BROKEN_LADDER
A DINGO ATE MY ZOGBY
Registered: Mar 2005
Location: SEATTLE
Posts: 1932 |
Re: Libertarianism in One Lesson - very compelling
quote:
Originally posted by mudded
I ran across this on the internet, and even though that I cannot accept all of these points... I have to admit that I on the whole have been swayed by them. Thus I thought I'd share this profound document
this piece is purely for entertainment value, and while i'm sure it would evoke a chuckle even from a libertarian, it is nothing but straw men--total hyperbolic mischaracterizations. i respond to just a few:
--[*]Government is the Great Satan. All Evil comes from Government
libertarians don't have a problem with "government" per se; getting together in a democratic way, and electing leaders to coordinate our actions, is often times necessary to our success. if a small coastal town doesn't cooperate and fortify a levee, for instance, they might all be wiped out. government is great in situations like this, just like how a football team does better than with a coach, than if they just huddle and all try to get their 2¢ in on how to win. what libertarians are against is the violation of tthe rights of others. that means having laws that tell two men that they can't have sex with each other, or laws that tell me whether or not i can burn a piece of cloth, or laws that tell me i must relinquish my property or be thrown in the brigg. libertarians aren't against society, and they're not against cooperation. if anything, they usually recognize the enormous need for people to work together toward command goals. but they don't condone violating people's rights.
--and all Good from the Market, according to the Ayatollah Rand.
yes, all good comes from the market. but what does "the market" mean? people railing against libertarianism think of the market as factories and electronic stores, where your cash is sucked up buying things you don't need. but the market is anything that involves every human desire. you want to go to a park to play fetch with your dog, so you burn energy walking there, so you have to consume food, which you pay for. you have to buy tennis balls for the dog to go catch. if you want to drive across town to your lover's house and watch tv on the couch in each other's arms, you have to pay for gas and car insurance. the market isn't some scummy vile thing, just because a lot of greedy people are out there in the world. the market is just all the people in the world trying to get what they want out of life. the market is what gives us our homes, and our musical instruments, and our favorite blue jeans. want to have kids? you'll probably want a doctor to give you the best chance of having a healthy baby and mom. even the things that are great that you just think of as free, like a hug from your grandma, enter into the market. if she gets sick, she might have to have to be hospitalized, and maybe have an operation to fix some problem. say she hasn't got much money, and her insurance plan sucks; in order to get what you want--a healthy family member--you have to trade the fruits of your labor for medical care. there's nothing bad about that. there's nothing evil about it. the market is just all the wants and needs of society. it's how we all produce the things that everyone else needs (homes, cars, FOOD) and acquire the things we need. everyone should love the market, because everyone needs it. and why should anyone break the rules of the market, and take something by force, instead of negatiating a fair trade or fair price with the producer/seller?
--[*]Government cannot own things because only individuals can own things. Except for corporations, partnerships, joint ownership, marriage, and anything else we accept but government.
governments can certainly own things, since governments are just people. we just don't want them to have any money that was taken by force. if they want to create businesses that play by the rules, or if you want to make donations to them, no libertarian will object to that.
--[*]Taxation is theft because we have a right to squat in the US and benefit from defense, infrastructure, police, courts, etc. without obligation.
if you want a national defense force, you pay for it. if you want infrastructure (e.g. roads) you pay for it, either by driving on roads, or buying products where part of the cost is transportation fees. if you want your neighborhood policed, you pay for it. if a court system should incur any costs, you pay your fair share of them.
of course there will be those who don't pay into the system, but benefit from not getting their houses taken by chinese soldiers, but that's their choice to make. say i plant a huge swath of trees around my house, to protect from damage from high winds, and as a result, my neighbor's home incurs drastically less costs in damage each year from high winds. do i have the right to go to his home now and force him to pay me for the benefits he's reaping as a result of my trees?
--[*]Magic incantations can overturn society and bring about libertopia.
libertarians never ask for, nor expect, a utopia. we just want an end to government-sanctioned violation of personal rights.
--[*]Libertarians invented outrage over government waste, bureaucracy, injustice, etc. Nobody else thinks they are bad, knows they exist, or works to stop them.
for the most part this is true actually. the democrats and republicans, who comprise the vast majority of the electorate, promote all of those things, by supporting government's ability to take property by force, and restrict personal freedom. as long as the government can take money by force, it has more than enough power to commit the inevitable waste, bureaucracy, and injustice that it is known for.
--[*]Enlightenment comes only through repetition of the sacred mantra "Government does not work" according to Guru Browne.
since it's true, why not repeat it?
--[*]Only government is force, no matter how many Indians were killed by settlers to acquire their property, no matter how many blacks were enslaved and sold by private companies, no matter how many heads of union members are broken by private police.
i've never heard a libertarian say this. the point is, with other forces, we stand a fighting chance. with government, it's so monolithic, that you simply can't fight it. you don't pay your taxes, chances are you go to prison.
--[*]Money that government touches spontaneously combusts, destroying the economy. Money retained by individuals grows the economy, even if literally burnt.
inefficiency is, in effect, the destruction of money. it's the loss of value...a lowering of the gdp. since government is so incredibly inefficient, compared to consumer-responsive private business, it most certainly does cause money to "combust". and as nobel prize winning economist milton friedman said, the great depression would have been an ordinary (albeit pretty bad) recession had the government not meddled with the money supply the way they did.
politicians spend millions of dollars to urge people not to smoke -- while spending more millions to subsidize tobacco farmers. They send billions overseas for foreign aid -- while the federal deficit swells. They spend millions to subsidize public art -- while working families struggle to pay their taxes.
Politicians also run trains, bail out savings and loans, construct houses, sell insurance, print books, and build basketball courts -- you name it!
that's government inefficiency for you.
--[*]Private education works, public education doesn't.
we could debate this all day, but it's a moot point. "public" education, in our society, means education that is paid for by money that is taken from people by force. so say i want to home school my kid, to keep him away from the little criminals-in-training (the likes of which paint and i saw at robinson middle school in topeka), or say i want to send him to a private school...i still have to pay for public schools that i'm not even using.
arguing about private vs. public schools in terms of "success" is silly, for the only clear difference between them is that one gets its money by voluntary payments, and the other gets its money by force. the issue isn't academic, it's ethical. taking money by force is wrong. we call it stealing when we teach young children the basic dos and don'ts as kids. why don't we remember this when we grow up?
--The publicly educated masses that have grown the modern economies of the past 150 years are an illusion.
no one said they're an illusion. all we said was, stop paying for schools with stolen money.
--[*]Market failures, trusts, and oligopolies are lies spread by the evil economists serving the government as described in the "Protocols of the Elders of Statism".
the biggest "market failure" we ever had was caused by government reaction to what would have been a tolerable recession.
--[*]Central planning cannot work. Which is why all businesses internally are run like little markets, with no centralized leadership.
i don't see any libertarians saying this, so i don't know what the hell this guy's talking about.
--[*]Paternalism is the worst thing that can be inflicted upon people, as everyone knows that fathers are the most hated and reviled figures in the world.
i have a father, and a mother. once i became an adult, i had the right to make my own choices, and didn't need them to tie my shoes for me anymore. i don't need the government to tell me what substances to put into my body, or what people to have sex with, or whom i can hire to work at my company. i'm an adult now, and i make those decisions for myself.
--[*]Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearsome master. Therefore, we should avoid it entirely, as we do all forms of combustion.
libertarians don't inherently hate government. if i government doesn't violate our rights, it can be free to exist just like any other organization. we're against violation of people's rights, such as controlling what days a store can sell liquor, or whether a bar owner can allow smoking in his establishment, or whether a working person gets to keep all or just part of his income to spend how he sees fit.
--[*]The FDA is solely responsible for any death or sickness where it might have prevented treatment by the latest unproven fad.
the fda stops consumers from being able to choose for themselves what they want to put into their bodies. private agencies could, and in fact do perform many of the functions that the fda performs; such as certifying that a product has passed inspection and is safe, and in the case of nutritional supplements, effective. why not open up the fda monopoly, and let consumers choose for themselves which certification agency's stamp of approval most impresses them?
[*]Children, criminals, death cultists, and you all have the same inalienable right to own any weaponry: conventional, chemical, biological, or nuclear.
people have a right to own weaponry to the extent that they have a demonstrable knowledge of how to safely handle it. if some random idiot is working on a nuclear reactor next door to me, that is certainly a great enough threat to my safety that i, and the rest of my community, can make the call to have him stopped. just like if a clearly schizophrenic guy was walking down the street pointing his gun everywhere, we'd have a right to protect ourselves by subduing him, and taking his fucking gun away. but if a well organized militia wants to own army tanks and other large weaponry, with which they have been familiarized and skilled in the use of, then why do they have any less right to it than a militia that is operated by a group calling themselves "the government"?
--[*]All food, drugs, and medical treatments should be entirely unregulated: every industry should be able to kill 300,000 per year in the US like the tobacco industry.
the smoking industry doesn't kill anyone. smokers kill themselves, by choice. so long as the maker of the product has not lied about the contents or safety of his product, the consumer uses it at his own risk. a smart consumer would look for the seal of approval of a reputable safety certification company on the packaging of any product he was going to buy. and a smart grocery store wouldn't sell shit that was dangerous for people, otherwise that'd make for some bad publicity.
--[*]If you don't have a gun, you are not a libertarian. If you do have a gun, why don't you have even more powerful armament?
yep, just paint the libertarians as crazy gun nuts. but it's okay for the police monopoly to have them.
--[*]Better to abolish all regulations, consider everything as property, and solve all controversy by civil lawsuit over damages. The US doesn't have enough lawyers, and people who can't afford to invest many thousands of dollars in lawsuits should shut up.
we aren't asking to abolish regulations. you regulate through your own choices. if a candy bar has some chemical in it that you don't think should be allowed, just don't buy it. that's the same as regulating it, in effect, except you do it in a way that doesn't violate anyone's rights.
as for property, everything already is considered property. you own your computer, right? i can't come over and take it from you can i?
and what's this about lawyer fees? how do you think it works now? if you want to sue someone, you have to hire a lawyer, or you can take it upon yourself to learn the law, and file paperwork. if you don't think it should be that way, you have every right to donate money to an agency which provides cheap/free legal counsel for the poor.
--[*]The Libertarian Party is well on its way to dominating the political landscape, judging from its power base of 100+ elected dogcatchers and other important officials after 25 years of effort.
According to Alexa Internet Traffic Reports, the Libertarian Party Website is currently the highest ranked official political party website in the United States.
Libertarians have achieved 50-state ballot access for their presidential candidate four times (in 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000), a feat no other third party has achieved more than once.
In recent elections, Libertarians have run far more candidates for office, at all levels, than all other third parties combined. In the 2004 elections, 377 Libertarian candidates vied for state legislative seats, compared with 108 Constitution Party candidates, 94 Green Party candidates, and 11 Reform Party candidates. In the 2000 elections, the party ran about 1,430 candidates at the local, state, and federal level. More than 1,600 Libertarians ran for office in the 2002 mid-term election. Accordingly, their combined vote totals have far exceeded those of other parties: in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections, Libertarian candidates for state House of Representatives received more than a million votes — more than twice the votes received by all other minor parties combined.
these are the libertarians in office in pennsylvania
Michael Robertson Township Supervisor (Licking Township)
Michael Decker Township Supervisor (Halifax Township)
Betsy Summers Government Study Commissioner (Luzerne County)
George Barnett Constable (Sharon Township)
Karl Spangler Borough Auditor (Dover)
Charles Knepper Constable (Hamiltonban Township)
Patricia Arndt Inspector of Elections (Swissvale 2)
William Shirk Inspector of Elections (West Mifflin 9)
Ken Crippen Judge of Elections (Warminster 14)
Tom Martin Auditor (Huston Township)
David Owens Supervisor (London Britain Township)
Rochelle Etzel Assessor (Ashland Township)
Berlie Etzel Constable (Ashland Township)
Maggie Robertson Inspector of Elections (Licking Township)
Ron Goodman Auditor (North Middleton Township)
Barry Dively Auditor (Silver Spring Township)
Doug Keegan Auditor (Silver Spring Township)
Karen Simons Auditor (Silver Spring Township)
Terry Monn Auditor (Monroe Township)
Tony Gonzales Planning Commission (South Middleton Township)
Joe Scinta Judge of Elections (Hampden TWP 4)
John Goddard Inspector of Elections (Precinct 05-03)
Quince Eddens Inspector of Elections (Mechanicsburg 1)
Willie Harmon Auditor (Pennbrook)
Willie Harmon Judge of Elections
Cheryl Gordon Inspector of Elections
Brandon Magoon Inspector of Elections (Precinct 1-6-17)
Rich Piotrowski Judge of Elections (Allentown 17-4)
Ellen Blickman Inspector of Elections (Allentown 17-4)
Betsy Summers Judge of Elections (Wilkes Barre 6-1)
Brian Bergman Inspector of Elections (Wilkes Barre 1-1)
James Joy Constable (Jackson Township)
Obie Mild Judge of Elections (Norristown 2-2)
---
--[*]The "Party of Oxymoron": "Individualists unite!"
individualism is the heart of ayn rand's novels. ayn rand was very libertarian minded. that doesn't imply that individualism is the cornerstone of libertarian thought. the cornerstone of libertarian thought is respecting the rights of others.
--[*]Flip answers are more powerful than the best reasoned arguments, which is why so many libertarians are in important government positions.
we all know that being in office is the metric of how good a candidate and his platform are. just look at george w. bush. he's so awesome he's made it to the oval office twice
--[*]It's time the new pro-freedom libertarian platform was implemented; child labor, orphanages, sweatshops, poorhouses, company towns, monopolies, trusts, cartels, blacklists, private goons, slumlords, etc.
i don't know any libertarians who are for child labor, beyond reasonable chores for mr. smith for comic book money.
orphanages? wtf--you think libertarians want to kill kids' parents?
sweatshops? show me a man, woman, or child forced to work in a sweatshop, and i'll show you a libertarian ready to go there with his rifle and free those slaves. as for people who voluntarily work in them, that's their choice.
--[*]Libertarianism "rules" Internet political debate the same way US Communism "ruled" pamphleteering.
it does? sweet.
--[*]No compromise from the "Party of Principle". Justice, happiness, liberty, guns, and other good stuff come only from rigidly adhering to inflexible dogmas.
don't assault, don't steal, don't break an agreement. sounds like some pretty sensible dogma to me.
--[*]Minimal government is whatever we say it is, and we don't agree.
we're not for "minimal government" per se; that's a way of putting it, but the bottom line is that we're for minimal violation of people's rights. not all people who identify as libertarian agree on how minimal to go, and i'll readily admit, when i first heard a libertarian tell me he was against all taxation, earlier this year, i argued with him fiercely, thinking he was crazy (luckily that discussion helped me see the logical holes in my thinking). but the point is that we're all for MUCH more freedom than we have now. as the libertarianism faq puts it:
quote:
Anarcho-libertarians believe the "government" in this sense can be a loose network of rent-a-cops, insurance companies, and for-profit arbitration boards operating under a shared legal code; minarchists believe more centralization would be necessary and envision something much like a Jeffersonian constitional government. All libertarians want to live in a society based (far more than ours now is) on free trade and mutual voluntary contract; the government's job would be strictly to referee, and use the absolute minimum of force necessary to keep the peace.
--[*]Government is "moving steadily in a libertarian direction" with every change libertarians approve of; no matter if it takes one step forward and two steps backwards.
maybe it's not moving forward. by the looks of this horrid presidency, and this dreadful war, we're taking ten steps back. but we're certainly not going to just give in and change our minds and say, "okay, since we can't change it, let's start loving big brother".
--[*]Yes, the symbol of the Libertarian Party is a Big Government Statue. It's not supposed to be funny or ironic!
no, the symbol is the statue of liberty, not the statue of big brother. liberty is a principle which our country is supposed to be founded on, but we're faltering badly. libertarians want us to live up to that magnificent symbol of freedom.
--[*]Count only the benefits of libertarianism, count only the costs of government.
there is nothing else but benefits.
--[*]Five of a factoid beats a full argument.
plenty of libertarians will give you a full argument, and then some. we'll also give you far more internally consistent and logical arguments than anything you'll hear from any other party.
[*]All historical examples are tainted by statism, except when they favor libertarian claims.
what historical examples are there that stealing isn't wrong?
--[*]Spiritually baptize the deceased as libertarians because they cannot protest the anachronism: Locke, Smith, Paine, Jefferson, Spooner, etc.
their words speak for themselves.
--[*]The most heavily armed libertarian has the biggest dick and thus the best argument.
clearly that's paintchips.
--[*]The best multi-party democratic republics should be equated to the worst dictatorships for the purposes of denouncing statism. It's only a matter of degree.
yup, it's only a matter of degree.
--[*]Inviolate private property is the only true measure of freedom.
not to mention the right to burn a flag, have free speech without fear of imprisonment, have sex with another consenting adult regardless of your genders, the right to do whatever fucking drugs you feel like doing, the right to fuck whom you want, and for the price you both agree on...the right to gamble your money if you damned well please, etc. etc. we're for freedom across the board.
--Those without property have the freedom to try to acquire it. If they can't, let them find somebody else's property to complain on.
oh boo hoo...no one will pay my way. i have to get a job and work to pay my rent/mortgage...wahhhhh!
--[*]Private ownership is the cure for all problems, despite the historical record of privately owned states such as Nazi Germany, Czarist and Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China.
private ownership isn't a "cure" for anything; it's a right. unless you want to live in a world where anyone can do with your property whatever he damned well pleases, and you have no right to stop him.
--[*]Require perfection as the only applicable standard to judge government: libertarianism, being imaginary, cannot be fairly judged to have flaws.
funny! that's what people always do to libertarians. you find one little bad thing that might go on in a libertarian world and say, "see?! your system FAILS!" whereas in an anti-freedom system, billions of things are wrong.
--[*]Only libertarian economists' Nobel Prizes count: the other economists and Nobel Prize Committee are mistaken.
personally i don't think any nobel prize winner has any more authority to advocate stealing my property than any other random bloke.
--[*]Any exceptional case of private production proves that government ought not to be involved.
the proof that government ought not to be involved is that the business owner didn't ask them to be. if he did, then they have every right to be.
quote:
No, this isn't David Bergland's evangelistic text. This is an outsider's view of the precepts of libertarianism. I hope you can laugh at how close this is to real libertarianism!
i'm laughing at how this guy could think anyone would have read more than the first couple lines of this and not known it was anti libertarian, as well as the fact that he thinks this stuff is close to real libertarianism. clearly instead of having any kind of rational debate, the guy just wants to make fun of freedomists, for having the audacity to suggest that stealing money and personal freedoms is wrong.
__________________
TAXATION = THEFT
GOVERNMENT = MAFIA
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07-04-2006 04:55 PM
