An Honest libertarian Discussion Thread

This is both common and frustrating among Libertarians and Ted, please note these two posts, btw. With many Libertarians, if you don't chant their mantras and belief exactly as they do, they project these wildly false opinions upon you. In this case, please point out where I said "capitalism has always caused suffering". What a load of mindless prattle.!! So you think I'm a business owner who is NOT a capitalist? Please follow the pattern and next call me a Statist, Lefty, progressive, Government Worshipper. Or not.
As far as examples of what I actually said. Let's start with Eli Lily. It is a company. It has made not one but dozens of products over the years that have been found harmful or even fatal to consumers. Did the company continue putting out drugs AFTER they found out how harmful they were? Yes. Did the market put them out of business? nope. Would you like another 100 examples? Look in the Fortune 500.

Well that's lovely. So tell me of a country in the world where there are no government run social programs and the general populace fares well? Can't? We either and i've lived all over the world.
So again, just because my experience in this thing called reality, has shown me that SOME government is a good thing, doesn't mean I'm an anti-capitalist, statist, government worshipping, lefty, mooching whatever.
There are people who think LibDems can do no wrong and Obama walks on water. Same word for those thinking Conservatives or FOX views are always right. The moment you disagree with either group on ANYTHING, they instantly label you a RightWingNut or LiberalMoonBat.
This is especially true among Libertarians. Just because their theories (at least the ones I see commonly - see Ted, I told you!) have never worked anywhere at any time, is no reason for them to be sure, they're absolutely the best. They remind me of Communists. Their idealism is admirable but I don't trust global executives to have free reign and always make the right decisions any more than I do politicians.
Neither is always perfect.
Of course, there are always going to be bad examples of each but there is a need for both.

 

Wow geeze, Sorry if I ticked you off ... I thought I was asking a simple question, and letting you know what I thought.
There are two (or more) types of government corruption, and they don't always look the same.

There is ... "Donate to my campainge, and I will see if we can write some laws that help your business out".
Then there is ... "Pay me 25k and I will facilitate your docking permit, or I will bury it in 10 years of red tape".
Just in my personal experience ... The more power the government of a country has, the more I have seen of the second example.

It doesn't make either of them right ... just an observation ...

 

So capitalism never brings benefits to the general populace, while it does perform atrocities, cause physical harm, environmental damage, and sexual harassment just to name a few. I don't think saying that interpreting this as "capitalism always causes suffering" is at all a misinterpretation of your own words that you have used in your last three posts.

You are a statist and you do not have a rational reason for thinking that government answers to current problems will be effective. As to whether or not you're better described to be on the left or right is something I can't comment on, I'm no friend of either. I do agree that the usual libertarian temprament in these sorts of situations is annoying.

Also, you might be capitalist in the economic sense, but you oppose free markets, and therefore pure capitalism. In this sense you are an anti-capitalist. It doesn't matter if you're the richest business owner in the world, you could still be described in this way.

You talk about how I'm promoting "mindless prattle", but when I explicitly ask you to give me an illustration of the fact that:

You point to an example from the modern day United States, which has a well developed welfare state and regulatory system. By your own admission America hasn't been an example of "unimpeded capitalism" for a very long time. Nonetheless you show that despite all of this massive abuses have been performed by companies within this very system. You are doing exactly what I claimed. You are taking an example from the impeded market where the prudent government is supposed to prevent things like this, and when it is unable to do so you label it as a case against the free market system which was never allowed to occur, instead claiming that this requires further prudent government intervention.

 

The Mayor is perfectly happy with welfare. Everyone who wants to voluntarily donate money to help the indigent has every freedom to do so.

Of course you're saying that. You're also trying to pretend that the Mayor is a hypocrite, implying that if he doesn't want the baby murdered then he should be willing to pay for it's upkeep.

Well, no, the only two persons directly responsible for the upkeep of the child are it's genetic parents, and more remotely, it's grand-parents, uncles, aunts, etc. It don't take no stinkin' village, it takes a family.

Did anyone ever point out that you could donate a child to an orphanage if you're too cheap to raise it, or too stupid to get a decent job? Murder isn't the only option here. In fact, murder isn't an option.

 

The IRS exists to collect government revenue. The problem isn't the IRS, the problem is how the taxes are defined.

Under the 16th Amendment, the government seized the authority to demand detailed personal information on every citizen, a gross violation of liberty.

Want to fix the IRS? End the taxation of income. At the very least, end the process of graduated taxation with complicated exemptions and deductions and establish a flat tax on income and wages so that EVERYONE pays an equal percentage.

Note that the 16th Amendment in no way repealed the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Welfare was not established with "good intentions", welfare was established to create a permanent RAT voting base. The creation of the Gimme Mentality was the goal.

 

Just because some people drank the LSD and want to ignore the scientific fact that the life of any animal begins with the fertilization of ovum with sperm, doesn't change the fact that individual life still begins at conception and has done so since rise of sexually reproducing multicellular animals.

You should try to leave your religious fantasies out of serious discussions. There's probably a forum to discuss religion you can post on.

yeah, libertarians are supposed to stand and protect the innocent, since the people who don't join that effort often find themselves in showers sucking in the Zyclone-B.

 

I have a question:
How did you, as a Libertarian resolve conflicts between the Libertarian principle of unlimited private property rights and the Libertarian principle of the maximization of individual freedom and liberty?

I ask this question because Libertarianism, as concerns principles of individual liberty and freedom is really no different than Anarchism but Anarchism was never able to reconcile private property rights with the maximization of individual freedom and liberty and so, somewhat reluctantly abandoned the idea as inherently unworkable and prone to incite conflict. I am intrigued that Libertarianism seems to have found a way around this seemingly unsolvable contradiction.

 

YOU have the freedom to help as much as you wish. Nobody is denying anyone anything, since that statement implies that someone has a right to service provided by others at a cost.

Ain't no such right.

You're pretending that the government providing the voucher doesn't put strings on them. You can pretend the government doesn't do this, but there are lawsuits citing the federal grants and the federally guaranteed students against religious-based universities that actually have the gall to require their matriculated students to follow their rules. Gasp!

WE don't. The Mayor's "people" are cared for completely, by none other than the Mayor.

The Mayor carries no responsibility for anyone else. 100% of his responsibility is fulfilled. YOU may be letting YOUR people suffer, but that's your responsibility, and only yours, isn't it? Someone else might decide to let THEIR people suffer, but their people, and your people, aren't the Mayor's people.

Ask the Mayor nicely if you want funding for your charity hospital, that's the way to do it.

Nope, the very core of capitalism is maturity exhibited as personal responsibility.

 

ANARCHISTS want to completely dismantle the state.

ANARCHY ALWAYS results in less freedom, more suffering, more pain.

Libertarians recognize the need for a coherent government to protect the weak, something that does not exist in anarchy, and that said government must be as weak as possible consistent with it's charter to protect everyone's freedom (anarchists always wind up creating dictatorships of one form or another), do nothing outside it's core function, and be answerable to the people for it's mistakes.

Fair enough, although one has to recognize that the Constitution itself allows the suspension of the PRIVILEGE of habeas corpus in the event of rebellions and civil unrest. (Article I, Section 9). And no, there's no such thing as a "right to secede". A state attempting to secede thereby strips it's citizens of the protections afforded them by the Constitution....and there's no mechanism in the Constitution allowing this. Secession would have to be unanimous.

ALL socialists are devoutly religious. Socialism is applied as a religion, it's not an ideology. Ideologies make some effort to reflect the real world. Socialism reflects hopes and desires, imaginary enemies and the bogus Hero.

 

Why, exactly?

 

So you establish two contradictory strawmen and have them at each other's throats.

Holy Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Batman!

No such thing as "unlimited property rights". After all, no one person can ever have all the money.

All libertarians recognize that human freedom is limited where it infringes on the freedoms of other humans.

Actually, libertarianism is very different from anarchy or any idiot who wants anarchy.

Real libertarians are mature adults seeking to live their own lives without steam rolling others, "anarchismists" are children resentful of their parents and the fact that they'll have to follow rules if they ever grow up.

Rule: You can't initiate violence.

Anarchists violate this when they run through a Starbucks and break windows in a downtown area in "protest" of whatever childish thing they've been told to be upset about that day.

 

Because...without rules, people do whatever it is they want, and without rules, people who want to rob, rape, and murder, can do so. The only recourse weaker people have is to ally themselves with stronger men, and he uses them to do his bidding against others...by telling them to.

And once enough people follow their dictator, they once again have a government.

Anarchy is always transient, never permanent, and simply cannot form the basis for any human society.

 

What anarchist advocates/philosophers/political theorists are you referencing that define anarchy as a society "without rules"?

 

When fascism was invented by the socialists.....you don't deny socialism is on the lunatic left fringe, do you? Then, since fascism was invented by Musolini, fascism is leftists.

Calling fascism a rightest ideology was the biggest public relations coup since the French succeeded in naming their cockroach the "German" cockroach.

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There's this thing called a "dictionary"?

Go use it.

The word means "no government".

Now that we've agreed on the meaning of the word, what's your point?

 

There's no such thing as anarchist libertarians, since liberty can only be protected with a government.

You must be aware that the need of a government to provide justice over the imposition of justice by personal vengeance was illustrated perfectly well 2500 years ago by Aeschylus. The development of the city-state in Greece was the foundation of Western Civilization after all.

That's quite a strawman you've built there.

It falls flat on it's face when you're confronted with the rape of your mother and the rapist isn't subscribed to the same private judicial system your mother was.

How is the rapist punished in anarchy?

What about the thief?

What about the guy who paints your house green when you wanted it pink?

 

My point is

1. You state that anarchy means "without government". Fair enough, but my question was why you were saying an anarchist society had no rules. Government is defined as

By Oxford English Dictionary, while rules are defined as

Since these two are not the same thing, I don't understand why you would conflate an anarchist society as one that has no rules.

2. Is the dictionary...

A. An advocate of anarchism?

B. An anarchist philosopher?

C. An anarchist political theorist?

No. The dictionary is

This does not align with any of the above roles. Therefore I don't think that you have actually answered the question that I asked.

3. Therefore, my point is that I think you're strawmanning the position of actual anarchists. If you argue that anarchy has no laws, then an actual anarchist will stand by you in arguing that such a system should be opposed, but it is not the type of anarchy that they propose.

 

There is a difference between anarchists and Anarchism, read up on it and get back to me.

 

Yeah, the society with a government IS NOT an ararchy.

Case closed.

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No, there's not.

Anarchism is the foolish desire for anarchy.

Jump into the next riot you come across and let us know how it worked out for you.

People in Los Angeles got plenty of free stuff, except, of course, for the 53 that were murdered by those anarchists.

 

You are correct ... It isn't what they propose ... It is what they get if successful.

 

I never said that it was. This just reinforces that your original response was worthless and had nothing to do with anarchism.

What do you mean?

 

Do you disagree?

 

I don't know. I don't understand what you were attempting to say. Could you please clarify your previous post for me?

 

OK then, I seem to have gotten the answer to my question, which seems to be that Libertarians are unable to reconcile private property rights with individual Liberty and Freedom because they appear incapable of engaging in any sort of mature reasoned discussion about Libertarian principles, which would preclude any sort of in depth exploration or the discovery and reconciliation of possible points of conflict and contradiction.

 

Well then, I take it that means "no" ... so my previous comment should suffice ... but you are welcome to disagree.

 

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