Libertarianism...A Parody

I always used the old line of "I had some Libertarian leanings," but their smugness (we are the enlightened) and their evangelical flogging of others turned me off..so now just call myself a "common sense conservative"

 

Of course it's insane. It's how the country was founded. Any lib would think it's insane.

 

This is a very confused and ignorant view of freedom.

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What's the alternative since dems have tired social freedoms to insane fiscal policy.

 

I agree, but they will just say that you have to assume the system in its entirety and that a piecemeal approach won't work. They might also point out to net, global growth. Remember, as long as the global economy, overall, is growing, they are content. Again, one of my main problems is that the national interest has no primacy.

Haha, I was going for that!

Pretty easy to confuse the two. It's similar confusing liberals and progressives, which is a minimal, if not pointless, distinction.

A nation is not just a pole in the ground, and this is the first of many major flaws in libertarianism--humans are often not fungible. This is where libertarianism begins, and ends.

There is no doubt that our current policy is a disaster. I think drug abuse should be treated as a public health issue and not a criminal one, save for distributors.

Prostitution does harm to the social order, like drug abuse, and has great externalities. The harm principle is generally valid, but allowing a society to operate on basic instinct will not lead to a good place. A very large percentage of the human population, given the chance to blow it, WILL blow it, and that isn't good for anyone. The fact is, you are overestimating the character of human beings.

It is a caricature, but it illustrates the kinds of thinking I am talking about; for instance, the obsession with one's marginal utility as the ultimate expression of human value. I believe that this sentiment is at the heart of the problem, along with the nation-weakening policies derived from libertarianism.

Please feel free to argue your points. I elaborated on my criticisms on pages 3 and 4, I believe, and no one has responded to those yet. I will find them and re-post them so that you can tell me what you find flawed in those statements.

Totally irrelevant. The situation then and now is so different you might as well be talking about two different planets. For one, they had an unlimited supply of productive land, which is the very foundation of all economic thought.

I'm not a lib.

 

Post #34 and #26.

You don't have to address all of them, but some are devastating, in my opinion.

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Freedom for some, bondage for others, predicated on the belief that marginal utility is the primary measure of human value.

 

When you centralize power, do you not increase the likelihood of negative effects from the "dark side" of humanity?

 

Yea, I'm still waiting for some kind of reference to an actual libertarian who says these things that libertarians are alleged to have said.

Funny, I've never heard a libertarian say that, ever.

 

That statement will not buy gas or a car, or even a bus ticket, to travel to a place with more jobs...and if you walk there, you will be arrested as a vagrant.

 

It is one of the biggest strawman based threads I have seen in a while.

 

From Merriam-Webster:

Libertarian - a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action.

I don't see anything about "marginal utility" or "economic growth" in there.

 

Well, actually, in terms of farming a lot of trees had to be removed first.

 

Then feel free to explain how wealth is produced and distributed without liberty. I'm all ears.

 

So you still haven't answered any of my criticisms? I listed a number of weaknesses, and you are still trying to belabor the same point, over and over, without addressing any of them. A point, I might add, that is obvious and one that most libertarians would concede pretty readily.

I'm not sure how you can act as if I'm pulling this out of thin air. Any time someone refers to wealth inequality or elevating the floor, the arguments that libertarians or conservatives make often refer to this. People get what they "earn," and that is it. I'm not sure why you are having so much trouble conceding this point.

Under libertarianism, a person's quality of life is solely determined by their marginal utility, yes or no? Government services are not available to make up any kind of gaps in opportunity or outcome, yes or no? There are no built-in features in either the political or economic systems that take into consideration anything other than marginal utility, yes or no?

Also, before you answer this, I want you to answer my other points. No one on here seems to have anything to say about those.

Further clarification...

If wages are determined by marginal utility, and one's quality of life and autonomy are largely based upon wages, in a non-interventionist state, then it is implied that marginal utility is one's value. To maintain the position that marginal utility solely determines one's quality of life, as far as the state and economic system are concerned, is an expression of their perceived value.

Because the state and legal framework have virtually nothing to say about a minimum standard of living or quality of life, then the value of a human life is almost synonymous with its economic value. Sure, you concede some constitutional protections from aggression, but are you really going to point out the single grain of straw amongst a pile of feces?

That is what I mean. I think you know exactly what I am saying, don't have any rebuttals for my central criticisms, and are praying to your god that you can derail the conversation on this slim line of reasoning. Now, the focus of the thread is a critique of libertarianism--try again.

 

You insist that I address a strawman. Why would I do that? Because you really want me to?

Fact is, you cannot produce a single statement from any libertarian of note that says economic growth is the "primary objective" of a libertarian society or that "marginal utility" is the "primary measure" of human value. These are things you made up or erroneously inferred.

In reality, libertarian ideology's primary concern is individual LIBERTY. Address THAT if you want an actual debate about libertarian ideology instead of your made-up strawman.

 

Take a look at the Kennedy family and how it built wealth. Their wealth initially came from selling booze during Prohibition.

If you are saying people can acquire wealth if they free themselves from society's constraints, perhaps you are correct, but it is at the cost of others.

 

That's not what I'm saying at all.

Liberty does not mean you're free from "society's constraints". Quite the opposite, actually.

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
--Thomas Jefferson

"...within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others" being the relevant clause.

That means your liberty is, by definition, constrained or limited by the equal rights of others, namely, their right to life, liberty, and property.

You can't just do whatever you want to whoever you want. That's nihilism, not libertarianism.

 

So the consequences of libertarian "freedom" are not a valid target for criticism? Most of the consequences I listed are logical consequences of libertarian beliefs.

I did not attack a strawman, I attacked the consequences of your philosophy. Screaming "freedom" doesn't mean anything divorced from its consequences. Does "LIBERTY" have some special meaning to you outside of its material consequences? Freedom itself, eh?

Pure, abstract, hogwash.

 

Let me know when you want to discuss libertarian ideology instead of your made-up version of it. I'll be around.

 

The OP is basically saying that if people are at liberty to be selfish, greedy, and materialistic, then they necessarily will be, and without exception.

Apparently, the OP thinks that compassion, charity, and spirituality cannot exist unless some arbitrary authority figure imposes these values on society.

Of course, one wonders how this particular individual or group of individuals came to value those things enough to want to impose them on society in the first place, since, you know, humans are so evil and bad as a general rule.

 

I'll be around when you want to address the criticisms I've leveled that you know accurately reflect libertarian beliefs. Do all libertarians agree on the same things? Of course not, but they believe some combination of the majority of things I listed.

Are they against free trade?

Are they against open borders?

Are they against drug prohibition?

Are they against prostitution?

Are they against preemptive war or imperialism, in general?

Are they against a permanent military-industrial-education-financial complex?

I've already made it clear what those things entail, briefly, and I can certainly elaborate on them, if you decide to move beyond your insistence that I'm not being fair about what libertarianism entails.

 

Unfortunately businesses do not possess the qualities you mention...and since they don't...their ONLY goal is profit.

Without regulation, businesses will do great harm. History has shown that to be true.

 

Looks like we agree on something.

 

They don't accurately reflect libertarian beliefs.

The bedrock principle of libertarian ideology is liberty, not economic growth or marginal utility.

You mean you've conjectured about what they entail based on your erroneous, preconceived notions of what libertarian ideology is based upon.

Because if libertarians actually thought that liberty would lead to the kind of scenario you envisioned at the beginning of this thread, none of them would be libertarians.

So clearly they envision something entirely different, yet you keep insisting that your vision is the right one, despite your conclusion being based on a demonstrably false premise.

Right, because all business people are totally selfish and greedy and have never done anything charitable ever.

Then it's a good thing that libertarians are not categorically opposed to "regulation" of businesses.

 

It would be nice if one day people could actually muster an argument against libertarian ideology instead of some made up version of it.

 

And what does that actually mean? Communism is all about the equality of man, and we all know how that turned out and can point to actual events. Does liberty have any consequences, or does it just sit out there in the void, waiting to be mentioned in a conversation without any material consequences?

LOL

So they believe in liberty--we've covered that. What else do they believe? How does that translate to the real world?

I guess nothing I've mentioned has any relationship to "liberty" whatsoever...

I may not be able to respond until tomorrow, as I'm going to watch a football game, but I'll be around either after the game or tomorrow.