What libertarianism is ACTUALLY about

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I would like libertarians to explain how the financial sector overexuberance which lead to the most recent crisis was a victimless activity. It seems when private entities grow to a certain size, our society as a whole can become dependent on them. Do we just ignore this dependency that develops?

A "libertarian" used to just be anyone who believed in freedom. Some people like Noam Chomsky are trying to take the term back but I've accepted that a "libertarian" is a capitalist now. English is a living language.

I think that libertarians and anarchists should have an agreement that anarchists aren't allowed to call themselves libertarians anymore and libertarians aren't allowed to call themselves classic liberals anymore.

Classical liberals are really what I'd use to describe mild libertarians.

Isn't school back in session in a week or two?

That'll be good.

Aha, more proof of stalking. So, Master_Pedant, should everyone be entitled to a cup of cold water and how often would you want it to be delivered and at what velocity?

Admitting that people can change their minds is now stalking? Wow, I guess you learn something new everyday.

Don't you have something better to do right now Keet, like voting against your own interests?

Last edited by Master_Pedant on 17 Aug 2011, 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I used to consider myself a left-libertarian until i figured out that the libtertarian party disagrees with my ideals. Now I just consider myself a malcontent.

all that freedom stuff is great, but one of the valid arguments for taxation is to pool the resources of the many to create the value that no profit-seeking self-interested party will bother to do on an open enough scale.

I don't buy the (right?) libertarian argument that if we were taxed less, more money could be given to charities and people would take more time out to help the poor in person.

I think that enough of us are selfish bastards that we would let people starve.

Most of this kind of discussion is about what kind of Federal Government we want. I would like to see it be much more Libertarian in it's approach to things.

However if there is a government program you think you need why not just create it within your own local state government? Do we really need a massive Federal government dealing with all these social issues and programs?

If you want to help the poor for example why not propose a local state or even city tax? Why send it to Washington D.C. where the money gets picked over by administration fees and then gets sent back to your district with strings attached?

I'd really like to see an America with the Federal government out of the way, and yet we could allow our States to have Conservative or even Socialist policies. Even try government healthcare at the State Level if they want to.

Your statement implied a reference to knowledge you supposedly had, but whatever.


Don't you have something better to do also, like not going around and providing labels to everyone you disagree with? Perhaps in lieu of that you can possibly buy a textbook to study or play a video game or something more productive. Anyway, voting in favor of economic improvement at the cost of temporary lack of handouts versus voting for more and more handouts at the cost of the economy isn't voting against my own interests in the long term, but why should I even entertain the notion that either social or economic liberals (Labour Party members in most English speaking nations apart from the USA) care about anything more than short term benefits and myopic gains? Also, voting isn't everyday in America, not even for politicians who get paid even when they literally do nothing.

Well you're one to talk

Not really. Mill is a major thinker in the liberal tradition. Most libertarians believe they follow in the liberal tradition. The claim that they follow in the liberal tradition, also isn't absurd. Some may contest it historically, but a very strong overlap is the thinker Frederic Bastiat, who is often labeled a classical liberal but his writings are very much libertarian in nature. However, a lot of people of this mindset have been inspired by JS Mill in some form or fashion. One of the favored writings is his book called "On Liberty".

While I can see some sense in drawing inspiration from Mill's framework, the fact remains that he should represent the "perversion" of classical liberalism towards social welfare under libertarian logic. He was (well before the concept was thoroughly formulated, albeit) essential in incorporating a broader, positive conception of liberty into liberalism. Modern day American natural rights libertarianism is about narrowing the scope towards negative liberty, given that they view many elements of positive liberty are easy to abuse - leading to paternalism.

I don't think I care. I don't think anybody needs to care. Yes, libertarians may disagree with Mill. So what? Everybody disagrees with everybody else. A person can easily refer to Mill, consider oneself very Millian, and all of that, while still rejecting some parts of Mill's framework. The problem that also makes things difficult is that libertarians also don't necessarily reject utilitarianism, which is Mill's ethical framework.

It will never happen. Especially since capitalists will now use the term anarchist if it fits their ideology.

Public policy should focus on long term growth. The poor will get dragged up with the rest of us, however selfish we may inherently be.

tht reasoning has proven erronous, especially over the last couple of years.
from where i stand it is nothing but myth.