...you should go and read Devilstower's truly superb article "How Freedom Was Lost" over at the Daily Kos. After you read it, you might want to send copies to the Libertarians you know.
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...you should go and read Devilstower's truly superb article "How Freedom Was Lost" over at the Daily Kos. After you read it, you might want to send copies to the Libertarians you know.
Me! Me! Me! Three days ago I cudnt even spel 'libertarian' and now I are one!
Well, I read it, and it was utter cakk. The conservative ethic says that everyone should be able to do what they want provided it harms no-one else. The Kos article is a wilful misrepresentation of this, criticising by taking extreme examples, dressed up in liberal-weepie crocodile tears. What a lot of dismal socialist arse-dribble.
The conservative ethic says that everyone should be able to do what they want provided it harms no-one else
Fine, great. More power to you. But it doesn't work at the macro level without enforcement. Whether or not conservatives are ethical in their own personal dealings, it doesn't change that as a whole, businesses have historically acted in the interests of profit, and that the "invisible hand" of the marketplace fails to provide adequate protections for workers, consumers, or the environment.
It would help if people distinguished between the "pure political theory" of libertarianism and the "political economic theory" of laissez faire capitalism that far too many self-identifying libertarians espouse. It gives freedom a bad name to be associated so closely with apologetics for unrestrained greed.
cromercrox:
What you're doing is what we call denial. Deregulation leads to corporate feudalism; Tennessee Ernie Ford didn't pull "Sixteen Tons" out of his ass.
Nothing of the sort. What we have is a fundamental difference of philosophies. Those on the Left think that everything should be forbidden unless it's allowed, while those on the Right think that everything should be allowed unless it's forbidden. The Kos article mischievously conflates conservatism with lawlessness, for its own political agenda. As Boris Johnson wrote - once the Left realized that socialism would never work as a system of government, the Left invented political correctness through which we might all be subjugated to their agenda, nonetheless.
I think what we have here is an example of the difference that an ocean makes. I'm as incompetent at political philosophy as I am with any other variety of philosophy, so I don't know if the Kos article presents conservatism and/or libertarianism as they are theoretically supposed to be. It's entirely possible that any true Scolibertarian/conservative would not oppose health and safety legislation.
However, I'm not sure that my friend with the fancy fluorescent floral footwear is entirely aware of how commonly we've seen alleged conservatives arguing against health and safety efforts, or the extent of damage that our prior administration managed to do to those efforts through a combination of limiting funding for enforcement and placing like-minded individuals in control of the agencies responsible for those policies.
What bugs me most about the libertarian movement is not their philosophy, but their refusal to test it on a small scale. I don't want to hear about how we should change the federal government until you first show me a working 10,000 person community of libertarians. Really, if you're going to argue for dramatically altering the way the country works, don't you think it might be wise to test your ideas first?
There has been a small on going test of libertarian philosophy for a few decades now. Somalia, population 10,000,000. No taxes, no regulations, no gun control.
william,
Reaaaaly? Such treacle must be corrected.
Somalia is a state under absolute anarchy; most libertarians and classical liberals are for minarchism: a state whose sole purpose is to protect the rights of individuals, which includes the right to one's life.
Most libertarians and classical liberals think the state should not go to war against other nations out of monetary interest, or pad the pockets of the rich, or to build huge public works projects that sometimes work, but more often than not, suffer from unintended and unforeseen consequences. Taxes? Sure, as long as they're for providing a defense force, arbitration courts and a peace force.
Minarchism is not, and is antithetical to, absolute anarchy. Minarchism is not happening in Somalia. Do you understand this? That central confusion between absolute anarchy and minarchism is what bothered me about the Daily Kos article: these corporations murdered and poisoned people; these corporations (unintentionally or intentionally) destroyed property. This is as immoral as one can be under libertarian theory.