I just found this interesting observation about Libertarians:
Libertarians are distinctive, in part, because they and they alone seem to have difficulty perceiving the enormous moral difference between a marginally higher tax rate and forced marriage or doctorhood.
This is very true. Every argument I have ever had with a self-confessed Libertarian always runs against of wall of extremely weird analogies. You talk to them about rape and they say, “Imagine somebody stealing your wallet. . .” Food stamps for the poor magically transform into a mysterious gun the scary government holds to their collective temples. Social services that protect abused children are compared to the Holocaust.
It seems like Libertarianism is the kind of worldview that makes it impossible for people to stay on point and not get distracted by attempts to create a grand narrative where everything is exactly comparable to everything else. I understand the temptation to reduce the world’s rich complexity to a simple formula that will explain the universe but it is ultimately an intellectual dead-end.
Clarissa's Blog 
I think that they just live in a parallel universe where strange things happen. Take Todd Akin who talked in 2008 about doctors who give abortions to non pregnant women.
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Where? I would love a link!
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Story on Alternet, gender section and also a video of comment on Huffington Post.
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When does a tax increase go from being marginal and thus morally ok to being not marginal and thus not morally ok? You cannot build a consistent moral system on a principle such as that it is ok to take only a little money from some people. Either I believe that people have a right to their property based on their ownership or people have a claim on other people’s property as the basis of the claim of their moral superiority, wisdom and likelihood that they will use it in the most productive manner. Either can be defended in theory, but I prefer to go for the former.
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Ah! And here is my proof! 🙂 Izgad just made my case for me very elegantly. 🙂
Izgad, have you ever considered that there might be situations in life that are not “all or nothing” and “either or”? That there might be third options and more complex approaches?
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I grant to you that in practice we need to accept “third ways,” which may not work well intellectually, but allow one to operate within the real world. For example walking on government roads or teaching at a government school. That being said, even here it is important to set forth one’s principles. One should understand what one is selling out. Here we are not even talking about practice, but theory. So there is nothing else to discuss, but principles. Thus it is fair of me to challenge you to state your principles. Do people hold some sort of intrinsic rights when it comes to their persons and property? I believe you hold this in regards to abortion, but for some reason you seem willing to discard this notion when it comes to taxes. I grant you that in practice we are not going to have a world in which people’s rights are not trampled upon in some way. That being said, let us only do so when we are truly forced to do so, let us be honest enough to acknowledge that this is what we are doing so and let us so some remorse. Often it seems that statists delight in using government, that they feel there is something morally redeeming about using government when it should be the opposite. One of the things that libertarians like me try to do is to challenge this notion of government being moral. Tell me that you have to use government, but at least do so with a sense of guilt. Thus I am more willing to be charitable to conservatives who believe, but see as a tragedy, that they must bomb other countries and put up patriot acts than I am for liberals who delight in expanding health care.
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“When does a tax increase go from being marginal and thus morally ok to being not marginal and thus not morally ok?”
I agree but government actions demonstrate that a State A with less taxes and less civil liberties (the Repubenron wet dream) can be easily less free than a State B with more taxes and more civil liberties.
“Either I believe that people have a right to their property based on their ownership or people have a claim on other people’s property as the basis of the claim of their moral superiority”
I’m against property but I support possession, which is different. How can you defend an illimited time property without enforcement of violence by an authority?
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Good points, David Gendron.
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I support civil liberties in the sense of negative liberties. Positive liberty is a contradiction in terms and a denial of negative liberty. So what civil liberties do you think my libertarian world will lack? For example I support the right of Marxists to set up their own communes with property held in common.
What is the difference between property and possession? I assume you are trying to draw a line around means of production as subject to government appropriation and personal property, which is not. This distinction does not hold up very well in a dynamic economy where new means of production are always coming into existence and where the most valuable forms of property are ideas.
Property can be defended through a mutual social contract. I agree to respect your property and you agree to respect mine.
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The concept of private property is a pretty recent cultural invention. It is, like most inventions, flawed and certainly needs ongoing refinement.
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Private property and freedom are concepts that have evolved over the past several thousand years of political thought. This remains an ongoing process. That being said, it should be noted that, in practice, one has never existed without the other.
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“Either I believe that people have a right to their property based on their ownership or people have a claim on other people’s property as the basis of the claim of their moral superiority, wisdom and likelihood that they will use it in the most productive manner. ”
– Alternatively, people might realize that they are not prepared to dedicate their lives to defending their property from their neighbors and passersby and choose to delegate that to somebody else in lieu of a payment.
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This does not have to be government. I look forward to the day that I will be able to pay service fees to a private protection agency. In truth this cannot be government, because government you can never have any meaningful choice. Come next year, Gary Johnson will not be my president despite the fact that I will vote for him. I have the right to change phone services; why can I not change my government service plan in the same way?
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You look forward to it but the absolute majority of people doesn’t. Which is why your candidate does not have a hope of winning.
How do you envision going everywhere with a group of armed security guards? More importantly, how do you envision paying for them? Can you imagine the hourly rate multiplied by 24 hpd? And even more importantly, what’s to prevent these armed guards from killing you and taking all your money at once? Or will you hire another group of guards to protect you from the first?
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Most American do not use Sprint, but somehow I am able to. There is no reason why a private security force could not be funded by and serve 5% of the population. I trust Sprint not to kill me with an exploding phone because there business would go bankrupt if they did. For the same reason I would be willing to trust a private security service.
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It’s interesting how in response to a charge that libertarians cannot say anything without a host of weird analogies, you proceed to offer only weird analogies. I asked a series of specific questions. You didn’t answer a single one. But you did offer a strange analogy. 🙂
By the way, one can only “go bankrupt ” in a society where there are bankruptcy laws upheld by the bad G word. 🙂
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There is nothing weird about such an analogy. I am willing to treat protection as a monetary transaction. You agree that people can engage in monetary transactions without government. The question then becomes why do you believe that we have to treat protection in a special category. In keeping with Occam’s razor, the burden of proof is on you to justify why we should make such an addition.
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There is a lot weird with comparing things in an existing society with things in an invented fantasy world
Once again, I point out that you did not answer any of my questions. Will you at least attempt to do that or do you acknowledge that you have mo answers because this libertarian fantasy is meaningless?
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“You agree that people can engage in monetary transactions without government.”
– I have never lived in a place without a government and neither have you. But I have lived in a place with a very weak government, which is an experience you do not have. And I can tell you that when one can easily make money by robbing and killing and doesn’t need to fear punishment, people turn to gang wars and simply stop producing goods and services. Haven’t you heard of the bandit wars in the FSU in the 1990s?
I will now repeat my specific questions and await specific answers:
How do you envision going everywhere with a group of armed security guards? More importantly, how do you envision paying for them? Can you imagine the hourly rate multiplied by 24 hpd? And even more importantly, what’s to prevent these armed guards from killing you and taking all your money at once? Or will you hire another group of guards to protect you from the first?
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And I will repeat the answers that I already gave you. The countries of the FSU do not have functional legal systems. This is largely the result of the governments they have. While neither of us has lived in an anarchist state, we both regularly engage in monetary transactions. So it is quite simple to extend the assumptions we make about such transactions in general to security. In the absence of a government (but not of a legal system based on social contract) there will arise private companies to provide security. I cannot afford a company for myself, but just as I am able to afford a cell phone because Samsung provides them not just for me, but for millions of people, so too will a private security company be able to provide protection for millions of subscribers. This security company can be counted on to not murder its customers for the same reason that cell-phone companies do not murder their customers. It is not in their rational self-interest to do so. There is no reason that the private company should be much different from our present day system in practice. The same cops would be hired enforcing most of the same laws. We would just be paying them more directly.
Will this system be ideal? No. But our government system is not ideal either. Anyway it is not your problem whether the system would work. The real question for you is what right do you have to stop me from engaging in this experiment? Let me get myself killed through my own folly.
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A lot of verbiage to conceal a complete absence of answers. I’m not surprised, unfortunately.
I never liked Peter Pan – either the book or the movie – so I don’t subscribe to these fantasies.
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And I see you as doing the same thing. Accept you are not even serious about throwing words at me to attempt to answer the question. So the feelings are kind of mutual here. I hope this does not damage our friendsip. 🙂
Peter Pan is a horrible analogy for libertarianism in that his existance is completely outside of any economic laws. No money, no trade, no need for labor. He has a magic land to just give him things.
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You know I like you but I do not accept any American – not a single one – to offer opinions on the Soviet Union in my presence. That’s just how things are.
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Please to not embarrass yourself by offering opinions about countries whose history is unfamiliar to you.
How .many times do I need to issue a warning that every idiot who attempts to reveal to me things about my own country will be moderated without pity? Don’t people realize how idiotic they look when they try to educate people from other countries on those countries?
So once again : you can ask questions about the Soviet Union. That’s all you can do on this blog. Any revelations and assertions on this subject are to be kept off my blog. This is my space and I will not be condescended to by ignoramuses on it.
If there is one thing I detest about Americans, it’s this stupid conviction that they are somehow ordained to spread the truth about things completely unfamiliar to them. Ask questions, learn, educate yourselves but for Pete’s sake, stop lecturing me about my culture for already.
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I have never claimed to know more than you do about the FSU nor do I see myself as trying to educate people in general about anything even libertarianism. I offer comments that is all. If you wish for me not to comment you are free to ask me to stop and I will vanish from your blog.
In this case you are the one who brought up the FSU. Very few of my comments have even brought up the topic.
Are you claiming that the FSU have functional legal systems? Part of the issue is how we use labels. You look at problems in the system and see them as failures to form a proper government. I see them as failures to form a proper legal system. (Note that for me these are very different things and while I may oppose government, I strongly support legal systems.)
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“Are you claiming that the FSU have functional legal systems”
– What do you mean “have”? They do, yes, but how is this related to a discussion of the Bandit wars in the 1990s? Are you suggesting that you don’t even know that the bandit wars ended over 10 years ago and since then the government has become very strong in said countries? If you don’t even know something like this, then I’m very surprised you want to advance any opinions on the subject.
“You look at problems in the system and see them as failures to form a proper government. I see them as failures to form a proper legal system.”
– I do not care in the least how you see anything in a geographic area you know nothing about. I promise that you would have the same reaction to a Ukrainian who kept insisting that Reagan is still the President of the US and started sharing with you how she saw this supposedly endless Reagan presidency.
As for a legal system without a government to enforce the laws, back to the Peter Pan world of magic and eternal childhood.
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I was certainly not claiming that the bandit wars are still going on. That was unfair of you to claim that. I deserve to be attacked for my honest errors, of which I have made many. Why would you want to invent mistakes I have not made? As far as I can tell from my limited knowledge, the problem of a lack of a serious legal system is one that still remains. (The obvious possible exception being Estonia.)
Whether or not we can have a legal system that does not operate at the point of a gun is a serious question, one that I admit to not having an answer to. All I can do is make theoretical arguments as to how it might be able to work. This theory gives me reason to wish to attempt to experiment with non-government systems in practice. Even if we were to decide that we need government then let us acknowledge that there is something morally problematic about doing so and feel just a little bit guilty about it. Again why are you resorting to ad hominem Peter Pan attacks? You are better than that.
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What is fantastic here? Both private security and cell phone companies exist. Theme park companies operate entities the size of small cities quite effectively, including security, roads and plumbing. Cell phone bombs exist. Fact, Samsung did not sneak explosives into my Galaxy II phone. Why do you think this is? I assume it is because of Adam Smith’s “hidden hand,” using self-interest to benefit society at large. Thus I do not assume that I need any actual government and in fact government will likely get in the way.
As far as I am concerned you are the one not answering my questions. You seem to make a point of not committing yourself to any clear set of consistent principles. Do you wish me to believe that you have none?
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“Both private security and cell phone companies exist.”
– In a world without government? Where exactly on the planet is that? Somalia?
“Theme park companies operate entities the size of small cities quite effectively, including security, roads and plumbing.”
– They exist outside of society and are not regulated by the government, you mean? Can I have an address of one such park? Does that address end with “Somalia” once again?
“Do you wish me to believe that you have none?”
– I wish everybody to believe everything they want. My principles have been declared here: https://clarissasblog.com/2012/06/25/core-principles-of-my-politics/ They have not changed. You see? I have immediately answered your question with a concrete list and used no analogies or fantasies.
Now I expect you to extend me the same courtesy and eagerly await concrete answers to my specific questions:
How do you envision going everywhere with a group of armed security guards? More importantly, how do you envision paying for them? Can you imagine the hourly rate multiplied by 24 hpd? And even more importantly, what’s to prevent these armed guards from killing you and taking all your money at once? Or will you hire another group of guards to protect you from the first?
Specific, direct answers to specific direct questions, please.
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Obviously the private security companies and theme parks we have here in the United States exist within the framework of government. That being said there is no reason to assume that such things could not function much as they do now without that framework. Somalia is another problem created by government and the lack of a legal system. A communist dictator left the country with nothing but tribal grievances and religious fanaticism.
Your principles contradict each other, which you have not been willing to face up. You do not extend your principles of self-ownership to property. Without property, self-ownership is meaningless. Furthermore there is the contradiction to self-ownership in that you have the positive liberties of medical and child care. These things cannot exist without the use of force against private citizens. This is clear if you would allow the government to take all of a person’s wealth to fund these things. You get around this problem by only dealing with a moderate government. Principles must be formulated against extremes. Just as I need to be able to oppose on principle a moderate functional government, you need to be able to legitimize on principle an all expropriating government. Anything else would be intellectually dishonest. If you wish to only defend a moderate government then you need to be able to make a principled distinction between the two. For example, at what point does government expropriation cease to be “reasonable?”
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There is nothing weird about such an analogy. I am willing to treat protection as a monetary transaction. You agree that people can engage in monetary transactions without government. The question then becomes why do you believe that we have to treat protection in a special category. In keeping with Occam’s razor, the burden of proof is on you to justify why we should make such an addition.
Even in a libertarian society people are going to lose all their money and have to negotiate with creditors. Thus there will be libertarian bankruptcy law.
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Don’t people realize how idiotic they look when they try to educate people from other countries on those countries?(Clarissa)
Ohhh, I so agree with you on this one. 😉
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Good. So maybe you will now stop cackling about the USSR.
Seriously, not a fantastic day to annoy me.
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Clarissa said: “If there is one thing I detest about Americans, it’s this stupid conviction that they are somehow ordained to spread the truth about things completely unfamiliar to them. Ask questions, learn, educate yourselves but for Pete’s sake, stop lecturing me about my culture for already.”
I like this comment and second it. I would add that Australians have this same tendency not to ask questions but to try to preach and inform from an authoritarian pedestal.
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“I like this comment and second it. I would add that Australians have this same tendency not to ask questions but to try to preach and inform from an authoritarian pedestal.”
– I can’t tell you how much it bugs me. I’m sitting right here, ready to offer a wealth of first-hand knowledge to people. Instead of making good use of this great opportunity, they start sharing some crap they learned from a Wall Street Journal article they glanced through at the dentist’s. Seriously, I half expect my students to come to class tomorrow and start educating me on Spanish literature.
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Well, it’s considered shameful not to be an inborn genius and know everything. Not knowing everything is experienced as a personal deficiency — which explains a lot of the cultural left-right divide, since cultural rightism is a means to improve one’s self-esteem by justifying one’s moral right not to have as much knowledge as the other party.
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really?seriously? ALL Libertarians?
shame on you, you who always preaches against generalizations!
One up to Izgad
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OK, let’s try to avoid hysterical outbursts. We all know that they bore me.
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typical, sitting in the glass house throwing rocks
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We are talking about principles so it is ok to generalize.
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“You cannot build a consistent moral system on a principle such as that it is ok to take only a little money from some people.”
@Izgad: I don’t know why you consistently invoke this language of “morals” when discussing property. There is nothing inherently moral or immoral about property ownership.
Besides, if you think about it from an ownership standpoint, the government is essentially saying, “You want to drive on our roads? Benefit from being able to ride a plane safely? Benefit from having (relatively) clean air? Benefit from having a functioning fire and police department? Then please pay for them. You don’t get to have fire services/airports/safe air/roads for free.”
It seems that you on the other hand want to use those things for free. At one point you mentioned that you benefitted from a public education but are willing to do away with it because you now realize the inherent “immorality” of taxes (which represents a dubious morality in itself …i.e. “I don’t want to pay for the thing as a an adult which benefitted me as a young person….) But leave the issue of education aside…..there is no way the private
sector can do the things government does. It’s just not possible and no country in the world has ever had the private sector successfully able to build and maintain the millions of things that government helps run successfully. You benefit in your daily life from government in myriad and invisible ways. The government is asking you to pay for those many benefits (and keep in mind: you are a graduate student. Your life wouldn’t exist without the government…even if you are at a private university. The government still subsidizes private universities and university research.). And since the government owns or maintains these things (i.e. airports, fire departments, air, etc etc), it has the right to “force” you to pay to use those thigns.
I guess I just don’t understand your vision of this moral world. Do you really and truly think that a large-scale complex society can be maintained without a centralizing organization? How would such a society be run by private entities? Do you really think a series of corporate entities would function more morally than the government?
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There can be no morality without a sense of private property. Think of the most basic moral lesson taught to you as a child; keep your hands to yourself. This notion requires us to accept that that there is a me and a you and each of us “own” ourselves. Because you own yourself and I do not own you, it is not right for me to touch you. If you do not own yourself than I can touch you and even take you as my slave.
The government does not magically produce roads and clean air. They are a function of taxes. Let these services be privatized and I will willingly pay service fees to private companies. Thus I am not asking for these things to be made free. I grant you that it is an open question whether such services could be run more efficiently by government or by private companies. I simply ask for the right to be able to experiment with private solutions. Furthermore we have reason to assume that any business which the government can do better (likely military and the environment) will see the private enterprise version evolve to operate more like a government.
I grant you that there is no escape from government. (One cannot “go Galt.”) That being said, I desire to work on using less of government in my life, because I see government as inherently immoral in that, by definition, it uses force. Do you challenge my definition of government as an institution that claims a moral monopoly to initiate violence? If you disagree with this definition than there is a good chance we are not actually disagreeing about anything as what I am saying is only meant to apply to this definition of government.
I am not against centralizing organizations as long as it does not initiate force. Since a private entity is by definition one that does not claim the moral right to initiate force, I would see that as progress. Keep in mind that corporations are really government creations thus any immoral action on their part is really government activity. Think of government as simply the ultimate corporation that is not liable for anything or answerable to anyone.
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Haha and in the comments to that post some guy actually tried to claim that people in the past were forced to become doctors, when it turns out he was talking about the draft, where people who were already doctors were drafted into the military as medical personnel. Oh, and his example was the tv series M*A*S*H, whose creators would certainly be surprised to find out that their comedy-drama was about how Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John had been forced to go to medical school.
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You point out one the main differences between libertarians and anarchists.
But you should think about this: the State in itself (not necessarily in every of its particula functions) is a legalized monopoly of aggression, obtained by aggression.
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particulaR
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But you should think about this: the State in itself (not necessarily in every of its particula functions) is a legalized monopoly of aggression, obtained by aggression.(David)
Interesting point. Hey, I think I agree with you on something, Tabernac! 😉
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Nobody can disagree with the self-evident. Except the Libertarians. 🙂 (I’m kidding).
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with aggression per se. It is a completely normal human emotion. The problem with aggression begins when its manifestations cause more discomfort than comfort to people. To give an example, this blog is the product of my aggression that I channel into the writing. But everybody here seems to enjoy the products of my aggressiveness.
The state, in my view, is a vehicle of contained collective aggression that stands in the way of a multitude of individual aggressions.
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Very Nietzschean
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The problem with aggression begins when its manifestations cause more discomfort than comfort to people(Clarissa)
Umm, like when you use the term freakazoid some people have discomfort. 😉
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Which they can easily avoid by moving on. Some people might claim that my hair color causes them discomfort, but the definition of discomfort has to be rational for me to pay attention. Just like for any reasonable person.
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So, would it have been rational of me to have some discomfort when hearing you imply that Canadians had zero impact on the outcome of the war, considering there were over 43000 of our military killed? I know, it would be better to forget you said that and just move along, right?
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“So, would it have been rational of me to have some discomfort when hearing you imply that Canadians had zero impact on the outcome of the war, considering there were over 43000 of our military killed?”
That kind of discomfort is understandable (though you use the slippery verb “implied” so I’m not sure what she stated or didn’t state about Canadians and the war). Anyway, you can assuage your discomfort by arguing publicly in the comments thread that such an assertion is wrong and by pointing out the facts. Once you’ve done that, it’s up to the other person to respond if they want. If they choose not to or choose not to accept your assertion, and it’s their blog, what are you going to do exactly? Hover here and wring your hands? Go into a prolonged sulk?
The way the rationality comes into play is not so much on whether or not you feel discomfort but how you act on that discomfort. If the U.S. government issued a statement that Canadians did nothing for the war, I’d expect a more prolonged protest given the magnitude of the effect such a statement would have. When it comes to a private citizen blogging, the most you can rationally do is state your argument so that it’s there for other readers to see and then move on.
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That kind of discomfort is understandable (though you use the slippery verb “implied” so I’m not sure what she stated or didn’t state about Canadians and the war). Anyway, you can assuage your discomfort by arguing publicly in the comments thread that such an assertion is wrong and by pointing out the facts.(hkatz)
Here’s the post if you want to read it. I have made my point, so I am now assuaged. 😉
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I’ll take libertarians seriously when they (amongst other things) (1) care about something besides guns and taxes; (2) when they take their own theory (that personal and economic freedom are equally important) seriously and start voting for those who support personal liberty as well; (3) stop acting like we live in some perverse zero-sum universe where the only way to prevent the federal government from oppressing you is to let the states and lower levels oppress you (and no, pack up and leave is not solution); (4) when they take seriously oppression by non-governmental groups (like religious fundamentalist parents); (5) when they own up to the tragedy of the commons; (6) etc.
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This is EXACTLY why I dislike Libertarians. They claim to be against governmental intrusion but when I bring up the initiative to subject women to governmentally mandated intravaginal probes, they have zero interest. Zero. None. So I don’t by this crap about them being against governmental intrusion.
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No. Right libertarians have a weird ideology about different male and female natures. They identify female nature with government itself, in an entirely literal and direct way. Then they identify both government and women with “socialism”. Therefore if government and women are fundamentally the same essence, one cannot be hurt by one’s own essence. Therefore, “women” cannot be hurt by “government”.
This whole manner of thinking is of course metaphysical and has nothing to do with reality.
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“They identify female nature with government itself, in an entirely literal and direct way.”
– I’m not sure I can agree. The pervasive imagery of the government in the Libertarian lore is that it holds a gun to your head. What can be more phallic than that? Extreme daddy issues is what they have, in my opinion.
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Certainly, but they are not necessarily consistent in their fears or capable of systematizing their thoughts completely. Their ideas may bounce around randomly in their heads. Certainly, a lot of evolutionary psychology promulgates the idea, “women are socialism”. A lot of right libertarian mean read a lot of evolutionary psychology.
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“A lot of right libertarian mean read a lot of evolutionary psychology.”
– Oh yes. Yes yes yes. They love it because it is yet another ultra-simplistic grand narrative that explains absolutely everything in the universe with one snappy joke of an idea.
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They dig evolutionary psychology because they’re social darwinists.
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“They dig evolutionary psychology because they’re social darwinists.”
Yeah, but they need a decent taste of actual Darwinism in order to get over their illusions. That is part of the intellectual shamanist seduction of “back to nature”. It allows people to check whether their fantasies have substance or not.
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You’re mistaken in your use of the verb ‘implied.’ She stated outright that they had zero impact. I know of two things to add here: Juno Beach on D-Day, and also their ongoing contributions to Allied Air Power (including their management of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, which trained tens of thousands of pilots and air force personnel). Now I’m assuaged too 🙂
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Contributions to the war and contributions to the outcome of the war are two entirely different things. The USSR invested a great amount of resources into the Spanish Civil War, for example, but that in no way influenced the outcome. The Republicans lost to the fascists.
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@Clarissa
You may want to ask the Dutch if Canada had any affect on the outcome of the war. Afterall, they were the main liberating force of that nation from the Germans.
@hkatz
In regards to the verb imply. I was just trying to be gentle, not my strong suit. 😉
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Do you understand the word “outcome”? The outcome of a war is who won. And you have suggested that had it not been for Canadians, Russians would be speaking German today. That is an extremely bizarre position to take. I have to conclude that you are being blinded by patriotism.
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No Clarissa, I said the Allies, which include Canada.
Without the COMBINED effort of the Allies, Russians would probably be speaking more German. Is that clear enough for you? Jesus, this is starting to remind me of your shopping cart story. 😉
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What is clear to me is that you know absolutely nothing about the history of WWII and that is very sad.
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It’s hard to discuss crazy people like Libertarians. Have you seen the new GOP associated video that is currently being sent to potential voters in swing states? It asserts that Obama’s mother was a lesbian porn star and his father was a communist poet.
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Wow, talk about nuts!
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why do you even waste your time..
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Isn’t the American dream based on the idea that people can overcome their origins by hard work?
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Can’t people get sued for something like that?
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http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php
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From the linked essay: “:What sort of brain-damage does it take to argue this with a straight face? Do they really, really, think someone will say “My god, a lunch counter is JUST LIKE a romantic interest. There’s no way to someone could tell them apart. If a business doesn’t want to serve any blacks, that’s just like not having sex with someone”. But apparently, this is all part of the “right of association” in Libertarianism.”
And this is my point precisely.
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Libertarians and other conservatives give freedom of association a bad name, big time.
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“What Libertarians have the luxury of doing is sitting back and saying “All the problems will be solved if we just let Jesus, err, property into our hearts, err, politics”. ”
– This is the best! Thank you for the great link, Daran.
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“”Today, Judge Rand ruled that the so-called “child-slavery” provision of the standard employment contract between MegaCorp and all employees was valid. As parents have the control of their children until eighteen, the signing-over of their labor until age 18 to MegaCorp was ruled a valid exercise of parental authority. Judge Rand, in his opinion, stated “The government is not to interfere with economic arrangements, absent a showing of fraud or force, as per the Fundamental Law of Libertopia. All parties with the legal right to contract consented, and that is the sole standard of evaluation. The fact that MegaCorp said it would fire any worker who did not agree to this provision is of no consequence, as that is entirely the right of MegaCorp.””
– Somebody actually made this exact argument to me completely seriously.
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You know, this is really interesting. I used to call myself a Libertarian when I was in my early twenties, it sounds like a great philosophy on paper. No rules, no government, do what you want, be greedy and selfish and don’t give a damn about others, sounds awesome if you’re young and stupid. But I am no longer a libertarian as it is a cult based on being an asshole, it means being selfish and greedy and not giving a rat’s ass about the less fortunate because if they are poor and unlucky then they must be morons who deserve it. And a lot of selfish assholes call themselves libertarians because they try to justify being an asshole, being a Libertarian is just being an asshole by another name 😉
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I have certain Libertarian leanings myself. Love Ayn Rand, for example. But I can’t stand the basic hypocrisy of the Libertarians pointed out by Rob F. They don’t care two straws about personal freedoms. It is, indeed, all about guns and taxes for them.
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I love Rand too, she did have some very good ideas and she would have hated the modern-day Republicans using her name when she would have probably laughed in their faces. I guess I was attracted to libertarianism because I have a strong anarchist and live-and-let-live streak, I do agree with the idea that other people and the government should mind their own business and let people be. But with too many libertarians it is indeed about just guns and taxes, many are against abortion and want to regulate people’s behavior but try to raise taxes and they get madder than Beavis and Butthead watching a Michael Bolton video 😀 (Sorry about that, I am a child of the 90’s ;))
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“she did have some very good ideas and she would have hated the modern-day Republicans using her name when she would have probably laughed in their faces.”
– EXACTLY!!!
“they get madder than Beavis and Butthead watching a Michael Bolton video (Sorry about that, I am a child of the 90′s”
– Yeah, this went completely over my head. 🙂
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This is what I’m talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqkdlAeflsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlVkr10DaAE&feature=related Hope they work 😀
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Very funny!
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This is something that I’ve noticed as well. Libertarians seem almost incapable of making arguments without using hyperbole–to the extent that their claims of being hyper-rational just end up sounding ridiculous, in view of the fact that they cannot make arguments without using emotive language.
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Libertarians, almost all of whom are white middle-income or upper-income men, believe that liberty is for themselves but not for other lesser people. This explains the Pauls’ position that abortion must be made illegal in all cases. After all, their own bodies are not affected, and the libertarian is not obliged to support the child that he fathers. Also, economic might cannot be unjust. Segregation, employment discrimination – that’s all fine according to the gods of the Marketplace. (Paul has been a guest at white-supremacy organization meetings and has expressed his belief in a right to discriminate on racial grounds in his editorship of his magazine).
Libertarians also have a magical belief that the marketplace will provide reliable, seamless, efficient services without the need of regulation by government or by “industry standard”. I have this mental image of roads with tollbooths every ten miles, river locks expected to accomodate odd-sized barges (there is an industry standard barge width/length that allows efficient lock operation), railway systems with different gauges, innumerable Internet protocols, airports without standardized traffic control protocols, and so on.
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There is no need to worry, Nancy P. As somebody who does have an experience of living in a country with a severely weakened government, I can tell you that there will be no newspapers, roads, railways, Internet or airports at all, so we have nothing to worry about. 🙂 There will just be gangs of armed hoodlums plundering, killing, robbing, and raping.
What I want to point out is that Libertarianism is a very curious fantasy of teenage rebellion where the strict Daddy (symbolized by the government) is finally not needed and kids can play freely. Not a single Libertarian can answer a single concrete question. Libertarianism is not a way to think about politics. It is simply a magical dream of an eternal Peter Pan.
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One of the most prominent libertarians today is Thomas Sowell. He is black. Most libertarians, even Ron Paul, are at least moderately pro-choice. Paul supports leaving abortion as a state issue so liberal states would be free to keep abortion as legal as they like.
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“Moderately pro-choice”? Since you love analogies, I;m sure you realize that this is just like “being a little bit pregnant.”
Sheesh, do these folks have any principles at all? How can one be moderately against the government intruding upon people’s bodies? Why not just take a position already? Is that because Peter Pan is too little to understand how the bodies of adults work?
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Libertarians reflect the spectrum of American thinking about abortion. Considering that most libertarians come out of the right. I would say this indicates that most of them are serious about personal liberty to the extent that they would move from what would have otherwise been their instinctive position. Keep in mind, as much as you do not like it, most people are willing to grant the fetus some sort of legal status. This means that the issue is not just about a woman’s control over her body and one is left trying to craft some sort of compromise. It is intellectually dishonest to claim that such people are motivated by a desire to control women’s bodies. I take a radical Rothbardian stance, which, in a sense, puts me to the left of you in that I extend a women’s control over her body to being able to kick children out of the house.
Note that I am not Peter Pan and yes I have received a basic biological education so that I understand where babies come from. To say otherwise is patronizing.
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I liked better the libertarian movement of the 1970’s which was often (perhaps inaccurately) described as “liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues” much better than the “libertarian”/paleoconservative alliance that dominates discourse today, which is conservative-on-steroids on economic issues and strictly apolitical on civil liberties issues to the extent that the parties accused of violating them are part of the private sector. Clearly not in my corner on either count. I had much common ground with the old-school libertarians and almost none with “tea party” “movement”, and people such as Ron Paul. To facilitate Clarissa’s New Year’s goal, and to state the obvious: Ron Paul is not a libertarian.
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@ Izgad:
I don’t expect to convince you but you truly appear to have no conception of how government works. The cell phones and cell phone companies that you are so proud of exist because of government. Private enterprise plays an important role but government funds help build and regulate cell phone towers. The reason why you can get cell phone reception in increasingly remote places is not private enterprise but government regulation. Take the roads: if EVERY piece of road was privately owned, there would be either toll ways every 10 miles or some sort of overwhelming “fee” that had to be paid daily. What happens if you can’t afford the fee that day? You can’t use the roads? If you can’t afford private schooling, the populace is left uneducated and illiterate?…………And think large scale. How can private enterprise ensure that the air space over the _entire_ country is safe and planes don’t crash in to one another? How can private enterprise ensure a basic air quality and ensure food safety for the entire country? It can’t do that. All you have are clans extracting money from increasingly localized groups of people……..Moreover, your utopia will be the death knell for arts and humanities. What happens to human memory? What centralized locations will ensure that works of art and literature will remain for generations and preserve our collective heritage? All you have _at bes_ are people preserving the work for their own children and family. The shared human experience is gone…..Your utopia doesn’t sound much like freedom at all. It actually sounds like a prison built of money, fees, and endless avarice.
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I grant you that government has helped build these things, but that has been through the tax dollars it has extorted. The physical labor to build the towers and to develop the technology was performed by human beings not government. The question becomes how one organizes this labor. Either we use force (government) or rely on willing cooperation (the free market). We do not know for sure if a society could be run without force. I am certainly willing to give it a try. This likely will lead to institutions that look and act like our government, but which people can freely secede from. Whether it will work or not, the fact that I am willing to make a principled stand against coercion and violence gives me the moral high ground.
Why do you assume that private roads would operate like that? It is perfectly reasonable for the owners of small stretches of a road to negotiate with other road companies to set common standards and prices. They have a common interest in allowing people to use the roads. Privately owned roads do exist in this country so we have good reason to believe that they could be extended to a larger scale.
I do operate on a sliding scale check list of things I wish to privatize. Roads are not at the top and air-traffic and the environment are near the bottom. That being said there are ways one might imagine that they could work. If people own their own air over their property than no one would have the legal right to add a single molecule of pollution without their consent. The problem with this is not that we will have too much pollution, but that businesses may not be able to run factories at all. Similarly airlines would have to negotiate with each landowner they fly over to be allowed to do so. (There actually was a Supreme Court case early in the 20th century that restricted the right of landowners to stop planes from flying over.)
My concern here is not practical policy as I see little chance of being able to implement it any time soon. That being said, I believe it is important to set certain principles straight. As human beings we are all sinners, who fail to live up to our own ideals, but let us at least admit that we are sinners.
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Privatized turnpikes exist in this country. The whole dang Russian economy under Yeltsin was rapidly privatized (at fire sale prices of course) under the “shock therapy” branding, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. There are also privately owned toll bridges. As we speak the private owner of the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit-Windsor is slinging a veritable boatload of astroturf onto the Michigan airwaves attacking the (conservative Republican) governor’s plans for an additional bridge over the Detroit River. The strategy seems to be to cement his (already established) alliance with the knee-jerk “tea party” element by repeating the mantra “government bridge” over the course of thousands of ad placements. Ironic that in theory, the public sector is supposed to have the monopoly on monopoly.
I don’t see how expansion to a larger scale follows from proof of concept. Turnpikes and toll bridges both have an obvious built in revenue model. As for the other 99% of roadways, good luck “monetizing” that. The thing roads, railroads, power lines, sewers, steam tunnels and a surprising array of other things have is what the civil engineers call “rights of way.” In a fully privatized economy that would mean (among other things) land holdings that measure feet wide by miles long. How strategic advantages in that kind of real estate market have implications that are explicitly political, which in the nuanced understanding of nonlibertarians, is not the same thing as governmental, by a long shot. Even the personal is political.
Huh? What is the most illibertarian thing in the history of ideas, if not the notion of Original Sin?
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The Yeltsin GOVERNMENT did a remarkably poor job at attempting to privatize the Russian economy, handing the country over to crony capitalists. The private owner of the Detroit Bridge should not be competing against the government; he should be competing against other private businesses. Bridges could be a means to make large stretches of road profitable. A company could build roads to the bridge and then just charge for the bridge as a means of covering the rest of the system. Cities could be run as private companies in which homeowners either buy or rent homes and then pay service fees that cover things like roads, sewers and police. I admit that this is lower on my checklist than handing over highways to private companies.
What is so unlibertarian about Original Sin? It teaches us that we cannot rely on human goodness, but only on their greed. It is not a coincidence that Adam Smith was a Scottish Presbyterian. One can think of him as offering a secular economic version of salvation. We are all horrible greedy sinners, but the wisdom of the hidden hand of the market (providence you can say) acts to use our very greed to bring about prosperity that we could not have created otherwise. It may very well be that we need government, but we can go a long way to keeping it in check if we acknowledge that there is something truly problematic about government. This becomes the intellectual basis for checks on power and a constitution where we use the authority of tradition to bind the hands of future governments. (Of course this requires a belief in original intent.)
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“The Yeltsin GOVERNMENT did a remarkably poor job at attempting to privatize the Russian economy, handing the country over to crony capitalists. ”
– Izgad, did I or did I not ask you to keep your egregiously uninformed opinions on the USSR and FSU to yourself? Is that too huge a favor to ask? Do you have no other topics of discussion that you are forced to demonstrate your ignorance on this specific subject so insistently? Do you even begin to realize how insulting you are being? What else do I need to do for you to understand that the opinions on the USSR and the FSU of those people who never resided in the USSR and the FSU ARE NOT WELCOME ON THIS BLOG.
“Cities could be run as private companies in which homeowners either buy or rent homes and then pay service fees that cover things like roads, sewers and police. ”
– Just like “bankruptcy”, a “company” is not a concept that can exist without a government to enforce the rules of relationships between people constituting a company. There were no bankruptcies or companies in the caves.
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I was not the one who brought the topic up. I was responding to a question as to how I, ignorant as I am, understand what happened to the Yeltsin government during the 90s. If I am not able to respond to comments then there is no reason for me to comment in the first place and I will vanish from your blog. Are you claiming that Yeltsin was not the head of a government or that his government was not corrupt and in bed with the oligarchs? I may not be an expert on Russia, but I fail to see what I am saying that was incorrect. Please educate me. (And I mean this with all honesty.)
Again we are running against our different definitions of governments. I define government as something that uses force. To the best of my knowledge you have not even bothered to define government. I have nothing against mutually agreed upon legal systems. I grant you that it is an open question whether in practice a legal system can operate without formal government, but there is no logical reason why it would need to. Therefore it makes no sense to equate bankruptcy with government. Bankruptcy is a product of law.
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” I was responding to a question as to how I, ignorant as I am, understand what happened to the Yeltsin government during the 90s. ”
– If you recognize that you are ignorant on the subject, then why not just say that instead of proceeding to give an answer? I often recognize that there are things I don’t know and can’t comment on. There is no shame in saying, “This is something I don’t know.”
“Are you claiming that Yeltsin was not the head of a government or that his government was not corrupt and in bed with the oligarchs?”
– Although the condescension is, yet again, uncalled for, I welcome questions on the subject. The way that Yeltsin handled the situation during 1991-98 was a phenomenal success. He and his government succeeded in achieving their #1 goal: preventing a civil war. Things were really touch and go for a while. This was an absolutely unprecedented situation and Yeltsin’s government managed to effectuate the transition from a state ownership to private ownership with stunning smoothness. I deeply admire Yeltsin and feel a profound gratitude for what his actions did for me personally and for my family. This is why I resent it when people who have not been with us through those years dare to patronize somebody like Yeltsin. The economy in Russia, by the way, bounced back extremely fast.
Of course, people of your political persuasion hate Yeltsin and his government because of how well Yeltsin duped the silly, overconfident Americans who, for some ridiculous reason, believed that Russia would now be in an American pocket. These fools thought they would now come to Russia and teach people how to live under a capitalist system while robbing them blind. It’s hilarious to consider how deluded those poor idiots were. I’m talking, of course, about the brainless students of the brain-dead Milton Friedman. The entire Russia is still roaring with laughter at those imbeciles and their “advice.”
We all know that I dislike Russia, but even I have to recognize that the way Russians played the IMF and the WorldBank was absolutely beautiful.
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I certainly find it interesting to hear a positive take on the Yeltsin administration. Can you suggest anything to read in this regard? I think we are somewhat talking past each other. Milton Friedman was not part of any conspiracy to rob Russia. The World Bank and the IMF are not libertarian organizations nor do libertarians in general like them very much. So our objections to Yeltsin have nothing to do with how he handled them. Far be it from me to claim to be an expert on currancy issues, but I do remember the ruble crashing in the 90s. I guess there were some who benefited from such actions (such people are almost never the poor), but standard economics does not look kindly upon such actions. I am inclined to view foreign investors as a good thing in general. The ruble crashing was not helpful in that regard. I guess you equate foreign investors with some sort of colonial conspiracy. The big issue as I see was is that the Yeltsin regime essentially sold the country out not to foreign investors but to Russian oligarchs. Feel free to tell me that I am selling Yeltsin short. That being said, I do find it interesting that you seem far more tolerant of capitalism as it exists in our present world than a libertarian like me.
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“Far be it from me to claim to be an expert on currancy issues, but I do remember the ruble crashing in the 90s. I guess there were some who benefited from such actions (such people are almost never the poor), but standard economics does not look kindly upon such actions. I am inclined to view foreign investors as a good thing in general. The ruble crashing was not helpful in that regard. I guess you equate foreign investors with some sort of colonial conspiracy. The big issue as I see was is that the Yeltsin regime essentially sold the country out not to foreign investors but to Russian oligarchs. F”
– Oy vey. Man, where do you get this stuff, seriously?
“but I do remember the ruble crashing in the 90s. I guess there were some who benefited from such actions (such people are almost never the poor), but standard economics does not look kindly upon such action”
– Which “actions”? The Soviet currency was not supported by anything and its rates were kept up artificially in the USSR. Do you know how that was done? By imposing the death penalty for any activities involving foreign currencies. The death penalty. The USSR had to resist even a dollar, or a pound, or a yen entering the country because that would crash the rouble. When the borders were opened, the ruble effectively crashed. So which “actions” do you condemn here? Opening the borders?
“I am inclined to view foreign investors as a good thing in general. The ruble crashing was not helpful in that regard.”
– I’m sorry, you have no idea what you are talking about. The foreign investors inundated the FSU countries right after the ruble crashed. I worked for such investors, so I should know. The ruble crashing was what allowed the foreign investors to come into the FSU countries. And it was a great thing. Although why you keep equating the IMF with investors is a mystery.
“I guess you equate foreign investors with some sort of colonial conspiracy.”
– Not the investors, about whom I said absolutely nothing. The IMF.
“that the Yeltsin regime essentially sold the country out not to foreign investors but to Russian oligarch”
– “Sold the country out”? You are saying that the oligarchs gave the Yeltsin regime money in exchange for something you vaguely describe as “the country”? And where did the oligarchs get that money from? 🙂 The oligarchs were men who were given some property and money to keep for a while by the people who were really in charge. Out of those oligarchs, a few forgot that the money wasn’t theirs and got uppity. As a result, they ended up in jail (Khodorkovsky, Lebedev) or in exile (Gusinsky, Berezovsky, Nevzlin) or dead (Patarkatsishvili). The rest got the message and now hand over any sums that Putin needs easily.
Everything you are saying, my friend, is straight out of the leaflets distributed by the Communist Party of Russia. Even the vocabulary. This sentence I quotes is one I have seen in the Communist newspaper in Russia many times. The last time was last week. 🙂 Tell me, are you a crypto-Communist? 🙂
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” I guess there were some who benefited from such actions (such people are almost never the poor”
– The best thing is that it was the exact opposite. 🙂 Which is why I say: it’s useless to offer opinions if you don;t know anything about the specific situation.
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I did not say that in the specific case of Russia the devaluing of the currency harmed regular people, just that in general such actions have that effect on the economy. Do you understand why this is the case? I did not claim that foreign investors did not invest in Russia. In fact my brother’s father-in-law invested heavily in Russian real estate. In general not having a stable currency scares away investors, particularly the honest kind, who do not have special connections. Again, do you understand why this is the case? This brings us back to the general problem that my lay person’s mind sees with Russia, mainly that it is an extreme example of crony capitalism gone wild. You can make a lot of money in Russia if you know the right people. Thus Russia has remained a government of men and not of laws.
Unlike you, I do not look down upon Russians. I have no interest in telling anyone, Americans or Russians, how they should live their lives or structure their legal systems or government. I suspect that many Russians would object to having a Ukrainian claiming expertise on their country as you are about claims regarding my knowledge or Russia that I never made.
It is funny that you talk about having opinions on topics one knows nothing about, considering that this entire post has been an exercise in talking about libertarianism when you do not even understand us. You do not have to agree with our solutions, but you do not even comprehend the theoretical concerns or even the notion of focusing on theory in the first place that stand behind those solutions. Instead you throw around your Peter Pan remarks and dismiss Milton Friedman as having been brain dead. Have you even read Milton Friedman? If you had bothered to educate yourself about him you would realize that one of the major criticisms of his focus on deregulation was the example of Yeltsin and the corruption that went along with the privitation of the former Soviet economy. In fact Friedman himself was moved by what he saw in Russia to focus more on rule of law.
Also in general you really do not understand American, particularly those outside of the modern left. You are so willing to offer your own insane/wicked or otherwise ignorant style explanations as to what motivates them and never really try to understand them on their own terms.
Yes I am profoundly ignorant about must things in this world whether Russia or the Middle Ages. I have said many foolish things in the past, been refuted and as a result learned something and went back to the drawing board of my beliefs. I intend to die as such a fool, though perhaps by the time I do I will at least be a somewhat educated fool.
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It is a sign of great immaturity to respond with a childish tantrum of the “you are insane / wicked” variety to having your ignorance pointed out to you. It is also very sad that you cannot recognize how many times you have said outright foolish things in this discussion. From Yeltsin “selling the country” to oligarchs, to the inflation of the Soviet ruble being a bad thing that hurt the poor you demonstrate that you have no knowledge of this material. But after I waste my time on explaining to you – very politely, by the way – how things actually work, you start stomping your foot and whelping “You are wicked!” And then you wonder why I bring up the Peter Pan complex.
I warned you 3 times in a row not to enter into a debate on Russia with me. You disregarded my well-intentioned advice and ended up having your ignorance made public. That is not my fault.
As for me not understanding Americans, do you want to compare how many of them read my blog on a regular basis as opposed to how many read yours? If your understanding is so much more profound than mine, then how come you can’t make it relevant to people?
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I did not call any of your comments insane, wicked or otherwise ignorant. On the contrary my problem was that you have the habit of making comments that frame others as being such. Calling someone a Peter Pan is just another way to call them insane or ignorant. I grant you that I might be very wrong about Yeltsin. That being said what I have said are mainstream academic opinions, not the right wing media. Yes I agree that I am ignorant and likely wrong about many things, but at least I have aquired my ignorance honestly. Thus I should rate higher than a simple Peter Pan. I have not been trying to debate you on Russia, particularly as I have been acknowleding all along you understand Russia better than I do. Please do me the courtesy of actually reading my comments, before simply responding to a convenient fantasy.
As to the number of hits on our respective blogs, that is a low blow that is beneath you. Rush Limbaugh has more influence than either of us. Does that mean he understands America better than we do or does that mean that Americans simply like someone who agrees with them and calls opponents names? My chief goal for Izgad was to create an intellectually serious, but quirky blog, one that showed my opponents the courtesy of taking them seriously and not to simply insult them. Read through my old posts. How many ad hominem attacks will you find? What I am most proud of is range of people, from Mormons to atheists who, even when they disagree with me, thought that I treated them fairly. I challenge to take up the same challenge even if it costs you some readers.
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“Calling someone a Peter Pan is just another way to call them insane or ignorant.”
– As a literary critic, I have to say that this is the most inventive reading of Peter Pan I have ever seen, and I have seen a few. The more conventional reading, however, (which is the one I use) is that Peter Pan is a symbol of somebody who refuses to grow up.
“I grant you that I might be very wrong about Yeltsin.”
– Finally. Time to celebrate!
“That being said what I have said are mainstream academic opinions, not the right wing media.”
– A mainstream academic says things like “Yeltsin sold the country to oligarchs”? Jesus. . .
“Rush Limbaugh has more influence than either of us. Does that mean he understands America better than we do or does that mean that Americans simply like someone who agrees with them and calls opponents names”
– Of course, Limbaugh is an undeniable star who is a million times more capable than I am to make himself relevant to people.
“I challenge to take up the same challenge even if it costs you some readers.”
– I don’t understand what the challenge is.
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“I suspect that many Russians would object to having a Ukrainian claiming expertise on their country as you are about claims regarding my knowledge or Russia that I never made.”
– And again you would be wrong. Hasn’t this discussion taught you not to “suspect” things about people you know nothing about?
“I did not say that in the specific case of Russia the devaluing of the currency harmed regular people, just that in general such actions have that effect on the economy. Do you understand why this is the case? I did not claim that foreign investors did not invest in Russia. In fact my brother’s father-in-law invested heavily in Russian real estate. In general not having a stable currency scares away investors, particularly the honest kind, who do not have special connections. Again, do you understand why this is the case? ”
– Finally, you are starting to go in the right direction. You have just noticed yourself that what usually happens within the same kind of society likely will not to happen when a society transforms completely and adopts an entirely new system of political and economic relations. What happens “in general” as a result of inflation, etc. did NOT happen during the collapse of the USSR. This is precisely why I suggest that there is a very strong probability that if you transform a country completely into a Libertarian society, the processes that took place before such profound transformation will not be preserved. There will be no Sprint, bankruptcy, companies, subscriptions, etc. You are trying to extrapolate your knowledge of how a single society, a single economy, a single type of country works onto a completely different system. And you fail entirely when you try to do that for the USSR. Just like you, in all probability, fail when you try to imagine a Libertarian society that will retain the good things about capitalism that you like and ditch the ones you don’t like.
Gorbachev thought, at some point, that he could do something like this: keep the good things from the socialist system and ditch the bad ones. And we all know what happened to him and his ideas.
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But I have been telling this entire time that noone has any idea what a libertarian anarchist society would actually look like or if it would work. I see the United States Constitution as the most successful attempt at trying to construct a political system from theory and it turned out very differently from what the founders expected. They assumed no organized political parties and that presidential elections would usually be decided by the senate because no candidate would get a majority of electorial votes.
My arguments for libertarianism are all based on theory. This justifies my wishing to experiment with it on myself and not on anyone else.
One of the reasons why I am a libertarian is because I do not believe that I am very smart. I do not understand Russia well enough to be their president, comrade or czar. For that matter I do not even understand the United States well enough to ever be president. Of course I doubt that anyone else does either. Because of that I try to live by the principle of non-aggression. Since I do not know what is best for other people I should not be using government to institute any of my ignorant beliefs regarding what I think is best. This includes abortion, but it also includes health care or anything I might think to tax or raise taxes in order to fund.
In a sense I make myself like Peter Pan (it was intellectually dishonest to claim you meant anything but an insult by it, but I will embrace the term and turn it to my own advantage). I admit that I am nothing more than a child and try to once again learn to keep my hands to myself.
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“One of the reasons why I am a libertarian is because I do not believe that I am very smart.”
– There is one enormous difference between you and me right there. 🙂 🙂
“Since I do not know what is best for other people I should not be using government to institute any of my ignorant beliefs regarding what I think is best. This includes abortion, but it also includes health care or anything I might think to tax or raise taxes in order to fund.”
– As long as you agree to leave all these decisions to those of us who do know what is best for everybody. 🙂
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Since you were willing to invest some of your time giving me a perspective on Russia that I had never heard before, (I like learning new things :p) I think it is only fair that I invest some of my time in better understanding Russia. If you would be kind enough to recommend any book on the topic, I promise to read it and even to do a post on it on Izgad. 🙂
One book that I read recently that has influenced my layperson’s understanding of Russia is the Dictator’s Learning Curve. (http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Learning-Curve-ebook/dp/B006V3E1RI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1349478000&sr=8-2&keywords=dictator%27s+learning+curve) I would be curious to get your reaction to the book.
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I’m a native speaker of Russia, which means that I don’t seek out sources of information on Russia that are written in English. I don’t think I ever read anything on the subject in English, to be honest, because there never was a reason to do so. The other day, for instance, I watched an interview of Anatoli Chubais, one of the engineers of the post-Soviet privatization. It was fascinating, but it was obviously conducted in Russian.
If there is still anybody left in this discussion except me and Izgad, do you have any recommendations?
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To be clear. You admire Yeltsin and think his attempts to privitize the former Soviet economy worked. (In essence that he conducted the sort of privitization that we libertarians should not run from, but embrace.) In contrast to this, you see the situation in Ukraine at that time as having been a complete mess with the government collapsing. I do wish to learn more about the FSU.
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We had no Yeltsin in Ukraine, as you know. The bandit wars, on the other hand, were stronger and their influence was more significant in Russia, though. But that was a small price to pay for what happened and compared to what could have been. (The Civil War).
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Izgad:But I have been telling this entire time that noone has any idea what a libertarian anarchist society would actually look like or if it would work. I see the United States Constitution as the most successful attempt at trying to construct a political system from theory and it turned out very differently from what the founders expected…
But nevertheless turned out pretty good, considering. I’m with Izgad on this one. Reality and history are not our only guides. Maybe utopia is not an option (I’m not convinced it’s not, but for the sake of argument…) but certainly history demonstrates that the future can contain unprecedented things the likes of which never existed previously. For that reason I will not summarily write things off just because nobody knows what they look like, be it “a libertarian anarchist society,” or my own pet ideology, anagorism.
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If one holds a certain system of beliefs, one should be prepared to defend it on the basis of reason and logic and not hide behind the childish “I don’t know where this will lead but I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!”
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Considering that it is my life which I wish to be able to experiment with, I should not even have to say I want to. The burden of proof is on you to justify the use of force to stop me. It is not that I want to cause physical harm to anyone.
Also could we bring this back to the issue I began with and which you never answered; when does a tax become too much as to be immoral, particularly as you start by granted this mysterious entity known as the government the power to take money? A major part of libertarian theory, particularly in writers such as Friedman and Hayek, has been to challenge the common willingness to draw distinctions between economic and social freedom and argue for the need for government to kept in check by clear laws. So it is not that we are oblivious to the distinction between the two, we have spent the past few decades arguing against it. So it is you who seem to be oblivious even to the question.
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“Also could we bring this back to the issue I began with and which you never answered; when does a tax become too much as to be immoral, particularly as you start by granted this mysterious entity known as the government the power to take money? ”
– Izgad, I’m sure you know enough about the Liberal way of thinking to realize that no true Liberal can rely upon the concept of morality as even marginally useful. Liberalism is profoundly secular in nature, which makes it a kind of ideology that recognizes everybody’s individual right to form one’s own morality. I don’t believe in a single morality that is supposed to govern everybody’s actions. I believe that there is a multitude of moralities that are all acceptable and that should all comply with a higher rule which is the law of the land.
“So it is you who seem to be oblivious even to the question.”
– You are absolutely right: the very word “moral” is alien to any true Liberal. It is a word that comes from a vocabulary that a Liberal does not operate with. The very questions ‘Is it moral?’ is not a question I, as a Liberal, can answer. My only answer can be, “It might or might not be moral according to the system of values you operate with.” I don’t care two straws what people do or do not see as moral. I recognize the existence of different moralities that govern the existence of different kinds of human beings. But I expect the law of the land to govern those existences irrespective of that which individual moralities might command. This, I believe, is the only way to overcome the religious barbarity that commands people to possess barbaric moralities.
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My response http://www.izgad.blogspot.com/2012/10/liberal-morality-or-is-clarissa-ayn.html. Please take what I say within the context of my great respect for you and with a touch of a smile and a wink.
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I’m sure it must be entertaining to assign weird opinions to people who never held them and then argue with your own inventions.
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Then please set me straight. All I can do is attempt to understand. I am not trying to argue with you. If nothing else you can read my post as what I heard when you said morality does not exist. I am not trying to imagine anything. If I wanted to set you up as a straw-woman there are more direct ways of doing it.
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First of all, I resent your repeated suggestion that I “support abortion.” This is simply not true. I firmly believe that no government should have the right to invade a person’s body. But I do not “support abortions” pre,cisely because I believe that it is not my place to manage other people’s bodies and support or not their abortions. This is a sensitive point because i’m sick and tired of being called “pro-abortion.” Officious religious fanatics try to interpret everybody’s positions in terms of their own profound hatred of people and end up assigning their weird ideas to me.
As for morality, the entire concept bores me to tears. I’m sure you are well aware that there are as many moralities as there are humsn beings. An attempt to appeal to some shared morality that everybody has to uphold is the ultimate manipulation of somebody who has nothing left to say.
I have a set of moral principles of my own that I use to regulate my life and the relationships between me and other people. This morality is more rigid than anything the Inquisition could have come with. 🙂 But I wouldn’t want anybody, let alone the entire society, to adopt my morality. This would be the same as everybody trying to develop my individual psychology. I’m not threatened by a world where everybody is guided by their own personal morality / psychology and we all obey the same system of laws without dragging our psychological issues / moralities out whenever laws are discussed.
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I made a point of putting in the word legal precisely because I wanted to make it clear that your support was for not using government to interfere with people’s choices as opposed to the action itself. Sorry if I was not clearer about this, but you should know that I did make a conscious point to be fair to your position. I recognize that people make value choices in their lives, but this is different from their starting premises. This is important for law, which, by definition, must set forth a set of principles. What do you see as the basis of law? I agree that law does not require God, but it does require that people come to some sort of agreement on a set of principles. This can be something as simple as human beings have a right to life, liberty and property. For me these are moral concepts.
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” Sorry if I was not clearer about this, but you should know that I did make a conscious point to be fair to your position.”
– I don’t want to offend you but your writing is not very good. You are careless with words and ideas. Half of the post you linked to is incomprehensible to me. Try to realize that your readers do not live in your head and the terminology you find easy and self-explanatory might be incomprehensible to others. For now, all I got from your argument is that you have a very personal and mysterious definition of the word “morality” and are upset that other people use a different definition.
“For me these are moral concepts.”
– Good for you. Why should I care what you choose to call morality? We have already discovered that you are very free-handed with words. “Job demands” and “abortion support” mean to you what they don’t mean to anybody else. You want me to argue with you about your poor grasp of vocabulary?
I’m seriously angry right now about your blatant lie that I’m unemployed. My class is about to start in 10 minutes. Do you need me to provide proof of that? Or will you take back your assertion that I’m demanding a job from somebody?
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I did not claim that you are unemployed. It is not fair for you to say that. You certainly are interested in protecting your job, one that is supported through taxes. That I need to be clearer in my writing is certainly a fair criticism.
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Did you or did you not say that I “demand a cushy academic job”? I maintain that this statement is a lie. I already have a job. Why would I demand a new one if I already have one? Or do you think that “she is interested in protecting” and “she demands” are synonymous? If so, then every time you lock the door to your house to protect your property, you demand to be given property by others. Right?
How do you expect anybody to argue with such sloppy arguments?
Once again, all I managed to understand from your long text is that you are unhappy with my vocabulary choices because they don’t coincide with your own. As we just established, you tend to be sloppy with your vocabulary.
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Jobs and private property are all things in flux as they rely on the constant cooperation of other people. Hence we need principles to protect them. Don’t you think it is just a little bit hypocrtical to lecture people about not using government to force their values on you and then turn around and use government to support Spanish literature or the humanities in general, things that have value in your private moral system, but not necessarily in the morality of others? Forgive me if this smells like an attempt to fix the game in your favor. It would be something else if you held to some clear set of standards even when they were not in your favor.
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I have not received a single answer to the following questions:
Did you or did you not say that I “demand a cushy academic job”? I maintain that this statement is a lie. I already have a job. Why would I demand a new one if I already have one? Or do you think that “she is interested in protecting” and “she demands” are synonymous? If so, then every time you lock the door to your house to protect your property, you demand to be given property by others. Right?
How do you expect anybody to argue with such sloppy arguments?
Please try to concentrate and answer the questions that I asked.
” Don’t you think it is just a little bit hypocrtical to lecture people about not using government to force their values on you and then turn around and use government to support Spanish literature or the humanities in general, things that have value in your private moral system, but not necessarily in the morality of others?”
– No, I don’t. Because in my MORAL system Spanish literature or the humanities have zero value. These are not MORAL categories for me. This is precisely why I insist you answer the previous questions I posed to you. For the fourth time, I repeat that your extreme linguistic sloppiness makes arguing with you very difficult. You keep assigning your own strange ideas and terminology to people and then expect them to argue with what you insist they say. This is offensive and wrong. “Force their moral values” and “support Spanish literature” are NOT synonymous. Just like “wants to protect” and “demands.” Do you see that or not? What you see as “hypocrisy” is simply a much better command of the English language.
I will not answer any more comments from you until you respond whether you now realize that “wants to protect” and “demands”are not synonymous and neither are “Force their moral values” and “support Spanish literature”.
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Since we are dealing with things that are in flux protection and demand become the same thing. You seem to “demand” that other people not take your job away or even to take away the funding that allows your job to exist. So I did answer your question even if you did not like the response I gave. It is you, in my humble opinion, who are trying to ignore the issue.
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“You seem to “demand” that other people not take your job away ”
– I now ask you to provide proof for these “demands” you keep alleging I made.
I have not been insulted this egregiously for a very long time. Have you looked up the word “demand” in the dictionary? Should I give you a link to where you can find one?
“Since we are dealing with things that are in flux protection and demand become the same thing. ”
– This sentence is meaningless. Please revise it according to the rules of the English language.
” It is you, in my humble opinion, who are trying to ignore the issue.”
– The only issue here is that your irresponsible teachers and lazy parents allowed you to reach a very advanced age without acquiring a basic linguistic competency normally expected from healthy 8-year-olds. This is very tragic. If you don’t understand that “protection and demand mean the same because of flux” is a meaningless sentence, this means your basic language skills are those of a very small child.
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I also find it quite anoying that you keep ascribing me the use of weird terminology. I never said that anti-choicers are wicked or insane. I said they hate women because their own mommies never wanted them. Please try to keep up.
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“insane, wicked or otherwise ignorant” is a line used by Richard Dawkins that picked up to describe a method of arguing that denies the rationality of the other person. You assume that pro-lifers are acting out their mommy issues (which may be true). You are thus questioning their sanity. To say that they want to hurt women for the fun of it means they are wicked. People who believe that rape cannot cause pregnancy are simply ignorant.
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“You assume that pro-lifers are acting out their mommy issues (which may be true). You are thus questioning their sanity. ”
– Do you honestly not see that you are making a completely unsupported logical leap here? It is only IN YOUR MIND that having issues with one’s mother makes anybody insane. In my mind, it does not. I have serious issues with my mother and I do not consider myself insane. Neither does my analyst. You are ascribing your own extremely strange attitudes to me and then argue with them. No mental health practitioner will confirm for you that feeling rejected by one’s mother equals being insane.
“To say that they want to hurt women for the fun of it means they are wicked.”
– Once again, this is your own definition of the word “wicked.” Do you have some sort of a problem with addressing the texts you are given and not your translation of these texts?
” People who believe that rape cannot cause pregnancy are simply ignorant.”
– For the third time, IN YOUR OPINION. I have never said any of the things you ascribed to me. Why can’t you argue with what I actually said? Just take the text you see in front of you and address it directly without any translations.
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Most of the last piece was me trying to explain a term that I often use. I use the term insane in somewhat broad political sense as people whose mental grasp of reality is lacking to the extent that they cannot be included in the social contract. This would include people who let their mommy issues become the foundation for government force.
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” I use the term insane in somewhat broad political sense as people whose mental grasp of reality is lacking to the extent that they cannot be included in the social contract. This would include people who let their mommy issues become the foundation for government force.”
– Yes, I already understood that you have your own very . . . erm, unusual definitions of simple words. But d you realize that people don’t live in your head and have absolutely now idea why, when or how you use these. . . erm, unusual definitions? If you want a dialogue, maybe it makes sense not to refer to a computer as a cat and then criticize people for torturing animals by poking fingers into them for hours.
Have you considered using a dictionary to ensure that you are on the same page with people you are trying to have a discussion?
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““insane, wicked or otherwise ignorant” is a line used by Richard Dawkins that picked up to describe a method of arguing that denies the rationality of the other person”
– This is getting too bizarre for words. I’m not Richard Dawkins. What does any of this have to do with me?
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Me either. I have a long enough libertarian streak for “obey” to be something of a dirty word, but I’m much more comfortable obeying a ruleset which has been hashed out in some adversarial process in which we all have some voice (which gets into the whole libertarian rhetoric around voice vs. exit) than in some putatively objective moral standards which, being absolute, are non-negotiable. Separation of church and state implies separation of morality and legality. Non-separation implies arbitrary authority.
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“Separation of church and state implies separation of morality and legality.”
– Exactly. I think we will all be happier if we keep our individual moralities in the realm of our private life.
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Yup, dominance and submission belong in the bedroom.
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Or in the kitchen. Or the bathroom. Or whenever imagination takes people. 🙂
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Unlike Izgad, Evelina is not fantasizing. Everything she describes happened exactly like she says in the FSU countries when the government was weakened.
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What happens to human memory? What centralized locations will ensure that works of art and literature will remain for generations and preserve our collective heritage? (Evelina)
You do realize that what you want or expect to maintain is presently a completely regional idea anyways. The odds that you will get a world collective to ensure the preservation of all, is at best………..well…Im not even sure what you could call that kind of thinking, hopeful or delusional? The issue as I see it is, who gets to dictate what we should preserve and what we shouldnt. Afterall, we are talking about limited finances here. Hence the reason the USA is 14 trillion dollars in debt and my nation, Canada, is 800 billion dollars in debt. I think some ideas that come from being a Libertarian are pretty logical but like any group they dont seem to be a monolith. 😉
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How is “centralized location” a delusion? I’m talking about federally financed institutions. Things like the Library of Congress, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, the Ufizzi. I personally think that one of the great tragedies of the war in Iraq is the destruction of the libraries and museums. It would be a sad sad world if we just aunctioned every piece inthe Louvre to the highest private bidder. Museums and libraries are crucial to my mind and we need governement to maintain them.
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If you’re worried about debt then the nominal amount (X dollars) isn’t particularly useful. A more useful measure is debt as a percentage of GDP. Why is this a more useful measure? It’s a better indicator of the manageability of the debt. If you tax revenues as a percentage of GDP are (say) 20%, then if your GDP is twice as big, all else equal you get twice as much tax revenues, and can therefore afford bigger debt payments and therefore a bigger debt.
A direct analogy is your pay and your expenses. If your expenses double, but your after-tax pay triples, you are in a better financial position. Everyone should agree to that.
With that in mind, let’s examine US debt as a percentage of GDP. Be sure to compare the “tax and spend” Democrats who rack up the debt and blow the budget on frivolities and Mercedes-driving welfare queens, versus “fiscally responsible” Republicans who live within their means and who follow the libertarian religion of “taxes are a coercive gun against your head”.
Let’s use this handy chart from Wikipedia. Surely it backs up libertarian theology, right?
OOPS.
It’s actually the Democrats and moderate Republicans who reduced the debt. In 1980, the Republicans, starting with Ronnie, lost their minds and blew up the debt to levels comparable with World War II.
Clearly then, the responsible party should be obvious. Here’s a hint: it’s not the one that follows libertarian religion.
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The Republican Party is not libertarian. I agree with you that they are not serious about cutting spending. That is one of the reasons why I left the party.
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I agree, to a point. The problem with art is who gets to decide what we pay for and what we dont. I know in Ottawa there has been on occasion, literal shit gracing the walls of the National Art Gallery. Taxpayer money, not literally being flushed down the toilet. Government doesnt always speak for the overall collective.
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Go get elected and change the situation. Aren’t you the one who exhorts everybody to stop whining and go do something? So stop whining already and go do something.
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No, political means are useless. The better thing to do is living within our convictions and educate people about the agressive monopoly nature of the State and other hierarchies of power.
But remember this: at the exception of the anarcho-capitalists, right libertarians (an Anarchist like me is a left libertariens, which is different) love the State for some “minarchist” repressive functions and they generally LOVE fetishistically other hierarchies of power like religions, parenting, monogamous couples, women machist control and child slavery.
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This entire discussion has gone way beyond anybody’s politics. We are now dealing with very poor language skills of a person who can’t even master a single language.
Monolingualism is tragic. People who can only speak 1 language and do that very poorly suffer greatly. Their worldview is limited and they are in teh grip of strange delusions.
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An Anarchist like me is a left libertarian, which is different.
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No problem with occidental terrorism with billions of taxpayers’ money, BUT THE FUCKING ARTISTS SHOULD BE STARVED TO DEATH!
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Agreed. We keep hearing about debts and deficits but nobody wants to discuss the simple and easy way to avoid debts and deficits: changing the foreign policy to one of non-involvement.
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“Hence the reason the USA is 14 trillion dollars in debt and my nation, Canada, is 800 billion dollars in debt.”
Where does these shylockean debts principally come from?
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@Izgad
Anti-abortion people are wicked and insane, That’s just a fact for me.
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@Izgad
I support abortions. So come on Izgad, get mad against me!
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I think we are on the same side when it comes to abortion. Can I save getting mad at you for another time? 🙂
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That’s cool! This is a good surprise for me. So, tell your right libertarian colleagues about their classical raving lunatic anti-abortion position…
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Read Rothbard. You will find that most of us libertarians are quite pro-choice.
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Just remember that in 2 minutes Izgad might turn around and tell you that, since the universe is in flux, an abortion means a rabbit and al he was trying to say that he has nothing against rabbits.
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Not all of us are Rothbardians, though. Some of us are Kropotniks.
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“Not all of us are Rothbardians, though. Some of us are Kropotniks.”
– Is it named after Prince Kropotkin?
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“This is a sensitive point because i’m sick and tired of being called “pro-abortion.” ”
You’re right, Clarissa. You’re not pro-abortion but I’m pro-abortion.
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“You’re not pro-abortion but I’m pro-abortion.”
– Then you should have as many abortions as you wish. 🙂 Maybe even one abortion per day. 🙂
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Before all, I’m pro contraception, of course! 🙂
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@Izgad
“Read Rothbard. You will find that most of us libertarians are quite pro-choice.”
I agree. Real ancaps and serious libertarians are at least pro-choice. But american right libertarians (Kevin Carson calls them “vulgar libertarians”) are mostly anti-abortion.
I’m not a Rothbardian, but normally he’s not a raving lunatic like the RonPaulite vulgar libertarians. I have much more respect for his ideas than someone can perceive.
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I’m trying to figure out who is more stupid, Ron Paul or Paul Ryan. They have similarly creepy names, too.
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Paul Ryan is reallyway more stupid than Ron Paul. I recognize that Ron Paul have some intelligence, but there is too much contradiction in his ideas to be considered seriously as a libertarian.
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I expected Paul Ryan to have some intelligence but yesterday’s debate made it clear that he has nothing of value to say about anything. The guy didn;t manage to answer the simplest questions.
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@Anon
“We keep hearing about debts and deficits but nobody wants to discuss the simple and easy way to avoid debts and deficits: changing the foreign policy to one of non-involvement.”
AMEN! But this is not the only thing to do…
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I have a suggestion: fire the bureaucrats who make me undergo the same boring and long ethics training every year. I just wasted an hour of my life on this shit.
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Good idea.
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There’s nothing to hope about the Paul Ryan’s intelligence. It’s a lost cause…or he plays masterfully a wedge politics game to convince ignoramuses of the right.
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