate welfare.

OPEC: A cartel is only as strong as it's weakest link. That is, any of the producing partners could potentially break ranks and undercut the rest of the producers. To my knowledge this has happened in the past- but don't quote me on that.

THE DEPRESSION: was arguably the result of highly protectionist legislation and tariffs including the Smoot-Hawley Act. The government in this time period was not in fact laissez-faire at all.

M$: Windows' market share is estimated to be about 95%. It can only be estimated because some people get Linux from the net and thus aren't included in the statistics. This qualifies M$ as a monopoly. Moreover, I don't have a problem with all monopolies; it'd be a little idiotic for there to be competing roads ("the GM-I-5 is longer than the Ford-I-5 but also has prettier scenery"), gas pipelines, or so on, but not for there to be competing OS's.

OPEC: It's happened in the past, but reality is that even when some members cheat, prices still go much higher than they'd be without collusion. In 1999, for example, OPEC almost doubled its prices and no one cheated.

The Depression: You're partly right. Protectionism exacerbates Depressions but doesn't cause them, and even so, it only exacerbates them in that everyone loses when everyone does it. Part of the reason the IMF and WTO exist is to prevent that from happening again; in other words, there's an international policy to coordinate national policies.

As soon as they do, something else sells. Whether that's a Mac or Linux or what-have-you, people are buying something other than Microsoft. This is why I do not believe they are a monopoly in the strict sense.

I believe that Gates should have spent time in Club Fed (tm) for stealing Apple Quicktime and putting it in Video for Windows and stealing Stacker and calling it Doublespace. That would straighted old Bill right out.

...but they can still raise much more than if there were any competition. When the number of firms in the business is sufficiently large, it's impossible to make any long-term profit because there's enough competition to ensure that if you sell above market price, most or all of your customers will move to your competitors. However, when there's a monopoly, customers have nowhere to go, so you'll only lose the very few who can afford to pay just market price.

I don't believe MSoft is a monopoly. I don't use it. Never have. And I use computers for 10-12 hours a day, every day.

If the product is lousy or overpriced- people can use Mac or Linux.

I WILL grant you that MSoft's dominant role in the marketplace is to the general detriment to users, because even though the products are considered generally good, there is probably a modest lack of innovation occuring. But that's the breaks.

As LC said above- prosecute Gates and company for real crimes.

I prefer a state of affairs where it is possible to have somewhat slower innovation as opposed to a system where any and all dominant players are broken up and disrupted on the basis of their size.

Let the buyers and users demand the innovation and leave the government out of it.

That said- a strict monopoly that is creating a national crisis is another story. I'd have to look at the merits of such an argument.

...I don't support breaking companies up on the basis of size. Rather, I support trust-busting monopolies that abuse their status. I don't think M$ should be punished because Windows controls uupward of 90% of the market; I think it should be punished because it uses this monopoly status to become a monopoly in related markets such as internet browsers, programming languages, and media players.

MSoft was "busted" for forcing PC makers to bundle their software. It was part of the anti-trust case. Did MSoft pay any fines for this?

If you want to have your own idiosyncratic definitions, though, then I'd urge you to narrow the focus of your questions better. Because other people are going to use more generally-accepted meanings for words. Unless one of the side benefits for you is the chance to be abrasive, of course.

economic or social.

The government doesn't put any limits on your freedoms, instead your rights are exactly proportional to how much money you have. The only thing that impinges on those rights are other libertarians with even more money than you that consider one of their rights the ability to oppress you.

...I think that libertarianism as I currently understand it supports too much freedom of and too little freedom from (other than freedom from government) - the freedom to pollute, the freedom to exploit workers, and so on. However, I'd like to get an answer from a libertarian before ondemning the philosophy as implicitly supporting a 1984 as long as the ruling power is a corporation rather than a government.

Exactly how does libertarianism support the freedom to pollute? There exists the possibility of severe consequences for doing so under a libertarian system, and so on.

In case it escaped your notice, 1984 is the utter antithesis of libertarianism. To even make the assertion that they are equivalent screams in the face of reality. In 1984, there was no liberty, except in the most truncated sense, for a miniscule part of the population.

Please see my post #34 for an explanation.

The U.S. Constitution?

I mean doesn't that fly in the face of a natural rights argument?

there it is

And the funny thing is, Libertarians talk about economic freedom (basically capitalism run amuck) as a centerpiece to their reasoning, all the while knowing that unregulated capitalism will lead to an absolute oligarchy who won't give two shits about personal freedom.

Oh, I forgot! We have that now with Bush!

I wonder how many Libertarians voted for Gore? OH YEAH! That whole gun issue thing...BUMMER!

Does a Libertarian vote cancel out a Green vote? What to do about those Buchananites I don't know. :)

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me ME ME!

Mine Mine Mine Mine Mine Mine MINE MINE!

Or, if words don't suffice, look at the person currently infesting the White House. Visions of small, greedy, children grabbing everything in sight also comes to mind.

The difference is that small, greedy, children don't spout philosophical nonsense to justify it.

its not OK in a Libertarian model to "screw you" unless, of course, its consentual.

That's always been my definition. And I will bother to tell.

pink tutu-wearing commies.

That's about how rational and informed your "definition" sounds to me.

See CA's excellent post #34.

nt

You actually defend this "definition?"

And, no I don't have a problem with smoking weed- but I DO have a problem with your definition that seems to eminate from a hop-head's rancid hallucination.

But I STILL think "Big Ell" Libertarians are just dope-smoking ReTHUGS.

There is a difeence between them and "Small Ell" libertarians, but the dope-smokers are the ones you hear about all the time...

I was surprised to see the name Jeremy Benthem here. I recall that his preserved remains are stored in a cabinet at some school out east, in accordance with his Will....Same guy?

Take the FARRRRR--RIGHT and then the FARRRR-LEFT and when the univerise is in the right shape and time a libertarian is born once in a while.

Or would they be okay with blocking abortion clinics as long as they pay no taxes?

is pro-choice whether x-tian, atheist, or whatever. But pro-choice goes a lot farther than abortion in a libertarian's world.

I don't know of any "fundies" in the party or who prefer to call themselves libertarians- I believe the issues of social conservatism prohibit them from doing so.

Well, let me paraphrase that. Judge them
by the only two of their websites I've ever
gone to. I think one of them's terrific, and
the other mostly sucks. As far as foreign
policy goes, staying out of wars and bursting
the bubble of imperial pretense of all sorts,
these guys are right up there with the best:

antiwar.com is an excellent
daily summary of international news events and
(separate, often valuable) commentary. They have
a lot of stuff from sources like The Guardian,
AsiaTimes, Hindustani Times, Sidney Morning Herald...

On the other hand, these guys' first or second cousin
(ideologically speaking in that I think they also share
funding sources) is lewrockwell.com
which is (by comparison) a steaming heap of cross-eyed,
armpit-scratching, mostly southern white trash.
There's at least one article a week on what a tyrant
Abraham Lincoln was. And <sub-text> why the good guys lost the
civil war.

OK, that's maybe a little more than unkind. As a group
I think they're miles and miles ahead of the right wing,
Rush-is-god, sawdust-for-brains, freerepublic crowd. In
short, the concept of "common good, planet-wide"
seems to me to be much evolved beyond their concept of
the "common good, domestically-speaking view...

This being the "Democratic" underground it is not likely that you can get a straight answer or and real discussion. I mean its a competing political stance like asking the to give you the straight poop on conservative policy.

I'll try to help.

First thing to remember is that, as there are many flavors of Democrat, there are many flavors of Libertarian. You might have trouble finding two that view the Libertarian world the same way. Don't know if this is good or bad but with the fairly broad set of policies you will see stated at their website its hard to accept all of them.

At its heart I think you could say that it believes that government should be limited to what it is expressly chartered by the Constitution to do, nothing more, nothing less. (See Constitution to see that that is, its pretty clearly laid out.) There should be nothing to prevent your freedoms so long as it does not infringe upon the life, liberty or property of another.

Review their positions and see how they seek to meet these two guidelines.

A few examples:
Drugs. They say legalize them as all the illegal status of them does is to waste government resources in a vain attempt to overcome what which the people don't seem to want overcome. Also they are the source of much other violent crime. Make the commercially available and there goes most of organized crime. Take them, thats up to you. Take them and kill someone driving your car, you've violated that personls freedom, you lose yours. But, if your employer feels that stoned employees are unsafe or inappropriate in his business, you're out.
Personal freedoms. Its nobody's business what you do in the comfort of your home so long as it does not infringe on life liberty or property of others. Want to do the nasty in unusual ways ? So long as the partner(s) are OK with it, have at it. Want to open a landfill in your backyard, nope. That infringes on your neighbors (at least in the subburbs).

Many people have problems with the provisions on trade. Helps explain why there are many division in the group.

Anyway, read on from unbiased sources and make up your own mind. We're still free to do that !

Don't bother telling me that libertarians are conservatives on weed, because that's bullshit.

Hooray! We'll get along famously.

First, a preface: As with with political viewpoint, opinions disagree as to the tenants. No one agrees on everything, and the same goes here. There are Democrats and Greens that have similar leanings but to different degrees, or differences on practical matters. There are also moral and philosophical differences on the left, from atheists to the religious. For some people libertarian is a philosophy, while to others it's simply a political party. There are always moderates and extremists, and I define myself as a moderate libertarian -- that is if you can accept the idea that there is such an animal.

The "Main Point" of being a libertarian is this. George Washington said about government: ``Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.'' Note that Mao Zedong said almost the same thing: ``Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'' The main point is that the revolutionary leader of the United States of America as well as the revolutionary leader of the People's Republic of China both correctly identified the main point, which is that government authority is always backed by the threat of force. Government is a blunt instrument. It is always easier to destroy than to create and the government is no exception to this rule.

Libertarians of all stripes unanimously believe governmental authority must be subserviant to the popular will. We *are* the government, whereas the political offices and agents of the state are most emphatically not the government. They may be officers of the law but they are not the law of themselves.

We were the first nation in the history of the world to start off from this point. All other nations in history before 1776 granted political rights to their citizens or subjects. Never before had a nation been established on the idea that the people came first, and the government was their servant. I will with no hesitation admit that there have been gross violations of this ideal, namely slavery as an institution, as well as smaller incidents such as the Tuskeegee experiments. However, it is a blessing that we are freely able to correct the mistakes of the past.

Folks on the left always ask me what I think liberty is. Liberty is best defined by what it is not. The basis of liberty is not that permission to do legitimate things is granted to the people by the government. Rather, the government is empowered by the people to do a limited number of legitimate things. All else we are free to do. We do not need to justify our choices.

If something is a problem, then it is vitally important that the government be given the explicit authority to do something about it. Consider the alcohol prohibition. Why did we need to amend the constitution to ban beer but no such constitutional amendment is needed today to outlaw marijuana? It's because we've begun to forget how things work.

This is a real short introduction to my political philosophy, but it doesn't answer line item things such as my positions on contentious issues such as abortion and drug use. I am generally speaking liberal on social issues such as gay marriage but conservative on economic issues such as lowering taxes.

I usually find myself standing on either side of the aisle depending on the topic at hand. If I truly believe that immigration is a good thing, must I necessarily believe in banning guns? Why must my stand on lower taxes dictate whether I believe that abortion is a state issue. That's the whole fallacy to the "two party system." The two party system doesn't exist in the declaration of independence or the constitution or any legal rulings until thirty years ago. The political parties have stooped to the factionalism the framers of the constitution warned us about: organizations which exist to keep themselves in power.

Finally coming down to practical matters, I don't have a problem if you are gay, or black, or even a black gay man (I know some of these :) or whatever. We're not racists or freaks, we just want people to be able to keep more of what they earn, have more money to bequeath to their family. We want people to be able to start their own business without a whole lot of hoops to jump through, forms to fill out, beauracrats to pay off, and etc. Drink deeply and play your music loud. Paint your house purple with green polka-dots if you want to.

If someone cheats, by all means throw the book at them. But we've gotten to the point that we believe we can legistlated bad things from happening. Legislation does not prevent tragedy, it is there to sanction those responsible and make restitution to the victim. We need to get away from that. Government is force. Naked agression. Don't forget it. Every time a law is passed it is backed up with the barrel of a gun.

Free the refuseniks!

It's a shame that some inarticulate tween communist will only read about 1 percent of it before becoming completely unglued and dismissing your entire post with some gripping commentary such as "blah blah blah - shut up, freeper rePUUUUUUUUUUUUKE!"

For my part, that was probably the best overview of libertarianism I've read in a great long time.

I also happen to agree with msot of what's written in Liberal Classic's post.

The point about liberty is a little vague, though. The easiest way to define liberty, IMO, is to define "social constraint" and then say that liberty is the lack of social constraint.

So, social constraint is anything that prohibits a person from doing what he wants because of a social structure. Gravity is a constraint but not a social one; rather, it is a natural constraint that has ntohing to do with people, interactions between people, or the government. By the same token, a person can never be his own slave; in other words, personal constraints, e.g. my inability to do most things except a few days before the deadline, are not social constraints. Criminal law, on the other hand, is a social constraint, because it means that the government forbids a person to, say, steal from another person - there is a clear social dimensions to it.

Now, do I think that criminal law deprives people of liberty? To a degree, yes. However, this deprivation of liberty is needed to protect other, more important liberties, or even the right to life*. Here's a concept of negative vs. positive liberties: a negative liberty is one that doesn't involve anyone but you, at least not directly, for example freedom of speech and freedom to wear whatever clothes you want to, whereas a positive liberty does, for example the right to steal or the right to shoot people in the street. Ironically, negative liberties should only be infringed upon in case of a punishment for a crime (e.g. incarceration), whereas positive liberties are often negative in the social sense. The right to bear arms is on the border between negative and positive, because firearms are specifically designed to kill people, plus they have very little self-defense benefit, so since they cause accidents and crime more than they save lives, the right to bear them can be categorized as positive (although technically only bearing arms is negative).

Now, as for the government being subservient to the people, that's Humanism 101. The idea here is that people know what's best for them; however, they often don't have the means to achieve what they want. Therefore, especially in cases that involve game theory issues, mainly a multi-player version of the Prisoner's Dilemma**, the people establish a coordinating agency that ensures maximum benefit to everyone involved - and that agency is the government. Take airports, for example. After 9/11, everyone has to stand in line for an X-Ray scan. I stood in a such a line about a month ago in LAX and I can tell you it is very long, and needlessly so. First, the X-Ray scan can be done after the luggage is checked in. Second, and more importantly, the airport can buy two X-Ray machines. If the cost of the second X-Ray machine is distributed among all the departing passengers on a certain day, then those passengers will pay a negligible amount for standing half the time in a line, thus getting their money back in the form of time. However, it's impossible for the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of LAX departing passengers to coordinate that, so the government has to do it. Ditto public goods such as police, defense, street lighting, roads, etc.

It seems to me that we diverge only on one or two points, then: taxes and perhaps the source of liberty. Freedom from taxation is borderline negative/positive; while it's clear that all other things being equal, lower taxes are better, seldom are all other things indeed equal. To quote Howard Dean, there's a choice here between paying 200 less dollars in taxes every year and, say, getting better health insurance. Here is where democracy comes into play; the people as a whole decide which they prefer. While I think that Bush was and still is wrong to cut taxes, I can't say that doing so is undemocratic or anything; the people - those of them who weren't convicted felons and didn't have similar personal info to Floridan convicted felons - chose Bush, more or less.

As for the source of liberty, I don't know if you believe in inalienable rights, but I know I don't. Liberty, as explained above, is a social term that describes the absence of social constraints (civil liberties, btw, are those negative liberties that concern the proper fucntioning of democracy, such as the first amendment freedoms, the freedom of information, the right to a fair trial, and so on). It derives from an implicit social contract; you can't really say that animals, hermits, and people who lived tens of thousands of years ago before the concept of government was invented, have liberties. Rights, moreover, are government grants; they should protect liberties, but in totalitarian states they do not. The Germans in the 1930s didn't have the right to dissent, although they should've had it, for instance.

On another note, the two-party system is indeed a menace to liberty, choice, and progress. Not only can't people sample platform points from each party (they could if there were specialized legislatures - see the thread "Specialized Legislatures" that's buried somewhere in the back pages of the GD archives of DU2), but also people who're on the left or right fringes don't have any representation. Democracy means that everyone or almost everyone is represented, not that only the majority is represented, although the majority of the people should have the majority of the representation.


* I am more pro-choice than most people; the right to life as I define it begins at birth, so obviously the term when I use it has nothing to do with the Right to Life of Fetuses Only organization.

** The Prisoner's Dilemma is a simple game, which features two criminals who're accused of a crime. They're separated, and each can confess or deny. The situation is built in a way that if both confess, they get a harsher punishment than if neither does, but if one confesses and the other doesn't then the former receives a very light punishment - lighter than if both confess - and the latter receives a harsher punishment, harsher than if neither confesses. If the two can coordinate their moves, then neither will confess, but since neither knows the actions of the other, if one confesses then it'll ensure a lighter punishment for himself, and therefore both confess.
For example, if both confess, both might get 5 years; if neither does, then both get 3 years; if one does and the other doesn't, then the former gets 1 year and the latter gets 10 years.

i'm searching for this thread and cannot find it.... can you find it? It sounds interesting...

I'm late in this discussion, but i agree with little "l" libertarianism.. I want the government not to be paid to put its guns in my face, especially with my taxes.

Libertarianism is the rational expectation that one should be free to do as one wishes without government interference. Methinks that a logical mind, under such circumstances, would automatically not criminalize drugs taking, and have SERIOUS reservations before impinging upon anyone's liberty or right to life.

well, in terms of positive and negative liberty... it was only recently in historical sense that liberty became known as the freedom to do as you wish... prior to this, rather an empowerment to be part of the government. However america's founding, mill, locke and such superceded much old stuff... but still, as long as the government puts its gun in my face, i have no liberty... and the whole constitution is a bunch of hemp... best we smoke it. ;-)

It's nice to get open-minded responses. As always, I don't pretend to have all the answers. I just think most people are basically good and able to run their lives adequately well, and I don't believe the government should act as mother or father to the people.

Their god is laissez-faire capitalism.

Libertarianism is a political realization of Ann Ryand's ethic. It reduces society to each man against all other men. It proposes strict individualism with the exclusion of cooperative social action. Libertarianism seeks total freedom for the individual without considering a world without some cooperation is a world eternally at war.

Libertarianism is a political realization of Ann Ryand's ethic.

Absolutely incorrect. Libertarianism was around before Rand. Rand's philosophy could be said to be a subset of libertarianism, but not the other way around.

It reduces society to each man against all other men.

Please support that statement.

It proposes strict individualism with the exclusion of cooperative social action.

Utter B.S. Libertarianism in no way whatsoever prohibits or prevents individuals from acting together in a cooperative or collective manner.

Libertarianism seeks total freedom for the individual without considering a world without some cooperation is a world eternally at war.

Wrong again. Total freedom, as you put it, is not the goal of libertarianism. It is actually antithetical to libertarianism. Cooperation exists quite explicitly in a libertarian society.

i've heard him called the original libertarian, but i'm not sure if it's true.

anyway, i always thought that the basic tenet of libertarianism is that maximum freedom is good (with which i agree). from there, mainstream libertarianism claims that taxes and larger government automatically make us less free (with which i disagree).

so.

yeah.

They support open borders. They believe that people should come and go as they please. And that is a health/national security risk.