I call a lot of libertarians especially the open border ones Suicide Libertarians.
I don’t want a government that “cares about me”. I want a government that doesn’t give a damn about me. A government that didn’t even know I existed would be even better.
At my local supermarket, they keep the baby formula locked up because people steal it to mix it with heroin.
Government cares about you!
Sort of like we are cattle
As long as we moo the right way
Get our brands and inoculations
And quietly go to the slaughter, everything is just peachy
Word salad with Russian dressing.
Collapse into a state of complete lawlessness and invasion by hordes of barbarians are the two incessant bogeyman whines of statist apologists.
The idea that people can self organize, self protect, and self rule is both terrifying and unthinkable to them.
In advocating statism with its layers of “protection” against antinomian collapse and subjugation by ... I dunno, the Muslims, the Chinese, ustabe the Russians, and I guess the Mexicans now, they IGNORE the fact that the founding document of this country is overwhelmingly libertarian in its sentiments.
The one “relatively” accurate criticism of SOME libertarians is about borders. They accurately and correctly argue AGAINST border restrictions. However the saw is true that “you can have a welfare state OR you can have open borders, but you can’t have both.” The issue is not the invasion from the south. We had functionally NO border laws for over 120 years and had no such problems. Our problems re: the border are that the programs we have make us a magnet for a different caliber of people who once came here.... AND they corrupt the people who come and discover the Candyland of “programs” encouraging permanent grifting in the name of compassion.
Some libertarians therefore endorse tight borders, and some think we have gone so far socialist that the only way to correct the system is let the grifters bust it. I used to be of the latter camp, but am at least open to seeing if Trump can reverse the mess we have.
And this guy has a doctorate in Political Theory? Libertarian advocacy on those issues is based on the concept of limited government, that in the US there is not Constitutionally-enumerated power to regulate those activities. While personal autonomy is a big part of many discussions, Mr Blake prefers to have us use one leg instead of two.
I believe many conservatives' disdain for libertarianism is that, in many ways, conservatives lost the philosophy War. Many people found that lots of conservatives in reality love big govt - as long as it's a right leaning govt. That resulted in crumbling at places like National Review and the Weekly Standard while Reason remains in tact.
If Mr Blake can't get the fundamentals right, I'm not bothering with his claptrap. It also helps to know that he was a NeverTrumperin 2016 and it seems he hasn't changed.
As I said yesterday, while I have bounced between Libertarianism for a while I have come to understand that Libertarianism is to the Right as Communism is to the Left.
Our ideal, but ultimately unobtainable and unachievable society.
“In the end, the freedom to abandon family, faith, and community is the freedom to be insecure, insignificant, and alone before the Leviathan of government.”
A couple of points regarding this...
1. Every virtue taken to it’s limit becomes a vice or a sin. And so it is with freedom. So what should the limits of freedom be?
2. Individually, we’ve always had the freedom to “abandon” those institutions, but those institutions survived and thrived. What has become their biggest enemy of late is not libertarianism, but postmodernism whose stated purpose is to smash (deconstruct) all these institutions as mere arbitrary “social construct” or worse yet as oppressive cultural entities instituted by white patriarchy.
And this vile, destructive “philosophy” is all the rage on campuses and quickly oozing out to society at large.
sometimes the only reason I go into a thread about libertarians is to see the bald faced ignorance some of the clowns on FR bray out.
Nonsensical and stupid crap about being democrats in drag, dope fiends, deviants looking for legal protection, and a COMPLETE ignorance of what libertarians are about is what I usually expect.
Some, like Aquila above, are reasoned and sincere and not stupid... just not very well informed.
The rest of them are the reason why Trump had to destroy the Republican party for there to be any hope at all for us.
MAGA.
I would describe myself as a "libertarian constitutionalist". If it's not listed in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, it's simply not a power delegated to the federal government. The list is quite short, and yet it covers the vast majority of those things that should be properly allocated to it.
If so-called "conservatives" want to delegate additional power to the federal government, there is a method for that. It is called "amending the Constitution". The procedure for doing so is all set right out in the document itself.
Every election cycle we see a bunch of hand-wringing about libertarians, and the Libertarian party itself as if they actually have any power over the levers of government. There are no Libertarian senate or congress critters in office. In fact, I would posit that there are few, if any small-l libertarians in either chamber. Paul comes closest, and that's mostly because of the association he gets from his father.
I would cordially invite folks whining about the fact that libertarian thinkers exist, look to their own parties, as this is where the real problem is coming from.
I'd also note that I don't hold truck with much that is contained in the Libertarian Party's platform. But again, it's not like the part has any actual power to exercise. Libertarian thought has a long history in this country, as the Madison quote in post 9 exemplifies rather well I think. Some of us, rather than running to the government as a response to every perceived ill, would prefer to be left alone as much as is possible, and would especially like to see the government actually be restrained to the limits of its foundational document.
The Libertarians mistake Liberals “concern” for certain “rights” as a sharing of a real concern for Liberty, when in fact the Liberals remedies on “rights” are for more, and more intrusive government, not less.