libertarian paradise

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probably

Cool. Thanks Marshall & Puddingmouse for clearing that up. I don't usually shy away from debating matters like this, & I do my best to come across as civil, but it seemed for a moment that I might have been getting baited into an Aspie argument with a snark - sure not to end well.

i'm not sure, the argument that ideology is the inflexible product of theory divorced from practice is an old one.

all ideologies started at one place and ended up in another,

one can argue the intent behind them for eternity.

even if ideology is inherently inflexible wouldnt that only mean that one has all the more reason not to lay ones faith in any single ideology?

How does one determine which ideology is appropriate for the situation? What happens when the ideologies contradict one another?

I understand the appeal of libertarianism. Really, I do. As a maths geek, I love the idea of a consistent system specified by simple axioms.

But here's the thing: libertarianism may be consistent in itself, but it has a huge flaw, which is that it is not consistent with the world as it really exists. Libertarianism is ahistorical. It ignores why some people are born into privilege and others are not. It ignores how things came to be people's "property" in the first place. It ignores that we live finite lives which are mostly dominated by luck. It ignores that some public goods are extremely abstract, but they are still public goods. It ignores that once a person has used his freedom to commit a terrorist act and kill thousands of people, it is too late to "punish" him.

One can prevent a person who commits a terrorist act from committing another terrorist act. It is not punishment, it is prevention.

ruveyn

I don't frequent political forums on sites whose sole purpose is politics, or even the more biased news sites (stopped going to HuffPo a long time ago, for example). I came up with this all on my own. I would almost agree that it's a straw-libertarian, except that I have heard actual self-proclaimed libertarians (for example, on the Planet Money podcast) advocating what is basically anarchy: everything should be private/paid for, there should be no government, etc. They're basically just as idealistic as a pure communist, and their ideas are about as likely to work on a large scale as pure communism.
edit:
Just one example, which I've brushed on before: Ron Paul thinks that the free market would make Civil Rights law unnecessary.
(sarcasm)'Cause, you know, all of those 'no blacks allowed' lunch counters in Mississippi wouldn't get any business if they stay racist, even without laws mandating that they serve everyone.(/sarcasm)

Most self-proclaimed 'libertarians' probably don't want to go that far (though they're still voting for Paul in droves), but then again neither do most self-proclaimed communists.

Last edited by LKL on 17 Feb 2012, 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

QFT.

Quoted for truth.

Libertarianism also ignores that we live on a planet with limited resources and limited living space. It ignores that everyone could have a worthwhile life if these resources were distributed more evenly and if we would make a little more effort to preserve this place for future generations.

When I look at the ridiculously rich, I always imagine ten people who order a pizza. When the pizza arrives one of them takes 9 slices and nobody says a word about it. He has the right to take the lion share. Why? Because his parents have already done that. It's his birthright.

You can't suggest that everyone should get a slice of the pizza. That would be socialism, and socialism is evil. The other 9 people have to fight for the remaining slice, because somehow that's fairer and more equal. If they prove their worth to the guy with 9 slices, he might hand them another crumb or two. How is being born into the Koch or Walton family any different than being a member of the nobility in medieval Europe?

Yes, I understand this. Thank you for not going on the attack. I don't listen to people who make ad-hominem arguments and people need to realize that. When people make ad-hominems it weakens the argument.

I have a lot of similarities with the libertarian party and a lot of it appeals to me, but when people who claim to be libertarian start acting selfish and tyrannical, I wonder if they truly understand the beliefs they are aspiring to, since they are clearly being hypocritical.

Libertarians who try to force their opinions on others are being hypocritical and deserve to be called out.

Personally, I think politics is mostly BS, but I will point out hypocrisy wherever I see it regardless.

A lot of self-claimed libertarians have actually had the reverse effect of making me not want to be one of them. Which just goes to show me that it's all the same. It doesn't matter what party you belong to - if you are jerk, you are a jerk, so it really doesn't matter what your political beliefs you really have.

I think the government is full of bad people and idiots, just like libertarians do. But does this mean I am a libertarian. No, I just think people need to attack their government for its flaws, and try to make it better.

No it doesn't. As resources become more scarce their prices increase, and so people will naturally ration them until a cheaper alternative is discovered.

As for living space, what do you suggest we do? Make having too many babies illegal?


"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." ~~ Milton Friedman


Your analogy is neither logical nor demonstrative of anything wrong with libertarianism. Should I not have the right to write my will as I please? If not, who writes it for me?

I was thinking more along the lines of having social workers drown the 'surplus' babies in the nearby rice paddy immediately after birth.

Something very similar already happens in the US, though it typically involves older children and not infants. It's called "Child Protective Services" and "foster care."

Do you not have children's homes in the U.S.? Those places can be hellish.

The children's homes are among the nicer places you can end up. Most end up in foster care.

Foster homes often tend to be run by parents who really just want the welfare checks. They may provide basic nutrition and shelter, but there's not really that much active supervision of the kids. Many of the kids who go through the "system" are sexual abuse victims who in turn abuse the younger new kids that come in, and that just perpetuates the cycle as the older kids age out.

There's not much help with their education, so they end up homeless when they age out. The real injustice happens when DHS gets called on good parents. No parent is perfect, not even the best ones, and all it takes is one anonymous phone call from someone you pissed off.

True story: We once changed babysitters to someone who lived closer to us in town. After a while, we noticed our son wasn't the happy active child he had been before, so after a few months we went back to our old babysitter. Things got really odd with the second sitter after that, but we didn't think anything of it. Apparently we seriously hurt her feelings. Time passes. We sent our son to daycare and decided to do the same with our daughter once she was old enough. The car engine hadn't even cooled after we got our daughter home (after 3 weeks in the hospital for premature birth) before social workers showed up in our driveway and start asking us all these questions. Someone had called the anonymous hotline. A few short weeks later they do it again, this time saying we're refusing our children medical attention. We were able to prove all the allegations false, of course, and we took steps once we knew who made the calls to put pressure on that person (though we couldn't PROVE it, it was obvious to us who it was) to leave us alone.

Once this started, I immediately did some research and made a point of recording conversations with social workers. There are some serious nightmare scenarios out there. It is possible to get some of these cases overturned, but not without financial ruin following attorney fees. Here is an example of what can happen if someone calls DHS on you while you're in the process of moving: link

And you might remember when DHS was called on FLDS. Not saying I have any love for FLDS and what they do in the name of religion. But all that happened because of an anonymous call, and the person making the call was just making stuff up.

And that's all it takes for kids to end up in foster care, and foster care has a horrifying track record for really keeping kids safe from abuse.