Why you might be already be a Libertarian

The Prometheus Institute ^ | 10/4/2006 | Editorial

[tang0r]

The libertarian ideology is one of the most misunderstood in American politics. Many citizens don't have any idea what it is. Most of them who do - liberal and conservative - aver that libertarianism is nothing but a worthless form of crypto-anarchy. The author of one recently popular anti-libertarian article, titled with brevity "Why I Am Not a Libertarian," argues that libertarians want to privatize everything, and that since privatization of such things like the Pennekamp Coral Reef in Key Largo would destroy the cute fish and their natural habitat there, libertarianism is not for him. He also alleges that to be libertarian is to support abolishing welfare in favor of ruthless Social Darwinism, and since he doesn't like the idea of handicapped people being tossed in the street, so he rejects that axiom of "libertarianism" as well.  

[MarkL]

BTW, great tagline!

Thanks!

My personal favorite Book line is, "There's a special hell reserved for child moleters, and people who talk in the theater."

Mark

[steve-b]

I didn't misinterpret you at all. The 60s crash of social libertarianism destroyed the Jim Crow laws in its path, and properly so.

[Scotsman will be Free]

I agree.

[nosofar]

It's the same muckity muck that every crying liberal proclaims. It just turns into a battle of who will rule over who.

I agree, which is why we need freedom not just for individuals, but individual communities to decide what this muckity muck will consist of (within certain broad limits) instead of just declaring any defense of anything you can't actually touch as anathema.

[nosofar]

It seems the states and local communities are halfway to being just arms of the federal government. I don't know where this will end. For a while now I've had the idea that the United States and China (I have an interest in China) will end up with the same system of government, just coming at it from different directions.

[nosofar]

Sounds like you would rather rights be violated by groups of people near to you rather than in Washington.

Certainly. The nearer the better. At least this way, we are more able to do something about it. It's one thing to fight City Hall. It's another thing to fight the capitol of the entire nation.

[Protagoras]

Ok, as long as we both recognise that you agree that government violates rights. In fact, it does so more than any other group in the world.

[Teacher317]

Seems like they punish marriage more than they support it. Taxes, punitive family law for males, making single mothers more dependent upon government, etc.

[nosofar]

Naturally, any rational person is "unwilling to acknowledge" such a vapid and empty notion. A criterion that asserts that (for example) limiting how long people can stay on welfare or overthrowing the Taliban regime after 9/11 (both of which upended preexisting cultures) "harms" people (and is therefore morally suspect) can hardly be taken seriously.

Welfare is not a culture value, it's a source of income. We are talking about government's attitude toward those it governs, not toward a foreign state, so your Taliban reference is completely irrelevant too. Both examples you give are meaningless. However, I should have said that harm to a person's cultural values (mores, etc.) harms the person. People are social beings. As such we create social institutions of many kinds. Harming a social institution harms the participants of that institution. Just as harming any physical structure you build harms you, (though the physical structure is much more easily replaced). The denial of the value of social institutions is a mark of what I term the radical individualist.

[Protagoras]

Are you basically saying that if I do something that is not in sync with your "social institution", you are justified in using government force to make me cease?

I'm just trying to distill your posts into a recognizable critique of libertarianism.