What's the deal with Libertarianism?

[Moonbeam]

klah, that's what I said earlier here:

"Libertarianism is just moving greed back to a vanishing point where most don't question. Everybody has a right to personal property. But we've been around for a million years before we had personal property. We don't really own anything, never have and never will. It's all a fiction created by group force. Your right to personal property is nothing more than a communistic, socialistic agreement among the weak to prevent the strong from taking what they want. Amused complained that Liberals of somebody hates the businessman. Libertarians hate the naturally strong. They want a society where the puny cunning who dedicate themselves to the selfish acquisition of material wealth is the highest good. They weaken the genes of man. The Vikings understood Natural Law far better than Rand. They were free."

 

[klah]

Are you questioning why the importance of intellectual pursuit is placed above that of physical strength?

 

[Ferocious]

In essence, Libertarians want to return us back to the 19th century in terms of government, taxes, and regulations in general. And ideally even a similar social and economic structure.

Of course such a scenario is not compatible with a middle class resembling anything near what we have today. As it was then...it would drive the USA back into a country of simply haves and have nots. A two class system.

 

[Moonbeam]

Actually no. i just gave that as an example of an apparent contradiction in Libertarian philosophy, valuing the individual, but only up to a point.

My question, which is now becomming a belief, is that Libertarians don't seem to notice that their philosophy rests on assumptions they either willfully choose not to examine or are based of principles they want to hide. There is no right to private property if it is not the will of God or a right taken by force of a cummunity of men in their own self interest contrary to the interests of others more qualified to hold that property. Libertarianism is either a religion or a pact of greedy weak men. And since a number of individuals on this board blow hard on the subject, I got curious as to what was up with it. Turns out, not much judging from the depth of the defense.

 

[Moonbeam]

Ferocious Quote:

Of course such a scenario is not compatible with a middle class resembling anything near what we have today. As it was then...it would drive the USA back into a country of simply haves and have nots. A two class system.
----------------------------

Not sure, but has the uneavenness distribution of wealth ever been more pronounced than right now?

 

[klah]

There is no right to private property if it is not the will of God or a right taken by force of a cummunity of men in their own self interest contrary to the interests of others more qualified to hold that property.

What do you mean by "more qualified"?
Private property is an idea that has been in Western Civilization for thousands of years. Everyone agrees that there needs to be a framework in place to recognize and enforce such rights. The "most qualified" is the individual who has aquired said property within this framework.

Libertarianism is either a religion or a pact of greedy weak men. And since a number of individuals on this board blow hard on the subject, I got curious as to what was up with it. Turns out, not much judging from the depth of the defense.

Most people are used to thinking about this matter in modern terms. Discussing how any rights outside of a Darwinian scheme are oppresive to freedom is pretty pointless. I suppose it is a "pact of greedy weak men", but this would describe any system where men seek order in a society.

 

[klah]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Not sure, but has the uneavenness distribution of wealth ever been more pronounced than right now?

Between nations perhaps no, but among citizens of Western nations the disparity is probably as low as ever in modern history.

 

[zephyrprime]

Moonbeam, I think you're being too hard on libertarianism just becasue it lacks a sufficiently strong basis. Does anything have a bulletproof philosophical basis? Even math is a castle on sand since nobody really knows what numbers are.

Also, I would like to point out that part of the reason why many people feel that Libertarianism is just about self proving is because of the fact that the "natural laws" that it's supposed to be based come pretty "naturally" to quite a large percentage of people. (hence the "natural" in the "natural law")

Also, your criticism that "Libertarianism is just moving greed back to a vanishing point where most don't question." doens't really wound a Libertarian much because Libertarianism is candid about it belief that enlightened self interest (greed) is a good thing.

 

[Moonbeam]

klah Quote:

What do you mean by "more qualified"?
Private property is an idea that has been in Western Civilization for thousands of years. Everyone agrees that there needs to be a framework in place to recognize and enforce such rights. The "most qualified" is the individual who has acquired said property within this framework.

Most people are used to thinking about this matter in modern terms. Discussing how any rights outside of a Darwinian scheme are oppressive to freedom is pretty pointless. I suppose it is a "pact of greedy weak men", but this would describe any system where men seek order in a society.
-----------------------------
More qualified=stronger. The age of an idea has no bearing on its truth. It may be that because of this age old idea we are slowly moving to extinction. Everyone agrees.. the oldest brainwashing technique in the book. 9 out of 10 doctors recommend blah blah blan. The most qualified...just a repetition of a belief as if the repetition added to its truth.

Most people..the 9 out of 10 argument again. Is something pointless because you say it is. I see a point and you do not because I am not most people. You suppose it is a pact of greedy men... Thanks, I needed that. ..that would describe any system where men seek order... Not so. It describes a system in which week individuals seek to exert a specious claim of ownership. There are plenty of societies without our notion of private property that are perfectly ordered.
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zephyrprime Quote:

Moonbeam, I think you're being too hard on libertarianism just because it lacks a sufficiently strong basis. Does anything have a bulletproof philosophical basis? Even math is a castle on sand since nobody really knows what numbers are.

Also, I would like to point out that part of the reason why many people feel that Libertarianism is just about self proving is because of the fact that the "natural laws" that it's supposed to be based come pretty "naturally" to quite a large percentage of people. (hence the "natural" in the "natural law")

Also, your criticism that "Libertarianism is just moving greed back to a vanishing point where most don't question." doesn?t really wound a Libertarian much because Libertarianism is candid about it belief that enlightened self interest (greed) is a good thing.

---------------

I am being too hard...there is a certain lack of modesty when libertarianism is put forward as meaning something, particularly the sanctity of the individual when at base it depends for its existence on the group. I'm hard on that joke. Math works and obviously relates to the wiring of the brain. Libertarianism appears to be speculative nonsense. Is everything so. Perhaps all political theory. I don't know. I'm just looking here right now.

'natural law', you might want to change that to 'common delusion'. Sounds like a fancy name for a fancy way to justify a proposition, individual, by concealing its group force origin. Let me pick the group and I'll sow you the 'Real Natural Law'

Libertarianism is candid... Hehe, how many posts has it taken to get to this candor. We see the fancy naming again. Enlightened self interest as the equivalent of greed, consensual group force based greed. This attempt to exalt the self is were I see the joke. Libertarianism, it strikes me is a kind of adolescent rebellion, an immature attempt to enshrine the individual as an independent and autonomously deserving entity by denying the existence of its ties and obligations to the group. Imagine an Eskimo with a freezer full of fish in a starving village. There's your Libertarianism.

 

[Moonbeam]

Maybe Libertarianism is a sort of secular humanism, an attempt to replace God.

 

[Koba1t]

Libertarians are all addicted to the drug issue, lol. They're almost as bad as those godless commies.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: Koba1t
Libertarians are all addicted to the drug issue, lol. They're almost as bad as those godless commies.

Support the American Conservative Union and Christian Coalition

THX.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Ferocious
In essence, Libertarians want to return us back to the 19th century in terms of government, taxes, and regulations in general. And ideally even a similar social and economic structure.

Of course such a scenario is not compatible with a middle class resembling anything near what we have today. As it was then...it would drive the USA back into a country of simply haves and have nots. A two class system.

Actually, no. Libertarianism is a movement of the middle class, not against it. They are not seeking to return America to the 19th Century, when America had slavery, inequality, and only wealthy white landowners could vote.
For example, on the issue of taxes, here is how class warfare stacks up in American politics today:
Democrats: a progressive tax scheme which places all the tax burden upon the middle class and rich and an increasingly expensive bureaucracy that actually pays the poor to stay poor.
Republicans: tax breaks for rich and poor, middle class bears the majority of the tax burden.
Libertarians: reduction of government (primarily by removing Democrat-instituted payments to the poor) which reduces taxes for all, a flat tax scheme for all or preferably, a government which operates solely on fee for service.

Do not confuse the Libertarians as a party of the rich seeking 19th Century-like power and monopoly. Under a Libertarian form of government, for example, those responsible for the Enron scandal would have been quickly and severly punished for their theft and fraud.
Libertarianism is, above all, a return to common sense. A crime is considered to occur only when non-consensual harm is inflicted upon another, and then and only then the government steps in. Otherwise the government stays out of people's lives, as it should. Protection of individual property, both from within and without, should be the only interest in government.
And don't think that Libertarians are against environmental protection either. If a corporation poisons a water supply, for example, it has caused non-consensual harm. Libertarians just have different, more common sense, and less expensive ways of dealing with these issues. For example, with water supplies, keeping those clean is easy, just force every water-drawing entity to have their water intake downstream from their own sewage drainage and watch the problem clean itself up.

 

[Moonbeam]

An interesting concept. You soap up your dishes, piss off the soap and drink what's in the sink. That will definitely get a few votes.

 

[Zebo]

Libertarianism is the "if everyone thought and acted just like me we'd have a perfect world" ideology. The problem is everyone is different and some will take advantage of thier monopoly power, like the new, accross the board only 1 year warranty on IDE harddrives by Maxtor Seagate and WD. So we need some regulation to stop collusion among other things.

 

[Squisher]

Maybe my cynicism wasn't so unfounded after revisiting this thread.


Hmm, I would suspect that the vanishing point of personal property goes back to survival, back to loinclothes and axehandles.

Those without them survived less than those with them.

Maybe my personal property is a figment of my imagination, but it first allowed man to survive and now is the driving force that causes me to thrive.

I, as a member of a thriving society have the selfish desire to see those less fortunate than me to also thrive.

 

[klah]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
More qualified=stronger.
There are plenty of societies without our notion of private property that are perfectly ordered

Libertarianism addresses the need to live in a civilized society without giving up too many freedoms. It is not an absolute.

We are not going to give up the idea of private property any time soon, so what is the best method of living freely within this framework?

There is no "absolute" definition of libertarianism. At best it is a crude idea that seeks to allow men to coexist peacefully without placing unnecessary barriers on their actions. It is certainly not a call to revert to some primitive system where he with the biggest club makes the rules.

 

[Moonbeam]

Squisher quotes:

Maybe my cynicism wasn't so unfounded after revisiting this thread. (Still think your taking a test?)


Hmm, I would suspect that the vanishing point of personal property goes back to survival, back to loinclothes and axehandles. (I was wondering when somebody would bring that up)

Those without them survived less than those with them. (The use of tools carried no formal sense of private property and the key to human success lies in cooperation.)

Maybe my personal property is a figment of my imagination, but it first allowed man to survive and now is the driving force that causes me to thrive. (No argument as long as you're not trying to raise some creed of the self and realize that your property remains yours by the will of others, and the force they can apply.)



I, as a member of a thriving society have the selfish desire to see those less fortunate than me to also thrive. (Good man, me too. I felt this way long before I ever heard of Libertarianism.)

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam(The use of tools carried no formal sense of private property and the key to human success lies in cooperation.)

Although the growth of civilization is a huge contributing factor to advancement of man, no advancement would have taken place without survival. This prime compulsion to survive would have caused those individuals/clans/tribes to covet those pieces of private property that would allow this to take place.

(No argument as long as you're not trying to raise some creed of the self and realize that your property remains yours by the will of others, and the force they can apply.)

Well, I guess it is my creed.

Although the will of others to take my property is a factor in my ownership, my ability to prevent that from happening is just as significant and one of the most important items that I own are the means to protect my property. However, I am a big believer in the goodness of man. This goodness is a learned behavior, which allows society to exist and thus is desirable for all those who choose to live under the umbrella of well functioning civilization. A person who has learned to covet their own personal property is bound to respect the personal property rights of all other's as one of the tenets of a just society and the need to protect one's property is diminished by this.

 

[Moonbeam]

Squisher, I did not mean the will of others to take your property, I meant the will of others to protect it, the mutual agreement to respect each others property so that the strongest among us just don't take what they want. Alone most of us aren't much. As for belief in the goodness of man, I would imagine you mean the perfectibility of man, born neutral but educable toward goodness. I doubt most conservative republicans think so. The typical response is that man is born evil. The garden of Eden and all that. I would be a believer in the 'goodness of man', the notion that we are born perfect but are corrupted by our environment. From my point of view, political philosophies are just the rules you need to maintain an insane asylum. To me it's the person who does not covet his own personal property, who has no need of it, because he owns (is) the universe because he has recaptured his original self, that is the only person with a respect for the property of others. He neither needs it and already owns it. And you cannot simply say what the tenets of a just society are because we don't know what you mean by justice. What is justice, what is the good. Isn't that what's at question?

 

[element]

Libertarians sound like fricken anarchists. You know what happens when you turn an insane populace loose on itself? And don't kid yourself, people are fscking nuts. The only reason you don't see it more often is because of gov't control, and law enforcement. We already have enough fookin problems with wackos running around with guns and plans for destruction thank you.

Funny how some libertarians on this board also were all for giving the Bush administration more power to conceal what happened during the Enron investigation yet it was fine to chase after Clinton when he may have cheated on his wife. Can you say "politcally biased" without a Bushism mispronounciation?

 

[element]

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001
Liberty, pure and simple. Individuals have it, The Collective does not. Libertarianism focusses much on natural law, almost like anarchy with structure, just enough law to keep things civil but nothing intrusive that would injure our individual sensibilities. Libertarianism is beautiful because it is very consistent, unlike Democrats who want to control your money and Republicans who want to control your soul. Both of the major parties are control freaks and that doesn't go well with Libertarians.

That sounds all well and good actually. But when you think about it, anarchy with structure sounds like an oxymoron. You can't really have both can you?

Frankly I think the founding fathers got it right when they had Balance of Power in mind. So far it seems to be working well enough for this to be one of the best nations in the world so far. Sure it's not perfect, but I seriously am not sure that's exactly a problem created by the gov't or the system of gov't, but rather by some shall we say less than scrupulous people within and outside of this nation.

 

[mithrandir2001]

Originally posted by: element®

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001
Liberty, pure and simple. Individuals have it, The Collective does not. Libertarianism focusses much on natural law, almost like anarchy with structure, just enough law to keep things civil but nothing intrusive that would injure our individual sensibilities. Libertarianism is beautiful because it is very consistent, unlike Democrats who want to control your money and Republicans who want to control your soul. Both of the major parties are control freaks and that doesn't go well with Libertarians.

That sounds all well and good actually. But when you think about it, anarchy with structure sounds like an oxymoron. You can't really have both can you?

Frankly I think the founding fathers got it right when they had Balance of Power in mind. So far it seems to be working well enough for this to be one of the best nations in the world so far. Sure it's not perfect, but I seriously am not sure that's exactly a problem created by the gov't or the system of gov't, but rather by some shall we say less than scrupulous people within and outside of this nation.

Ah, but Libertarians AGREE with the Founding Fathers. We want Government as they envisioned, not this bloated, invasive, scandalous and destructive system we have now.

 

[element]

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001

Ah, but Libertarians AGREE with the Founding Fathers. We want Government as they envisioned, not this bloated, invasive, scandalous and destructive system we have now.

The Founding Fathers created a system that had within it the ability to change when necessary. Things are not like they used to be because times have changed, and gov't must and has changed with it. The U.S. gov't hasn't chnaged the times, rather the other way around, times have changed how things must be done. As loopholes and problems are discovered new laws and regulations were put in place to protect the people. You can't whine about problems around you when unscrupulous people cause problems and then ask for less regulation at the same time.

Yes people who have a good moral character and good intentions might deserve more liberty and the regulations aren't meant to bind good people. But how are you to know who will be scrupulous and who will take advantage of liberties for their own gain whilst screwing everyone else over?

This is the inherent problem with freedom. Too little and its a restrictive regime. Too much and some bad elements will take advantage and cause problems that the majority of the population won't find acceptable.

 

[JellyBaby]

Anarchy is a couple notches to the right of the libertarian position and nobody wants anarchy.

We've always had structure beginning with the constitution. The constitution basically grants the federal government some powers and says just about everything else is up to the states. Today the feds. control or seek to control everything. That's exactly what the founders did not want.

Balance of powers was an excellent idea but the fourth "pillar", one that's often overlooked, is us. The people are the Fourth Branch and we've been negligent like the other three. No escaping that.

The best government is a always a balancing act but today more and more people are feeling they've lost their government.