You might say that, and I'd vehemetly disagree. I find the basic principles of libertarianism quite sound and can defend them quite well. I don't find it utopian or distopian, I simply find it fair and logical.

Yeah, you simply reiterated what you said previously and never answered the charge.

I mean shit, why should we be concerned at all about the downward spiral such cynisism is bringing upon us. It's hard to change things after all, so we might as well settle for what we're given.

Yeah, big ears are deal breaker for me too.

Yellow_Number_Five wrote:

You might say that, and I'd vehemetly disagree. I find the basic principles of libertarianism quite sound and can defend them quite well. I don't find it utopian or distopian, I simply find it fair and logical.

Fair and logical if everyone thought like you. I consider libertarianism to be far too extreme, basically. Libertarianism allows the establishment of monopolies, and we all know the probability of abuse in that scenario.

Furthermore, in order to make rational economic decisions one must be properly informed. Who will be in charge of informing the populace of all the options they have?

They certainly will not do it themselves.

Let me bring up the recent example of the ban on trans fats in restaurants.

The majority of the low-middle class citizens who were most affected by the use of trans fats in their burgers and fries have no idea what the hell a trans fat is, let alone why it's bad for you, or if they have other options.

The state intervened on behalf of the health of the populace, and I consider this a sound decision.

As a libertarian, you would probably defend the the restaurants' rights to cook their fries however they want. Since trans fats are easier and cheaper to use, the market provides no incentive for the restaurants to change their ingredients. This is but one example.

We can discuss other issues if you like.

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Yeah, you simply reiterated what you said previously and never answered the charge.

I mean shit, why should we be concerned at all about the downward spiral such cynisism is bringing upon us. It's hard to change things after all, so we might as well settle for what we're given.

The statistical probability of a single vote changing anything is one over the difference between the winner of an election and either the runner-up (if you voted for the winner), or whichever candidate you voted for. In other words, nil.

As a personal philosophy, I see no problem with not voting. However, I do see the folly with propagating such an ideology. For all intents and purposes, I concede the point.

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Yeah, big ears are deal breaker for me too.

That part of my post was humorous and intended to convey Angelides' lack of a platform. I like and respect Schwarzenegger as a man and a politician (primarily because he is not a typical politician whose concerns are money, fame, and/or power). I think he has done a fine job in California so far.

jester700 wrote:

Witness Microsoft. They use their power & influence to protect themselves from the backlash of shoddy products . I forget the maker, but the "exploding truck gas tank" that was cheaper to deal with legalities than to recall & redesign.

And did the maker of said gas tank get sued?

Look, fundamentally, businesses are not good or evil. Bill Gates is one of the greatest humanitarians the modern world has. Is it guilt for his enormous wealth? Is it a marketing ploy? Does it really matter in the end?

Those who truely exploit are in the minority, they are the ones who hire illegals and pay them slave wages - slave wages, because the alternative is paying the arificially manufactured wage (i.e. minimum wage). Well, what would happen if we simply abolished these lines in the dirt we've drawn? Ultimately, that's what libertarians stand for and what the free market stands for.

Globalization is inevitable, and with it comes the break down of boarders and other trite things. If we simply keep the government out of it and let people and the market determine the price things would be more fair and ultimately less costly for all.

Insidium Profundis wrote:

Libertarianism is not viable.

Why, exactly?

Yellow_Number_Five wrote:

Insidium Profundis wrote:

Libertarianism is not viable.

Why, exactly?

Some of the reasons that Libertarianism is not viable:

As beautifully explained by Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs and Steel," humans kill each other, because they can.

In small groups, kinship bonds are strong enough to control this trend, but beyond a certain critical population mass, this control fades, and the kinship bonds still remaining contribute to a society of feuding armed camps. "Waves of murder and counter-murder," is how Diamond describes it. (An unspoken recognition of this fact is, I think, probably the reason that many Libertarians are such gun nuts...)

Not very practical, and it makes you easy pickings for the more unified societies surrounding you.

The only way that human societies have ever successfully controlled this tendency is to establish a centralized control over use of violent force, and once you do that, the only question left is, how do you control the controllers of that centralized legitimized use of force?

Diamond does not approve of the resulting social structures, really, he calls them "kleptocracies," because that is what they all become, to one degree or another.

I happen to believe a democratic republic like the one established by the U.S. Constitution is the best solution yet found to this problem.

With regard to the free market, one problem is that the free market is inherently short-sighted, and routinely sacrifices important long-term goals in its pursuit of short-term profits.

Another is the objection raised above, that in a true free-market economy, there is nothing stopping the controllers of economic power from abusing that power, which they therefore inevitably will do.

If I understand it correctly, modern Libertarianism accepts the need for a legal structure which prevents force and fraud, which raises yet another issue.

Until we can convict the priest offering Communion of fraud, humanity will not be ready for such a system.

I think that if people were to evolve in such a manner that Libertarianism could work, then it would establish itself naturally and effortlessly.

I think it would then be indistinguishable from its (as someone else suggested) obverse face, which is Communism.

If nobody would be content living in extravagant luxury by profiting from the suffering of the less fortunate, and if nobody would be content living as a parasite on the efforts of the more industrious, then such a system could be viable, I think.

Otherwise, not.

The notion that the market, if left completely unrestrained, would somehow prevent abuse of power seems utterly naive to me.

The Enron disaster was a direct result of the de-regulation of the industry and the removal of controls against abuse of power.

If not for legislation and treaties, the environment (for one example) would be significantly more screwed than it already is, because of the short-term nature of the profit-motivated approach - as history clearly shows - is insensitive to such long-term issues.

I would have a hard time voting for a view that seems to favor throwing out the carefully navigated middle path in exchange for an extremist approach, whether that view is Libertarian or Communistic.

I, and most people, think that Libertarianism leans too far toward anarchy to be practical, and is based on a fundamental misconception of human nature - as it currently stands.

Zhwazi wrote:

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The notion that the market, if left completely unrestrained, would somehow prevent abuse of power seems utterly naive to me.

The notion that the government, if left completely unrestrained, would somehow prevent abuse of power seems utterly naive to me.

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The Enron disaster was a direct result of the de-regulation of the industry and the removal of controls against abuse of power.

It was the result of many things, you are vastly oversimplifying it.

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If not for legislation and treaties, the environment (for one example) would be significantly more screwed than it already is, because of the short-term nature of the profit-motivated approach - as history clearly shows - is insensitive to such long-term issues.

Who is more shortsighted? Bill Gates or Bill Clinton? Bill Gates had to worry about his company 10 or 20 years from now. Bill Clinton had to worry about the next election, never more than 4 years away. To think that bureaucrats and politicians are immune from this is pitifully stupid.

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I would have a hard time voting for a view that seems to favor throwing out the carefully navigated middle path in exchange for an extremist approach, whether that view is Libertarian or Communistic.

Because it's impossible that one side is actually right and the other wrong, therefore a "middle of the road" is necessary to ensure we get the worst of both worlds, right?

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I, and most people, think that Libertarianism leans too far toward anarchy to be practical, and is based on a fundamental misconception of human nature - as it currently stands.

Anarchy is practical if allowed to work (i.e. not letting bureaucrats fuck it up).

My idea of human nature is that people are selfish. What misconception is present here?

Unrestrained government would be tyranny; I have nowhere advocated it, but instead support a form of government established by thinkers who were highly motivated to incorporate all kinds of restraints and checks and balances specifically to prevent the possibility of state tyranny.

The Enron disaster was a direct result, as I said, of deregulation, though like any real world event, there were many contribuitng causes.

However, it provides clear evidence that a dogmatic adhereence to the notion that any government regulation of commerce is a bad thing whose removal could only be a positive force is unjustifiable.

Elected officials must respond to long-term issues insofar as those issues become part of the public consciousness. Controllers of economic power derive their support from people seeking short-term profits, which therefore always dominate in that arena.

In the question of anarchy vs tyranny, yes. Neither side is right, both are wrong, and a middle path solution is the only reasonable way to proceed.

Anarchy has never worked as a social structure (or lack thereof...) in any sustained real-world example.

You are correct in your assessment that people are selfish, but you neglect the human tendency to be "joiners."

The people here are less likely than others to be joiner types, but we need to be cognizant that most of humanity is not like us.

Ideologies capture humans, and overwhelm their selfish nature to the point where they are willing to kill and die together in mass cooperative efforts.

The loner sitting in his cave or bunker has never and will never be able to stand against this kind of force.

That's why anarchy is not viable in the real world, and if Libertarianism does lean too close to anarchy, it is likewise inviable.

Government with built in restraints and checks and balances has failed how?

I, and most people I know, and most people living in cultures which have based their systems largely upon the principles encoded in the U.S. constitution - which includes all modern democratic states, as far as I know - enjoy lives that are better in almost every conceivable way than the lives lived by 99.9999 etc. per cent of all humans who have ever lived.

Government regulation of commerce is not "a bad idea by its very definition" - back up your claim with some evidence.

Safety standards enforced by law have prevented many deaths and injuries that would otherwise have resulted from the low value that capitalism puts on the lives and safety of humans as compared to the goal of increasing profits.

I have seen this first-hand, working with producers of dangerous chemicals whose drive to cut costs regularly had to be constrained by inspection and enforcement of government regulations. But there is plenty of evidence regarding the unsafe conditions that workers faced in the days before government safety regulations.

I agree that welfare as it exists is a poor solution to helping potentially valuable contributors to society get through tough times. But the answer is reform, not that our society should abandon all such efforts. I have no problem with my taxes going to support such efforts, though I'd like to see a better implementation of them.

I also have no problem with taxes that provide for the military defense against foreign attack, or for providing public education for all so that all may have the opportunity to develop into productive contributing citizens.

Neither I nor anyone I know feels any temptation to quit working so that we can receive a welfare check - your objection there might have validity in a purely socialist or communist state, but I've already said I oppose those extremes as well.

Your arguments against the political and military weakness of a territory in anarchy don't stand up - the insurgents in Iraq are not banding together in militias to defend their lives and property in an anarchistic environment, they are joined by ethnic and religious affilitations which are certainly not anarchic in nature.

The effectiveness of guerilla warfare is not an argument for anarchy; it is practiced wherever a smaller, less well-armed group has to fight a larger and better armed one.

Your point about the colonists is just silly, since the revolutionary war was not fought by anarchists, and BTW most historians agree we'd have had no chance in that war without the military and financial support of France.

I said anarchy can exist in thinly-populated regions of extreme geographical isolation, like Iceland was during the years specified (no area capable of supporting a significant human population at all is truly geographically remote with modern technology).

So we are left with the claim that Ireland was an anarchy - for a thousand years!

This would come as great surprise to the chieftains and kings who ruled in Ireland during this period, and even more so to the people who paid them taxes and fought in their wars. Here's a link to some actual history as opposed to vague and misleading claims, in case you're interested:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/ireland_before/ib01.shtml

In Celtic Irish society, the courts and the law were largely libertarian, and operated within a purely state-less manner. This society persisted in this libertarian path for roughly a thousand years until its brutal conquest by England in the seventeenth century. And, in contrast to many similarly functioning primitive tribes (such as the Ibos in West Africa, and many European tribes), preconquest Ireland was not in any sense a "primitive" society: it was a highly complex society that was, for centuries, the most advanced, most scholarly, and most civilized in all of Western Europe. A leading authority on ancient Irish law wrote, "There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice... There was no trace of State-administered justice."

As the replies to my post show, Libertarians themselves are wildly inconsistent in how they expect it to work and why.

The Enron disaster was a direct result of the de-regulation of the industry and the removal of controls against abuse of power.

If not for legislation and treaties, the environment (for one example) would be significantly more screwed than it already is, because of the short-term nature of the profit-motivated approach - as history clearly shows - is insensitive to such long-term issues.

If you read the writings of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Madison, etc., and follow how our government was established, you'll see that the framers of the constitution were seeking a middle ground between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy - they did a pretty good job of it, too.

I would have a hard time voting for a view that seems to favor throwing out the carefully navigated middle path in exchange for an extremist approach, whether that view is Libertarian or Communistic.

I, and most people, think that Libertarianism leans too far toward anarchy to be practical, and is based on a fundamental misconception of human nature - as it currently stands.

Without government, I suspect the Libertarians, who like to consider themselves tough rugged individualists, would be the first to be washed under beneath a tide of violence generated by ideologues able to bring together followers en masse to enforce their views - for a little while, until other more unified cultures came in to take whatever they wanted from the Hatfields and McCoys stupidly taking potshots at each other.

Of course, this is all moot anyway.

Voting Libertarian - at the national level - is throwing your vote away, and ends up being one less vote for the actually electable candidate who would really be the lesser of the two available evils.

In fact, I do think the country has moved too far in the other direction in many ways since its founding, and could use some nudges in the Libertarian direction, but Libertarianism as a fundamental ideology seems inviable to me - and to the vast majority of people living in democratic nations.

Perhaps it might make sense to vote Libertarian in local elections, and see whether it can be shaped into a coherent and consistent practical approach in the real world.

But to vote Libertarian at the national level seems like a stupid and futile gesture which, in practice, supports whichever candidate you see as the greater of the two available evils.

People tend not to quit working to recieve a welfare check, but a welfare check is certainly disincentive for going out and getting another job. The disincentive to work is still present. It's hard to put yourself in the situation without being in the situation.

Many studies show that welfare recipients find welfare degrading and demoralizing, and greatly prefer the chance to work.  In fact, in March 1987, the General Accounting Office released a report that summarized more than one hundred studies of welfare since 1975. It found that "research does not support the view" that welfare significantly reduces the incentive to work.

chaospump wrote:

As the replies to my post show, Libertarians themselves are wildly inconsistent in how they expect it to work and why.

 Asserting is does not make it so. I'm waiting for you to do something other than assert.

The notion that the market, if left completely unrestrained, would somehow prevent abuse of power seems utterly naive to me.

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The Enron disaster was a direct result of the de-regulation of the industry and the removal of controls against abuse of power.

 And it happened in a quasi-socialistic society. So, I'm wondering how you can pin such abuses on libertarianism when they are manifest in pretty much ALL systems? 

We don't have a libertine system in the US, yet there is Ken Lay and rampant abuse. What gives. Why did our current system FAIL?

Perhaps we can simply chalk it up to the fact that there will ALWAYS be criminals and less than scrupulous people. We can recogize this and then REFRAIN from punishing law abiding people because of the abuses of the minority. Wouldn't that be a novel idea? 

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If not for legislation and treaties, the environment (for one example) would be significantly more screwed than it already is, because of the short-term nature of the profit-motivated approach - as history clearly shows - is insensitive to such long-term issues.

 Bullshit. I can point to the logging and paper industry as a prime example. There is more lumber in the US NOW than there was 100 years ago. Same for industries like fisheries and what not - they routinely work under quotas in order to conserve wild stocks; it simply makes practical business sense. You cannot run a paper mill without trees, you cannot sell tuna without tuna. In already industrialized nations this is the case. In developing nations, well they're simply doing what nations like the US did 200 years ago - what right do we have to tell them "NO"? Unless you're willing to pay for the modernization of the entire world, you need to STFU.

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If you read the writings of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Madison, etc., and follow how our government was established, you'll see that the framers of the constitution were seeking a middle ground between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy - they did a pretty good job of it, too.

 I agree.

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I would have a hard time voting for a view that seems to favor throwing out the carefully navigated middle path in exchange for an extremist approach, whether that view is Libertarian or Communistic.

 Reread what the founders wrote. I'm sure my views are not so extreme as you claim in their eyes. If we retorted to simply a strictly Constitutional form of governance, I could probably be perfectly happy with that - it would be minimalist and greatly in tune with my views.

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I, and most people, think that Libertarianism leans too far toward anarchy to be practical, and is based on a fundamental misconception of human nature - as it currently stands.

 IOW, you have no idea what I adnocate. Libetine =/ anarchy. 

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Without government, I suspect the Libertarians, who like to consider themselves tough rugged individualists, would be the first to be washed under beneath a tide of violence generated by ideologues able to bring together followers en masse to enforce their views - for a little while, until other more unified cultures came in to take whatever they wanted from the Hatfields and McCoys stupidly taking potshots at each other.

 I won't dignify that with a response. Your predjudice and utter ignorance of my position is evident. Strawman away if it makes you feel better.

 

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Of course, this is all moot anyway.

Voting Libertarian - at the national level - is throwing your vote away, and ends up being one less vote for the actually electable candidate who would really be the lesser of the two available evils.

Right, because arguing out of principle or to generate pardigm sifts is for suckers. I guess we'll knock that Blasphemy Challenge thing off post haste. Sigh. 

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In fact, I do think the country has moved too far in the other direction in many ways since its founding, and could use some nudges in the Libertarian direction, but Libertarianism as a fundamental ideology seems inviable to me - and to the vast majority of people living in democratic nations.

How can you say that when you are so clearly clueless on what the position actually is? For fucks sake, you equate the position with anarchy - you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. 

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Perhaps it might make sense to vote Libertarian in local elections, and see whether it can be shaped into a coherent and consistent practical approach in the real world.

It already IS a coherent and practical approach. You simply choose to construct a strawman of the actual position then try to tear it down. 

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But to vote Libertarian at the national level seems like a stupid and futile gesture which, in practice, supports whichever candidate you see as the greater of the two available evils.

And this is exactly why YOU are part of the problem.