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Libertarians

mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
I had a discussion on FB recently with a self-professed libertarian and I'm just wondering if his views were about average for libertarians in peoples' experiences here or not.

1 - All taxes = theft
2 - The state should not be able to require the people they work for to abide by any code of conduct whatsoever.
3 - Contributions to public services should be entirely voluntary and an individual not paying for specific services simply has those services withdrawn.

I think that was about it. This discussion was a couple of weeks ago and the guy blocked me on FB so I can't refer back to it. Any attempt to point any of a multitude of glaring flaws in his views was met with even more absurdity such as "most crimes are victimless crimes anyway" (in response to concerns about how public order is supposed to be maintained with a virtually non-existent budget).
 
Don't know that we have many Libertarians on here, I myself identify closely with the... idea, but not the execution of it.

"Maximum extent of liberty as possible". Eh, I might change that to "as is safe and plausible". Because we do need government, we do need safe guards. And we do need a massive economic safety net to restore Capitalism and protect against a self cannibalizing free market. Though my approach to the market is Basic Income, with ZERO strings attached. No restrictions, no restraints on it. Just "Here is your monthly income, do what you will". IMO, that is a fairly Libertarian version of a social safety net, because my approach does not dictate to people and businesses with thousand page forms on how to conduct business or how to spend their money. Unlike examples of Europe, which "Moderates" around here tend to support as their half arsed solutions.

I want people to be largely free, but I note that freedom requires some effort to maintain. Economically, a person with slave wages is NOT free. If they lack the liquidity to act on their own agency in life. Foxcon workers in China do not need suicide nets because they are free. If people are poor enough, they are as trapped as slaves. I recognize this, and I seek to break those chains... via government "redistribution".

If granting freedom to the masses via the means of government means I am not "Libertarian", so be it, but I strive for the maximum liberty as is safe and plausible.

Come at me, Libertarians!
  1. Taxes are a necessary trade off.
  2. Employer code of conduct? Negotiable. I would only want what is deemed necessary, and drawing that line is ripe for interpretation and disagreement.
  3. If charity worked, people wouldn't face bankruptcy or need insurance. See #1, cause this sounds like a simple re-wording of taxation.
 
The idea that those who do not pay into public services will have them withdrawn is deeply silly.

When your neighbor’s house is on fire and it starts spreading to surrounding houses I guess the fire department will just focus on trying to save the surrounding houses and not put out the source.
 
I have three main objections to that ideology. Firstly, the sheer difficulty in getting a concensus on who owns what in the first place, because there's a long history of theft and pillage that bought us to where we are. Secondly the fact that if put into practice it would soon lead to either fascism or communism (which is roughly what happened in post-soviet Russia). And thirdly that a proportion of so-called libertarians fail to apply their philosophy consistently, because really they are just about hanging on to their loot.
 
fskimospy said:
The idea that those who do not pay into public services will have them withdrawn is deeply silly.

When your neighbor’s house is on fire and it starts spreading to surrounding houses I guess the fire department will just focus on trying to save the surrounding houses and not put out the source.
Click to expand...


Is that not pretty much what happened when fire services were private membership schemes?
 
mikeymikec said:
I had a discussion on FB recently with a self-professed libertarian and I'm just wondering if his views were about average for libertarians in peoples' experiences here or not.

1 - All taxes = theft
2 - The state should not be able to require the people they work for to abide by any code of conduct whatsoever.
3 - Contributions to public services should be entirely voluntary and an individual not paying for specific services simply has those services withdrawn.

I think that was about it. This discussion was a couple of weeks ago and the guy blocked me on FB so I can't refer back to it. Any attempt to point any of a multitude of glaring flaws in his views was met with even more absurdity such as "most crimes are victimless crimes anyway" (in response to concerns about how public order is supposed to be maintained with a virtually non-existent budget).
Click to expand...

Not what ATer said it but I prefer to call them LOL’tarians
 
fskimospy said:
The idea that those who do not pay into public services will have them withdrawn is deeply silly.

When your neighbor’s house is on fire and it starts spreading to surrounding houses I guess the fire department will just focus on trying to save the surrounding houses and not put out the source.
Click to expand...
Something like that actually happened. I'll try to find the story.
 
Libertarians are conservatives who like to smoke pot. I think having them weighing in is useful to public discourse, just don't elect them to anything.
 
I used to identify as Libertarian, but then I considered voting for a Libertarian candidate and bothered to actually look into what their platform was and realized that the representatives of the Libertarian party are a bunch of whackadoodles. These days, certain realities of today stray me from the libertarian ideals in policy support. Most notably, climate change.
 
True story:

I knew an "anarcho-capitalist" (extreme libertarian) who believed in an entirely voluntary society.

This person refused to use recycle bins. I pointed out to them, "the one "voluntary" thing you're asked to do to benefit society and you refuse?"

I was told to go f myself.

Too funny.
 
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With great freedom comes great responsibility. Like all egotistical perspectives, we tend to see our freedoms in an egotistically maximized way and our responsibilities in an egotistically selfish or minimized way. It is the same as the ox gets gored thingi.
 
fskimospy said:
The idea that those who do not pay into public services will have them withdrawn is deeply silly.

When your neighbor’s house is on fire and it starts spreading to surrounding houses I guess the fire department will just focus on trying to save the surrounding houses and not put out the source.
Click to expand...

I'm sure the libertarian small government will be sure to keep all the records updated so there's no confusion about who has and hasn't kept up with the payments.
 
There are all kinds of libertarians just like there are all kinds of democrats.

Most people I meet who say they are libertarians are more accurately described as Republicans who are OK with the gays and the marijuanas.

Then there is the current Libertarian (capital L) party which is a mess of ideologies with no consistent platform led by Gary "anger issues" Johnson and doesn't much reflect libertarian philosophy. I've always wanted to vote for a Libertarian and that political party always seems to produce the worst possible candidate. The political party is a mess and will never probably actually win anything important.

There are many self professed libertarians who are more accurately described as anarchists who think that libertarianism means no laws no taxes no government no rules.

I identify strongly with a lot of libertarian philosophies. Voluntarism, the non aggression principle, limited government, individual liberty, individualism vs collectivism, etc... I do think we need government but its role needs to be limited to protecting individual liberty. I know a lot of these are vague pie-in-the-sky ideas and I kind of wanted to get into detail on each of these in this post, but realized that there is a book to be written about each.

As for FYGM I pay lots o'taxes and on top of that I still love to give a lot to charity. If my taxes were lower I would gladly give even more. I think there is a fear that people that use the term FYGM sometimes actually mean FYGMY (fuck you give me yours). I don't think it has to be either, as both are extremes.
 
ch33zw1z said:
I'm sure the libertarian small government will be sure to keep all the records updated so there's no confusion about who has and hasn't kept up with the payments.
Click to expand...

I'm not advocating individual fire protection, but in a libertarian small government, it would be up to the business and the individual customer to keep track of those records.
 
I identify more with Libertarianism than anything else. I think there are taxes, but I don't believe it should be spent on 90% of the things it gets spent on. The responsibilities of our government should be much more limited.
 
I talk to a libertarian at work. The usual FYGM cynical boomer. But he stops being a libertarian when I mention health care costs. Then he wants government price controls on prescription drugs. So I bring it up every chance, I think I am going to convince him to go for Warren 🙂
 
Moonbeam said:
With great freedom comes great responsibility. Like all egotistical perspectives, we tend to see our freedoms in an egotistically maximized way and our responsibilities in an egotistically selfish or minimized way. It is the same as the ox gets gored thingi.
Click to expand...
Libertarians generally believe in greater personal responsibility and less government responsibility.
 
mikeymikec said:
I had a discussion on FB recently with a self-professed libertarian and I'm just wondering if his views were about average for libertarians in peoples' experiences here or not.

1 - All taxes = theft
2 - The state should not be able to require the people they work for to abide by any code of conduct whatsoever.
3 - Contributions to public services should be entirely voluntary and an individual not paying for specific services simply has those services withdrawn.

I think that was about it. This discussion was a couple of weeks ago and the guy blocked me on FB so I can't refer back to it. Any attempt to point any of a multitude of glaring flaws in his views was met with even more absurdity such as "most crimes are victimless crimes anyway" (in response to concerns about how public order is supposed to be maintained with a virtually non-existent budget).
Click to expand...

That's not even remotely libertarian. That's closer to anarchist survivalist nutter and the person who spouted that is about one step away from living in an abandoned missile silo in Montana.

The basic tenet of Libertarianism is that which governs least governs best, not that which governs not at all governs best.

1) Taxes are a necessity, but they must ALL be collected and distributed for the benefit of all those who pay them. i.e. National defense, police and fire departments, roads, clean water, sewage, etc. They are not to be used as welfare, as food stamps, as handouts, as hurricane relief for Haiti etc. Furthermore they would be broken down to specific uses from specific sources. Car and gas taxes would be used for roads, property taxes for sewage and water, etc so that people without homes are not paying for those who do and those who don't own cars are not subsidizing those who do.

2) Codes of conduct are enforced, but the line is drawn on personal freedoms that do not harm others. ie, you have the personal freedom to not make wedding cakes for gays, but you can't shoot them for being gay.

3) See #1 for public services. Some are necessary and some are not. Police, fire, roads, lights, plowing, water etc are basics of modern civilization and must be part of the equation. Handouts are not. Charity is most definitely voluntary.
 
senseamp said:
I talk to a libertarian at work. The usual FYGM cynical boomer. But he stops being a libertarian when I mention health care costs. Then he wants government price controls on prescription drugs. So I bring it up every chance, I think I am going to convince him to go for Warren 🙂
Click to expand...
Haha! Wow. Why does this person claim to be a "Libertarian?"
 
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pmv said:
I have three main objections to that ideology. Firstly, the sheer difficulty in getting a concensus on who owns what in the first place, because there's a long history of theft and pillage that bought us to where we are. Secondly the fact that if put into practice it would soon lead to either fascism or communism (which is roughly what happened in post-soviet Russia). And thirdly that a proportion of so-called libertarians fail to apply their philosophy consistently, because really they are just about hanging on to their loot.
Click to expand...

That's the common anti-libertarian copout bullshit. EVERYTHING we have now is a consensus that's been arrived at through years, decades, centuries of trade-offs, changes, tweaks, compromises and blind guesses. Nobody sat down and drew up a perfect set of laws and tax plans from scratch. Libertarianism would be no different. You start from the basic principle that the government is there to provide basic services, not run peoples lives and that everyone needs to take responsibility for their own actions and you go from there. Everything is then tested, adjusted and re-worked as necessary and eventually you arrive at a compromise that is not 100% perfect and is not ideal for any one person, but that is fair and reasonable for all. It takes work just like our current system took work.
 
Pipeline 1010 said:
Elaborate please. Haha, yea...ok isn't really a convincing position on an issue.
Click to expand...

Sure it is. Let me get my records from my burning house so the firemen can verify I'm up to date before helping me. *Hope my fire safe survives!*

Or, let me get my records in the middle of my heart attack so the ambulance will come to my house, cuz they won't even get dispatched unless I verify.

Or, I went down to the town office during their open hours, Tuesday Thursdays 9am-9:30am, but the employee was out sick and they dont have anyone else, so my records weren't current.

Or, I mailed my records, but they were never processed because *insert small government reason here*

Shit man, there's endless hypotheticals when you start chipping away at taxes, government responsibility, and leaving all that up to an individual to maintain.

And, it's not up to me to convince myself why libertarians ideology would be my choice, that's for libertarians to convince others of.
 
Yeah that is more of an anarchist than just libertarian. Most libertarians these days are just conservatives that are fed up with GOP warmongering. I've even seen libertarians arguing against abortion ffs, lots of them. Basically it's just an excuse to shit on any part of government they disagree with, but that logic flies right out the window when it comes to people doing things they don't agree with.
 
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