Posted on 02/01/2002 10:21:47 AM PST by Exnihilo
Why is libertarianism wrong?
Why is libertarianism wrong?
The origins, background, values, effects, and defects of libertarianism. Some sections are abstract, but at the end some irreducible value conflicts are clearly stated.
At this point, you might expect a definition of libertarianism. However, most definitions of libertarianism are written by libertarians themselves, and they are extremely propagandistic. "Libertarianism is freedom!' is a slogan, not a definition. Most other definitions of libertarianism borrow from those self-definitions, so I have avoided them. Instead, the values, claims, and effects listed below describe the reality of libertarianism.
The libertarian belief system includes the values listed in this section, which are affirmed by most libertarians. Certainly, no libertarian rejects them all...
In the case of libertarianism within existing states, the position is much clearer. There is no question of a fresh start with a fresh population. The Libertarian Party of the United States, for instance, seeks to impose a libertarian system on the United States. It is an imposition, and can not be anything else. Unless they are prepared to accept the division of the country, they will have to deal with millions of anti-libertarians, who reject the regime entirely. They might call the riot police the Liberty Police, they might call the prisons Liberty Camps, but it's still not 'political freedom'.
There is no neutral common standard of what is good and bad, in consumer goods or education. Different economic systems and different societies produce different types of goods and services. Libertarians implicitly claim that their preferences are the right preferences, and that the economic system itself should be chosen to produce their preferred goods and services. They don't want Soviet-style goods in the shops, so they want a non-Soviet system. Perhaps you don't want Soviet-style goods in the shops either. The point is: did they ask you?
All instrumental arguments are paternalistic. The fascist sympathisers who praised Mussolini's train timekeeping, assumed that was the most relevant factor to judge Italian fascist society. For themselves - but also for their listeners. Libertarians assume everyone wants an American-style economy directed to consumer goods. Some people do. But other people have different tastes, and different priorities. Libertarians ignore these differences, and simply assume that everyone wants exactly the same, from health care or the educational system. That paternalism is incompatible with the moral autonomy and economic freedom, which libertarians claim to promote.
That is an inconsistency in libertarian claims to political power. It is a separate issue from the accuracy of their predictions, about the wonders of deregulation and privatisation. There is no point in discussing the accuracy of these predictions here. If libertarians say, for instance, that global deregulation will lead to increased electricity production in Ghana in 2050, there is no point in discussion. No-one knows anyway. The instrumental arguments of libertarians are untested, since no country has a fully libertarian economic system. There are partial neoliberal and libertarian 'experiments' - deregulation and privatisation. But, as the Californian electricity crisis showed, if the experiment fails, its supporters will simply claim that it was not sufficiently neoliberal or libertarian. So even the evidence for the instrumental claims of libertarians is a matter of interpretation and preference: it would be futile to use it as a basis for discussion.
libertarian image libertarian reality Image: non-coercion, no initiation of force Reality: libertarians legitimise economic injustice, by refusing to define it as coercion or initiated force Image: moral autonomy of the individual Reality: libertarians demand that the individual accept the outcome of market forces Image: political freedom Reality: some form of libertarian government, imposing libertarian policies on non-libertarians Image: libertarians condemn existing states as oppressive Reality: libertarians use the political process in existing states to implement their policies Image: benefits of libertarianism Reality: libertarians claim the right to decide for others, what constitutes a 'benefit'
...libertarianism is the ideology that aggression is bad. In libertarian argot, "aggression" is defined as the initiation of coercion, and "coercion" is defined as force, fraud or duress; coercion exercised in self-defense or restitution is defined as retaliation, not initiation.
And Charles Murray writes in What it means to be a Libertarian (p. 6):
It is wrong for me to use force against you, because it violates your right to control of your person....I may have the purest motive in the world. I may even have the best idea in the world. But even these give me no right to make you do something just because I think it's a good idea. This truth translates into the first libertarian principle of governance: In a free society individuals may not initiate the use of force against any other individual or group.
Now it is logically inconsistent, to demand a 'noncoercive principle of governance'. Unless someone (coercively) enforces it, it will be meaningless. And libertarians have a narrow and specific definition of coercion anyway (see below). But leaving that aside, this principle has an important political characteristic. It carries an implicit secondary claim, that any veto on coercion is legitimate.
In a libertarian world, any person could exercise a veto over any project, if it required their coercion. And as protesters have discovered, you can place yourself in a position where that coercion is required. In other words the non-coercion principle is a licence for deep NIMBY-ism. By literally or metaphorically 'sitting in front of the bulldozer', any project can be blocked. To evade this, libertarian theorists would have to create exemptions to the non-coercion principle, and probably exemptions from these exemptions. I have not seen any libertarian attempt to do this. However, there is a good comparison with rights theory - where every right can be matched by a claimed counter-right. In political practice, this has led to an inflation of rights (which can also be found in some libertarian proposals). The creation of a de facto veto right, or a specific set of exemptions from it, would undermine claims that the proposed society is a neutral set of rules and/or procedures.
Certainly libertarians insist that the State should respect the non-coercion principle. Some libertarians might concede that the State is also protected by the principle, especially the so-called minarchists. For instance, they might condemn extortion from the government as coercion, force or fraud. If they concede the existence of a government at all, it will need protection against force in order to function. But if they concede this extension, why not extend it further to clubs and associations, which also need protection in order to function? Or to ethnic minorities? Or to species? A libertarian society needs to define the limits of the non-coercion principle, in order to apply it. These limits must then be enforced. Once again the claim to neutrality is undermined. The libertarian state would have to be maximal enough, to enforce their particular view of who deserves non-coercion.
We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
In other words, interference with the lives of others is permitted, so long as it is not forcible. So anti-coercion libertarians do not just oppose coercion (force initiation): they also claim to legitimately define it. Their definition excludes much, that others would see as coercion.
Most explicitly, market forces are not defined as coercion by libertarians. Many exclude any form of competition from the definition. Some libertarians take this to extremes, proposing for instance a free market in children, or the return of indentured labour and contract slavery. On the other hand, any attempt to restrict market forces (or competition) would be defined by most libertarians as 'coercion'. Yet again the claim to neutrality is undermined: the libertarian state would also enforce their particular views of what constitutes non-coercion.
Cynically defined, a libertarian is a person who believes that all humans should live in total and absolute submission to market forces, at all times from birth to death, without any chance of escape. Only liberal ideologies claim that living in a free market is equivalent to living in a free society. Charles Murray writes in What it means to be a Libertarian (p. 6):
Formally stated: A voluntary and informed exchange benefits both parties. This characteristic of a voluntary and informed exchange makes a free society possible.
No, it does not. There is a huge gap in the logic here. The characteristics of the exchange do not determine the form of the society in which it takes place. A society is not a two-person transaction. A voluntary and informed exchange between two parties may already have dramatic consequences for a third party. Billions of free-market transactions result in some 'third parties' starving to death: that is neither voluntary, nor informed, nor an exchange.
A simple example: two islands exchange crops, to reach a minimum healthy diet. Soil conditions mean that a full range of crops can not be grown. Without the exchange the inhabitants of both islands will die. Then an external trader arrives, and sells the necessary crops to one of the islands. The trader sells honestly at fair prices: both parties (trader and one island) are satisfied with the deal. Nevertheless, the inter-island exchange ends. On the other island, the population dies of malnutrition. Obviously, they never contracted to this, yet some libertarians would claim that they are in some sense more free.
To allow 'freedom' in the sense that no-one finds themselves in a non-consensual condition as a result of transactions, would require
Even in a small village with a barter economy these conditions are impossible. they are certainly impossible in a global economy.
Libertarians must know that free markets are not 'pure' transactions in a social vacuum. The voluntary and informed nature of a contract can, in reality, never extend beyond the contracting parties. But its effects can. Even if every single transaction is voluntary and informed, the resulting society might disadvantage everyone. If, and only if, all its members have contracted to accept any and all outcomes of all transactions collectively, can it be a 'free society' in the sense implied by Charles Murray. Otherwise, the image of the voluntary transaction as a metaphor for society, is false and propagandistic.
Libertarians appear to reject destructive force in general, including the destruction of tradition, and of traditionally venerated objects. Prohibiting the destruction of the existing is, by definition, a form of conservatism. Libertarianism appears to be 'anti-iconoclastic' in this sense, but specific libertarian condemnations of revolutionary iconoclasm are hard to find.
Some libertarian philosophy rejects all moral judgment. No statement, it claims, can be more than an opinion. Almost all libertarians claim to reject the imposition of values by the State and other external authorities. They reject personal moralising, for example interference in the sex life of individuals by religious groups. Since libertarianism is so concentrated in the USA, school prayers, pornography, abortion and gun control are the typical issues.
However, ethics is not only about adult videos: there is a huge range of fundamental moral issues, submerged beneath the consensus of western societies. Almost by default, existing nation states impose some moral values, and reject others. Some of these have never even been discussed: academic philosophers find new ethical issues every day. Very few are the subject of the 'ethics controversies' debated by US libertarians and their opponents. So the opposition of libertarians to 'government moralising' can only be selective - and it is in practice selective. That obscures the position of libertarians, on moral issues that are not constantly in the US media. US schools also teach the benefits of the free market, and libertarians don't complain.
If libertarians did take the position that absolutely no state imposition of values is legitimate, I would put that in the section on their values. It is obviously a value judgment in itself. But I have not seen such a libertarian position yet: the present political reality is rather the selectiveness of libertarian anti-moralism.
As for whether open-source is "techno-libertarian" -- well, I invite you to note that there is no coercion in it anywhere. It's a pure example of voluntary cooperation in a free market. The fact that open-source development leads to mostly cooperative rather than mostly competitive behavior is consistent; market economies are the most marvelous cooperative engines ever.
That is why markets are wrong: they produce social and technological uniformity. They 'centre' society. However, for some libertarians, that is exactly what makes them right.
In other words certain entities will be permanently missing from the libertarian world. To libertarians, that is an advantage: they think of these entities as wrong: wrong as a product of coercion, or just plain wrong, like David Friedman's "bad trucks". Not just bad trucks will be missing, but an entire range of 'bad' entities, from 'bad' pencils, to 'bad' organisations, to 'bad' cities.
Urban planning theory has an established rhetoric of rejection of the "Soviet City", the 'bad city' which is contrasted with the US city. It is a specific example of the contra-utopianism of liberal thinking. Sometimes you can imagine the theorist shouting at, for instance, Kaliningrad "Such a city must be forbidden!" The point is that not everyone shares this preference of mainstream urban theory: and not everyone shares David Friedman's conviction that American trucks are self-evidently good. The entire range of 'bad entities' in this sense, is no more than a list of the personal preferences of libertarians.
Firstly, libertarianism is a legitimation of the existing order, at least in the United States. All political regimes have a legitimising ideology, which gives an ethical justification for the exercise of political power. The European absolute monarchies, for instance, appealed to the doctrine of legitimate descent. The King was the son of a previous King, and therefore (so the story went), entitled to be king. In turn, a comprehensive opposition to a regime will have a comprehensive justification for abolishing it. Libertarianism is not a 'revolutionary ideology' in that sense, seeking to overthrow fundamental values of the society around it. In fact, most US libertarians have a traditionalist attitude to American core values. Libertarianism legitimises primarily the free-market, and the resulting social inequalities.
Specifically libertarianism is a legitimation for the rich - the second defining characteristic. If Bill Gates wants to defend his great personal wealth (while others are starving) then libertarianism is a comprehensive option. His critics will accuse him of greed. They will say he does not need the money and that others desperately need it. They will say his wealth is an injustice, and insist that the government redistribute it. Liberalism (classic liberal philosophy) offers a defence for all these criticisms, but libertarianism is sharper in its rejection. That is not to say that Bill Gates 'pays all the libertarians'. (He would pay the Republican Party instead, which is much better organised, and capable of winning elections). Libertarianism is not necessarily invented or financed, by those who benefit from the ideology. In the USA and certainly in Europe, self-declared libertarians are a minority within market-liberal and neoliberal politics - also legitimising ideologies. To put it crudely, Bill Gates and his companies do not need the libertarians - although they are among his few consistent defenders. (Libertarians formed a 'Committee for the Moral Defense of Microsoft' during the legal actions against the firm).
Thirdly, libertarians are conservatives. Many are openly conservative, but others are evasive about the issue. But in the case of openly conservative libertarians, the intense commitment to conservatism forms the apparent core of their beliefs. I suggest this applies to most libertarians: they are not really interested in the free market or the non-coercion principle or limited government, but in their effects. Perhaps what libertarians really want is to prevent innovation, to reverse social change, or in some way to return to the past. Certainly conservative ideals are easy to find among libertarians. Charles Murray, for instance, writes in What it means to be a Libertarian (p. 138):
The triumph of an earlier America was that it has set all the right trends in motion, at a time when the world was first coming out of millennia of poverty into an era of plenty. The tragedy of contemporary America is that it abandonned that course. Libertarians want to return to it.
Now, Murray is an easy target: he is not only an open conservative, but also a racist. (As co-author of The Bell Curve he is probably the most influential western academic theorist of racial inferiority). But most US libertarians share his nostalgia for the early years of the United States, although it was a slave-owning society. Libertarianism, however, is also structurally conservative in its rejection of revolutionary force (or any innovative force). Without destruction there can be no long-term social change: a world entirely without coercion and force would be a static world.
These proposed 'tasks of the state' are a replacement for the standard version, used in theoretical works on public administration:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Liberalism - the mainstream definitions of liberalism.
Liberal Manifesto of Oxford (1947), European political liberalism. Some elements, such as "Loyal adherence to a world organisation of all nations..." would now be rejected by the same parties.
Libertäre Ideologie - a series of articles on the libertarian ideology at the online magazine Telepolis. Even if you can not read German, it is useful as a source of links, to libertarian and related sites.
European Libertarians. The Statue of Liberty on their homepage also symbolises Atlanticism: there is no recent libertarian tradition in Europe, outside the UK. More typical of European ultra-liberal politics is the New Right economic liberalism which was at the start of the Thatcher government in Britain. See for example the Institute for Economic Studies Europe, or in central Europe the Czech Liberální Institut.
Libertarian NL, a Dutch libertarian homepage (Aschwin de Wolf). But look at the political issues, the political thinkers, and the links: the libertarian world consists primarily of the United States. In December 2000 the featured theme was an open letter to Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the US central bank (Federal Reserve Board). Yet this is a Dutch website, made by people who live in Europe. Their currency policy is made by European central bank chairman Wim Duisenberg, the former Netherlands central bank president. But they chose to ignore the society around them, and live as wannabe US citizens. Again, a recurrent pattern among European libertarians.
Libertarisme: De renaissance van het klassiek liberalisme by Aschwin de Wolf. This introduction to libertarianism, written for the members of the Netherlands liberal party VVD, illustrates the missionary attitude of libertarians in Europe. European liberalism has become corrupted, they claim, and must reform itself on the model of US libertarianism.
Libertarisme FAQ: explicit about the conservative effects of libertarianism: "Je zou echter wel kunnen stellen dat het libertarisme conservatief is in die zin dat zij mensen in hun waarde laat en geen progressieve experimenten door de overheid toelaat. Het libertarisme is dus heel goed verenigbaar met het koesteren van tradities of andere overgeleverde manieren van leven."
democratic expansionism: liberal market democracy itself depends on coercion, a US military invasion for example
The advantage of capitalist trucks, David Friedman
The Cathedral and the Bazaar: libertarian ideologists are switching their attention from the Internet to Open Source. This text restates a theme from classic liberal philosophy: the contrast between emergent and ideal order (market and Church).
The non-statist FAQ seems to have gone offline (December 2000).
Critiques Of Libertarianism, the best-known anti-libertarian site, but almost exclusively US-American in content.
Elfnet: O/S for a Global Brain?: a good example of the combination of New Age, computer science, and globalism in global-brain connectionism. Opens, as you might expect, with a quote from Kevin Kelly.
Multi-Agent Systems / Hypereconomy: organicist free-market ideas from Alexander Chislenko, "...a contract economy looks much like a forest ecology..."
Networking in the Mind Age: Chislenko on a network global-brain. "The infomorph society will be built on new organizational principles and will represent a blend of a superliquid economy, cyberspace anarchy and advanced consciousness". I hope it works better than his website, which crashed my browser.
Gigantism in Soviet Space: the Soviet Union's state-organised mega-projects are a horror for all liberals. They contravene almost every libertarian precept.
The Right to Discriminate, from the libertarian "Constitution of Oceania". Few libertarians are so explicit about this, but logically it fits. The Right to Own a Business also provides that "Mandatory disability benefits for transvestites, pedophiles, pyromaniacs, kleptomaniacs, drug addicts, and compulsive gamblers are obviously forbidden."
Virtual Canton Constitution, from the libertarian think-tank Free Nation Foundation. Although they claim to be anti-statists, libertarians write many and detailed Constitutions. This one re-appears in the generally libertarian Amsterdam 2.0 urban design project.
Serbia and Bosnia: A Foreign Policy Formulation : libertarianism solves the Bosnia problem. "I am a newcomer to foreign policy and cannot claim to understand all that matters". From the Free Nation site, which advocates a (logically inconsistent) libertarian state.
Libertarian immigration: Entirely free, but, but...."Fortunately, a truly free society would be protected by the fact that all property would be private. Only an immigrant who had permission to occupy the property of another could even enter the country. Even roads and sidewalks would be privately owned and would probably require some type of fee for entry."
Libertarian Foreign Policy, Libertarian Party of Canada. An example of the isolationism which at present characterises North American libertarianism, despite its inherent universalist character.
The Unlikeliest Cult in History
Why are you tossing softball questions at me? The obvious answer is:
Amendment XXI
Section 2. The transportation or importation into any state, territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws theroeof, is hereby prohibited.
No kidding.
Where have you seen the courts ever limit government power?
If government is so limited, why are you complaining? Your own whines and cries against an overbearing government show that your logic about government power being completely restrained is demonstrably false.
Yes, there are a few limits on federal government power. Alcohol, gambling, slavery, and secession come to mind, but there just aren't that many limits.
The whole concept that our Constitution "limits" government is a bunch of hype from clueless Libertarians. Look around you. We've had soldiers' pension plans for almost 2 centuries. We've had a federal Bank since Thomas Jefferson. We've had Social Security since the 1930's, for crying out loud.
You Libertarians run around screaming that these programs aren't Constitutional as if no adult had ever reviewed them in court over the last 200 years, and that just isn't a rational position to hold.
You claim that government is limited, so you show me where. Show me where lawful courts have ruled against government programs. Show me where any respected authority has ever, in the history of our nation, passed down judgements that are in line with your radical claims.
Frankly, I don't see it. Lincoln got the draft and the income tax through because of the general welfare clause. FDR got the New Deal, Social Security, the Works Progress Authority, and the confiscation of gold through because of it. Thomas Jefferson got the first federal bank through because of it.
But oh no. A.J.Armitage says that the general welfare clause conveys no power, has no meaning on its own, and can simply be disregarded.
Well, forgive me if I don't buy that line of nonsense. Show me where government has been restrained by our courts. show me where the general welfare clause has been ruled to have had no value.
You can't do it. You can't do it because you are wrong, and not only are you wrong, but Libertarianism is wrong.
And not only is Libertarianism wrong, but Libertarianism is guilty of try to perpetuate a FRAUD in that its adherents falsely claim that the general welfare clause has no meaning.
And if you disagree, then SHOW ME where the courts have EVER backed your radical, disproven views.
You can't do it, and that's a challenge to you.
This is so much bunk!
What Libertarian insurrection were
you witness to that wanted to over-
throw the government and rule by
a handful of elite Libertarians?
IN FACT we are the exact opposite.
No initiation of force, remember!
We will do nothing unless we can
convince you of the rightness of
our argument! You have nothing
to fear so why do you lie?
I'll call you and raise you.
Any use you appear to feel is justified by
your view of the general welfare clause
would only cause or already has caused
grave harm to the general welfare.
The actual reason that it has no meaning
is you believe that you can better society
by taking from some to help others. You
claim to be against socialism but you want
The U. S. Constitution to allow some form
of misguided social endeavor. Anyone but
a fool should be able to see that. Your
claim is socialist.
You make me so sad that we have come
to this point. Libertarians are the only
true patriots left in our republic, yet we
get vile slander and abuse from those
that give lip service to the same cause.
LOL
That doesn't say Congress can't prohibit alcohol, dimwit. And it's also not part of the original Constitution. No wonder you can't get anything right.
Since I've been beating the stuffing out of your absurd claim that Congress has a "general welfare power"... except when it doesn't (making sense isn't your strength, apparently), you decided, in your next post, to get aggressive. Am I supposed to be intimidated or something?
Where have you seen the courts ever limit government power?
Try the link in #400.
The whole concept that our Constitution "limits" government is a bunch of hype from clueless Libertarians.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Strike one!
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Strike two!
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Strike three! The hack is out!
And there's plenty more where that came from.
The lesson: an aggressive tone will never make up for not knowing what you're talking about.
Show me where lawful courts have ruled against government programs.
#400.
Show me where any respected authority has ever, in the history of our nation, passed down judgements that are in line with your radical claims.
Respected authority?! I gave you the Federalist Papers! I have more, of course.
The Annotated Constitution:
The grant of power to ''provide . . . for the general welfare'' raises a two-fold question: How may Congress provide for ''the general welfare'' and what is ''the general welfare'' that it is authorized to promote? The first half of this question was answered by Thomas Jefferson in his opinion on the Bank as follows: ''[T]he laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.'' The clause, in short, is not an independent grant of power, but a qualification of the taxing power. Although a broader view has been occasionally asserted, Congress has not acted upon it and the Court has had no occasion to adjudicate the point.
The Annotated Constitution, by the way, is a official US government publication. Are you ready to surrender yet?
And remember, there's more where that came from. Face it: you're dying on the wrong hill.
Lincoln got the draft and the income tax through because of the general welfare clause.
You don't know history very well, do you?
But oh no. A.J.Armitage says that the general welfare clause conveys no power, has no meaning on its own, and can simply be disregarded.
You're misrepresenting my position, probably intentionally (in other words, you're a liar). I never said it can be disregarded. Your absurd misrepresentation of my position seems to come from an obviously wrong presupposition, that any clause not granting power is meaningless. No wonder you don't think the Constitution limits government power; you've got your own filter, shifting out everything you don't like.
Show me where government has been restrained by our courts. show me where the general welfare clause has been ruled to have had no value.
Since you seem to think having value means giving power to the federal government, your second "challenge" is absurd.
Your first, on the other hand, is simplicity itself.
Would it be too much to ask you to admit you were wrong? Almost certainly. Either way, let me point out who the true extremist is here. You've angrily denied there are Constitutional limits on federal authority, and called the idea that there are limits "radical and disproven". The disproven proves, yet again, that you don't know what you're talking about, and the radical proves how disconnected you are from American history and the views of the Founders. Of course the federal government is limited by the Constitution. Only a wild-eyed fanatic (who doesn't know what he's talking about) would say otherwise.
You can't do it, and that's a challenge to you.
I just did it.
Now here's a challenge to you. Tell me why I should pay more attention to some guy on the internet (leaving aside your own demostration that you don't know jack) than to the Federalist Papers.
You are incorrect. I don't want government to have broad power. All that I'm doing is pointing out that government does have broad power, legally.
If you will look at the history of our nation, we've had a FOUNDING FATHER create the first federal bank two centuries ago, legally. We've had gold confiscated and outlawed up until the mid 1970's. Government programs have grown every year for decades, and the very whining and crying of libertarians illustrates that government is NOT denied of broad power.
Yet you libertarians will consistently claim that the general welfare clause gives no power to the federal government. You will consistently claim that government power is more limited than both reality and court decisions would indicate to any rational person.
Look around you. Is government power constrained in America or are you complaining that it is too powerful?
Why has government power been so broad over the last 200 years of court decisions?
You see, reality contradicts the libertarian worldview.
One of the things that is wrong with libertarians is that they consistently misinterpret the Constitution, specifically the general welfare clause.
Many of the posts above this one being prime examples of that fact.
Please refer to Post #11 in its entirity, whenever possible, rather than pinging me as your first impulse for a reply on this thread.
Post #11 pretty well sums up my views on this subject.
9 posted on 2/1/02 11:30 AM Pacific by Central Scrutiniser
Right again, Miss Cleo.
Both had more money too. Ross Perot spent $20 million of his own money. Ralph Nader took federal matching funds to finance his runs. Interestingly enough, although Pat Buchanan took $12.6 million in federal matching funds he received only 100K more votes than Harry Browne who declined the $750,000 which he qualified for. It takes money to get the message out. Many people still do not know what Libertarians are or that the party even exists.
You're so full of it.
Your sorry excuse for an interpretation has been thoroughly thrashed. That's because it was wrong to begin with.
If you will look at the history of our nation, we've had a FOUNDING FATHER create the first federal bank two centuries ago, legally.
Nothing to do with the so called "general welfare clause".
We've had gold confiscated and outlawed up until the mid 1970's. Government programs have grown every year for decades, and the very whining and crying of libertarians illustrates that government is NOT denied of broad power.
First, that has as little to do with the "general welfare clause" as the national bank. Like I said before, amateur big government hacks use the "general welfare clause". The pros use the commerce clause.
You know, the SC once ruled that a man growing crops on his own land for the consumption of his own livestock was interstate commerce. I know, it's an incredibly stupid ruling, but the Court actually made it. More telling for this discussion is that they didn't just say "general welfare" and let it pass. In other words, your position is even more stupid than the one the Court used as justification. You are, in short, full of it. You know nothing.
And second, that stuff is indeed unConstitutional. You types always get back to the position that "it exists, therefore it's Constitutional" even though nobody knew it until the 1930s. This is so stupid I won't bother refuting it. Seriously, anything Congress does is Constitutional because Congress does it? Please. I suppose you think the Alien and Sedition Acts were also Constitutional.
One of the things that is wrong with libertarians is that they consistently misinterpret the Constitution, specifically the general welfare clause. Many of the posts above this one being prime examples of that fact.
You've been PROVEN WRONG ON ALL COUNTS. Every contention you've made on behalf of your idiotic claim has been incorrect, has had no relation to the topic, or has been nothing but sophistry. Sure, we consistently disagree with you, but, as this thread demostrates, that means we consistently GET IT RIGHT.
It would appear that both the market and the voters have spoken. 0.4%
If I'm so unimportant, inconsequential, and wrong, then why do you keep pinging me? You issue a challenge as to why you should pay attention to me, and then you keep paying attention to me.
You keep spouting off your long-since disproven claims of the general welfare clause having no value, too.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much.
Read my post #11. That's what I think is wrong with Libertarians, per the subject of this thread.
Then stop pinging me, talking about me, or protesting so much. I've stated my views, supported my position (especially that you Libertarians are completely proven wrong by the historical scope of government size and power around you in your backward claims that the "general welfare" clause conveys no power), and yet you keep yapping after me like a scolded puppy.
As I said in post #11, I don't want to debate Libertarians. All of you argue too much, listen too unobjectively, and care too much about getting in the last word to ever have a reasonable debate.
Nice try. You haven't answered the substance of what I said. Why should some random idiot on the internet be given more trust in matters of Constitutional interpretation than the Federalist Papers?
And for the record, I want to make sure no one falls for your crap.
You keep spouting off your long-since disproven claims of the general welfare clause having no value, too.
That's rich. I've left your pathetic, worthless swill in the tatters is always truly was.
Nevertheless, as your return in an earlier post the your phrase fixation demonstrates, you have a very short memory, in addition to a brain that has difficulty using logic, so we'll review.
The Federalist Papers call your position absurd. Game over, I win. And that's a perfectly serious statement: any legitimate contention is over as soon as someone quotes Federalist #41. The issue has been settled for over 200 years. You, and a few other ignoramuses, are standing alone on this with nothing of any value to suport your loony assertions.
The clear meaning of the text (the entire sentence) is that the general welfare is the purpose of the power to tax. Not "without value", as your idiotic mantra asserts, but certainly not a grant of all power in Heaven and Earth, which is what your position implies, although, undercutting yourself, you're saying it's an unlimited grant of power except when it isn't. Your position can't but be wrong; you're contradicting yourself.
The context of the rest of the Constitution clearly shows that I'm right. The rest of Article I, Section 8 would be unnecessary if you were right. But you're not right and it is necessary, so it's there. In particular, there's a grant of the power you say was granted over the whole country, but it's not over the whole country, it's over an area of ten square miles or less. And, of course, there's the Tenth Amendment.
Each of the three above paragraphs is enough, on its own, to utterly demolish nonsense about a "general welfare power". The fact is, I have crushed you totally. You have nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to stand on. It's far to late to bow out gracefully. You've been humiliated. You can't stand that, can you?
I've stated my views, supported my position (especially that you Libertarians are completely proven wrong by the historical scope of government size and power around you in your backward claims that the "general welfare" clause conveys no power), and yet you keep yapping after me like a scolded puppy.
The scolded puppy is you. You've been shown for what you are, and you hate it. By this point, you can't just admit you were wrong; it would be to have your nose rubbed in it all over again.
Oh, and on to the "serious" "content" of your comment quoted above. That the government does something in no way proves that it has Constitutional authorization to do it. And the post New Deal government powers aren't based on the "general welfare clause", they're based on a twisting of the commerce clause. In other words, your claim is twice wrong. Smacked down again! This has to be painful for you.
Then stop pinging me, talking about me, or protesting so much.
...
As I said in post #11, I don't want to debate Libertarians. All of you argue too much, listen too unobjectively, and care too much about getting in the last word to ever have a reasonable debate.
"Please, stop thrashing me! My ego cannot stand the humiliation! Please let me attack others, but I am far to fragile to take it myself! My arguments are weak, but please pretend your irrefutable arguments are the weak ones. After all, the title of thread say "Why Is Libertarianism Wrong?" Pretend I beat you. Please?"
AqFa> The central problem with libertarianism is that God doesn't give anyone the "right" to do anything intrinsically evil.PaVe> Hi Aquinas I was just thinking God gave us free will and probably man-made law which reflects it is the most sensible one.
Right again, Miss Cleo.
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