Libertarianism - What's the appeal?

[Ted C]

From an economic and political standpoint I'm more of free market socialist. You know, a realist. I just think that there are certain things government (particularly law enforcement) should stay the fuck out of, as it seems to do far more harm than good.

Out of interest, who the fuck else would you like to see perform law enforcement? Vigilantes? Mob rule?

Government in some form is the only body that can be held accountable for their involvement in anything. Any alternative is infinitely worse, because it lacks accountability.

I think you may have misread his statement. He didn't say that the government should stay out of law enforcement; he said that there are things that law enforcement (as one aspect of the government) should stay out of.

[Patrick Degan]

One of the real ironies of modern American libertarianism is that, originally, libertarianism was a socialist movement. It relied on the same false assumption that people will behave perfectly in order to make it work, but libertarian socialism was structured far more toward community benefit and the sharing and redistribution of wealth. It promulgated the doctrine of government no larger than the city level but also incorporated the idea of factory democracy, in which the policies of management were decided by the workers. It did not seek change via revolution but by democratic transformation of society, which put it at odds with Marxism.

In Europe, I believe, libertarianism is a leftist movement and has little to nothing in common with American libertarianism.

[Rogue 9]

Good points. It seems that much of the psychology involved has to do with greed, selfishness, a lack of empathy, arrogance, etc. No wonder many of these types fit nicely into the schema of evangelical retardism.

The fact that these idiots have nothing but contempt and anger toward the government has always perplexed me. It's almost as if they don't mind the concept of a pretend "higher authority," as in their religious crap, but a real one, like say... the IRS, really gets under their skin.

Erm... What part of the Libertarian Party's platform is evangelical? I've never known a libertarian who was also a Christian dominionist; the two are fairly well mutually exclusive since libertarians favor less government interference while a dominionist wishes to exert great amounts of government power in favor of his religion.

Here's what the LP's platform says on the subject:

I.3 Freedom of Religion

Issue: Government routinely invades personal privacy rights based solely on individuals’ religious beliefs. Arbitrary tax structures are designed to give aid to certain religions, and deny it to others.

Principle: We defend the rights of individuals to engage in (or abstain from) any religious activities that do not violate the rights of others.

Solution: In order to defend freedom, we advocate a strict separation of church and State. We oppose government actions that either aid or attack any religion. We oppose taxation of church property for the same reason that we oppose all taxation. We condemn the attempts by parents or any others -- via kidnappings or conservatorships -- to force children to conform to any religious views. Government harassment or obstruction of religious groups for their beliefs or non-violent activities must end.

Transitional Action: We call for an end to the harassment of churches by the Internal Revenue Service through threats to deny tax-exempt status to churches that refuse to disclose massive amounts of information about themselves.

I'm failing to see anything evangelical there.

[Flagg]

From an economic and political standpoint I'm more of free market socialist. You know, a realist. I just think that there are certain things government (particularly law enforcement) should stay the fuck out of, as it seems to do far more harm than good.

Out of interest, who the fuck else would you like to see perform law enforcement? Vigilantes? Mob rule?

Government in some form is the only body that can be held accountable for their involvement in anything. Any alternative is infinitely worse, because it lacks accountability.

I think you may have misread his statement. He didn't say that the government should stay out of law enforcement; he said that there are things that law enforcement (as one aspect of the government) should stay out of.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

[Vendetta]

Fair enough, I retract my prior sarcasm.

[Flagg]

Fair enough, I retract my prior sarcasm.

I was kinda pissed because I thought there was no way it could have been interpreted that way, but after rereading it a few times I can see how it could have been seen the way you saw it. So no biggie.

[TheKwas]

Took me 5 reads to understand it the way you meant it.

[Rogue 9]

It took me precisely one. He said "there are certain things government (particularly law enforcement) should stay the fuck out of," not "there are certain things government should stay the fuck out of (particularly law enforcement)." The two are entirely different statements.

As for what I find appealing about libertarianism (lowercase "L" entirely intentional; despite my quoting their platform above, the Libertarian Party is largely fucking nuts) is the idea of individual freedom. It is not "I've got mine and fuck everybody else;" it's the idea that except beyond enough taxation for what is absolutely necessary for the government to pay for its basic functions, the government should not interfere in how private citizens dispose of their time and property. The real difference between this as a sound idea and this as a loony principle is where exactly one draws the line for what government's basic function is.

As an aside, libertarianism and anarchocapitalism are two entirely different things. A libertarian wants the smallest government possible to provide for law enforcement and perhaps basic services; an anarchocapitalist wants there to be no government and privatized everything including military and police. I'd be surprised if anyone here will actually defend that position.

[Darth Wong]

A libertarian wants the smallest government possible to provide for law enforcement and perhaps basic services

Correction: a typical libertarian wants the smallest government possible to provide for law enforcement and only whatever services he personally uses. That's why libertarians are generally selfish twats. That's why an argument with a libertarian usually involves the asshole saying "well I don't need that", and shrugging when told that others will suffer without it.

an anarchocapitalist wants there to be no government and privatized everything including military and police. I'd be surprised if anyone here will actually defend that position.

Yes, those idiots are even worse. Doesn't make libertarians reasonable.

[Elfdart]

They're like bratty children (in fact, I strongly suspect that most of them were bratty children).

I think that's the core of the issue. Small children, as part of a survival instinct, believe the world revolves around them. The toddler who wants to eat or play NOW is no different from the puppy or piglet that pushes others out of the way to avoid sucking hind teat (or not sucking at all). Most grow out of this "MINE -GIMME!" attitude by ages 5 or 6 at the latest. The ones who have reached adulthood without realizing the world doesn't revolve around them read Ayn Rand and take it seriously.

In other words, Libertarianism is Scientology for overgrown brats -only creepier and without movie star endorsements.

[Rogue 9]

I'm having a hard time seeing how libertarianism (or even Libertarianism) is creepier than Scientology.

As for a "mine, gimme" attitude, tell me: What is wrong with the idea that the fruit of a person's time and labor belongs to him and should not be taken from by the government any more than is necessary? I'm sorry, but yes, my wages are mine. I gladly pay my taxes because a functional government is far superior to the alternative, but if I could work my will there'd be several billions of dollars worth of government bloat cut to save costs and ultimately ease the burden on the taxpayer. Is that so wrong? You can't tell me that our government isn't essentially flushing billions of dollars down the toilet in what is indisputably unnecessary waste. Even if we ignore Social Security, war spending, Medicare, and other programs that would be controversial to cut, there's still lots of stuff that the government simply does not need to be doing that it's doing anyway, and wasting our money on. Congress rolls out the pork barrel every fucking term, and shows no sign of even beginning to slow down. And that's not even beginning to touch on the blatant abuses of the Commerce Clause that Congress uses to enact laws that it has no constitutional authority to pass.

That's the one reason I'd find it tolerable to have a few Libertarians elected to Congress, and why I voted for Steve Osborn for Senate last year. (Well, that and the fact that the Democrats weren't contesting the seat, so it was either him or Richard Lugar.) At least if they do what they always talk about, there'd finally be some real opposition to the customary bloated budget.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Rogue, try cutting the War on Drugs as a start. Fifty billion dollars a year would make for a nice $150+ tax cut for every American alive.

[Superman]

Rogue, try cutting the War on Drugs as a start. Fifty billion dollars a year would make for a nice $150+ tax cut for every American alive.

Or at least let's be realistic about it. What they spend, about four times the amount of money trying to stop marijuana than what they spend on meth?

[Flagg]

Rogue, try cutting the War on Drugs as a start. Fifty billion dollars a year would make for a nice $150+ tax cut for every American alive.

Or at least let's be realistic about it. What they spend, about four times the amount of money trying to stop marijuana than what they spend on meth?

The "war on drugs" should be fought as a public health concern, not a law enforcement one.

[Darth Wong]

I'm having a hard time seeing how libertarianism (or even Libertarianism) is creepier than Scientology.

Ah, the "personal opinion" argument.

As for a "mine, gimme" attitude, tell me: What is wrong with the idea that the fruit of a person's time and labor belongs to him and should not be taken from by the government any more than is necessary?

Perhaps you are too fucking stupid to recognize that anything you do is as much a product of your social environment as it is of your individual labours. It is perhaps the crowning arrogance of our time that dipshits such as yourself honestly think that you are where you are solely due to your own individual efforts, and that you owe society nothing.

[Rye]

A bit of a sidetrack issue here, but it seems like an appropriate place to ask:

Is there a calculable amount (for instance, in work or money) a person owes a society, or is it more just a rule of thumb to encourage more responsible behaviour?

Also, how does owing society work with disabled people? Do they owe more?

Finally, what about the rich? Do they owe society more or less because they mostly ride along on either inherited money, or, if they're a self-made rags to riches story, do they only owe the same amount as when they were poor?

[Flagg]

Finally, what about the rich? Do they owe society more or less because they mostly ride along on either inherited money, or, if they're a self-made rags to riches story, do they only owe the same amount as when they were poor?

I would say that both owe the same. You wouldn't be able to be a "rags to riches" story without societies help.

[Rogue 9]

His statement was also personal opinion. I wasn't making an argument based on it.

And in the grand scheme yes, social environment is a large part of what shapes our actions. (Conversely, individual actions are the entire composition of social environment, but that's another topic.) I already stated I gladly pay my taxes; I also donate to charity on the rare occasions when I'm solvent enough to do so. I don't say I owe society nothing. In fact, if you'd actually read what I typed, you'd see that I'm saying that government owes it to society (i.e. all the individuals who make up society) to not waste society's resources in the form of massive government waste.

I want there to be functioning government for the good of society at large; I consequently recognize that there is a responsibility for citizens to pay taxes to support it, but all I'm calling for is some modicum of efficiency. We as citizens entrust our tax money to the government, and government has a responsibility to us to spend it well. What the government does not require in order to function should not be taken from citizens by the government. That's all I'm saying here.

[Illuminatus Primus]

People need to work a job, spend a night in jail, go to a shitty school or all of the above before one realizes how fucking lucky they usually are for being born from the family they were. It is simply unfuckingbelievable to listen to dumbasses from poli sci or philo course half-cocked through university talking about how dare the government take their property. So, Rogue, did you parents just let you have your computer back now? What a joke libertarians are. We're all beneficiaries of the government; there are just those who are honest about it and support a progressive government apparatus and those who're self-delusional and selfish assholes.

Come on, Rogue, don't hide beyond vagueness. What would you cut to free up a significant percentage of the budget?

[Archaic`]

I'm with Rogue on this one. While I consider myself a libertarian, I must admit that I find myself wondering what everyone else here must consider a libertarian to be. Is it just a difference in the application of the terminology between Australia or America, or does libertarianism really equal anarchocapitalism to that many people?

From my perspective, libertarianism involves really just one thing. Giving citizens more reasonable choice. Most would boil that down to the reduction of the involvement of government in the private lives of citizens, but I wouldn't say that's strictly true. That gives the impression to many that govermnent should pretty much wither and die, but that simply should not be the case. Goverment should be there for citizens if and when needed (even a libertarian society should have some kind of government safety net for the unemployed, for instance). It's just that they shouldn't shove their way into peoples lives unasked for. What that mainly involves is simply an extension of peoples personal freedoms in law. Obviously you can't give total freedom to everybody, which would just invite anarchy, but you can, for instance, recognise gay marriage.

In the overall picture, while I would say that libertarianism does encourage minimal government...I don't think that in the modern world, you can truly call that "small" government. There are areas in which either a natural monopoly exists (certain areas of communication infrastructure, like phone lines), and areas in which government involvement is desirable (having free or heavily subsidized public hospitals and schools to guarantee a certain minimum level of service to citizens). If anything actually, libertarianism might involve an increase in investment in some of these areas, to offset problems that might be caused in the market through the short term impact of other policies. For example, investing heavily in education for the (free) re-training of workers put into redundancy following the abolition of protectionist trade barriers.

If you were going to ask me what I'd cut to free up a significant percentage of the budget in the short term, I'd tell you....nothing. You'd have to be mad to simply cut overnight a program of the size of, say, the US "War on Drugs". Nor can you simply cut aged care benefits overnight, though that would eventually have to go out of sheer necessity with the inverted age pyramid we're getting with the aging population (Australia has a leg up here, since we've already given ourselves a possible cutoff year with the introduction of compulsory superannuation. You don't have that in the US, so while you could prepare for it, you're not going to be able to eliminate it totally, or even substantially, for many many decades). Some things may be able to be cut totally in the end, but in other areas, I think we'd simply see small decreases in budgets as certain sectors of the economy are rationalized, with together add up to something significant. This could involve things like setting a single standard national curriculum for primary and secondary schooling in public schools, accomplishing both our goals of increased efficiency, and giving students a guaranteed minimum level of education.

...should probably clarify "minimum" level of education, just quickly, else I'm liable to get flamed from people making assumptions about what that means to a libertarian. ^^;; By that, I don't mean "lets educate them as little as possible". I mean "lets make sure everyone has at least access to a certain standard of education". As for what that standard should be....in the US, other western powers, it should be sufficient to enable a person to get into any job in the economy (bar those which should require a university degree, or specialized training for a trade), and to be able to (theoretically) make a relatively informed and logical decision in regards to any issue that might come up in an election.

Having said all this though...it's really just an academic issue, in my view, at least at this point in time. Unless we're suddenly given the opportunity to build a society from scratch, our current democratic system would really prevent any political party from pushing through all the economic changes needed. Term lengths are too short, and with the short term pain that would be required (assuming they don't try to rush, which would fowl things up just as badly), I have little doubt that any government attempting to move towards a more libertarian society would be voted out of office before they could really get the ball rolling.

[Rogue 9]

Fuck you, IP. I live on my own in the fucking lowest rent apartments in town, work for $8.36 an hour stocking at a factory, and sure as hell do not get any financial help from my parents or anybody else. I moved out over a year and a half ago now. Do not even start to tell me I'm a sheltered college kid.

Now that that's over with: To start off, I'm not a Libertarian. The LP is fucking insane. I lodged a protest vote for their Senate candidate in last year's elections, and that is all the political involvement I've ever had with them. If I had to pin a name on my political outlook, it'd be classical liberal. I came into this thread because I perceived what seemed to be a strawman in Supes' attack on Libertarianism. I then answered the thread's original question of what's appealing about the idea; that doesn't mean I espouse it.

As I've acknowledged twice in this thread, yes, we're all beneficiaries of the government. I pay my taxes, and I support the idea of government power within the bounds of the government's constitutional limitations.

As for what I'd cut, the following list is by no means exhaustive.

Let's start with what the Treasury's Financial Management Service calls unreconciled transactions. Referring to the 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government, page 126 (page 28 of this .pdf), we find that unaccounted spending cost us $24.5 billion that year, up from $17.1 billion the year before. 2004's total was down to "only" $3.4 billion, and 2005's was $4.3 billion. While it seems to be trending downward, that level of waste is totally unacceptable.

If Social Security is going to collapse, and it seems it probably will, it's best to either end it or fix it before the whole thing comes crashing down around our ears.

Any and all obvious pork-barrel projects Congress comes up with. The now-infamous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska is just one example, and one that was stopped by sufficient public outcry, but waste of that level and worse is perpetrated in every budget.

Medicare is gouged to the tune of two to eight times the normal cost of drugs and medical supplies; see the 2005 testimony of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (PDF), comparing the payments Medicare makes for medical supplies to the same payments made by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Of note, Medicare paid $8.68 per liter of sterile saline solution to the VA's $1.02. This must not continue.

I could go on, but my shift starts at 4:30 tomorrow morning, so I'm going to bed. If there's still a need to continue this, I'll be back tomorrow afternoon.

[Illuminatus Primus]

And when're you going to provide a how? Simply slash Medicare spending and expect the system to somehow provide the care to just the same? Because that amounts to just saying "fuck 'em" to the beneficiaries. The only way to clean up the per capita cost is a fully socialized system which will eliminate excessive administrative costs and allow the government to negotiate prices for pharmaceuticals and fees.

Secondly, how do you devine the government's constitutional limitations? Originalism? I just wrote a large term paper on Rakove's Original Meanings and several Nineteenth Century SCOTUS cases for my Constitutional Law course, so don't give me a throwaway line. I want to know how exactly your vision will work where the status quo has not.

[brianeyci]

If the libertarians say that libertarnism encourages small government, then they've already lost the debate, at least if they're honest. It is entirely possible to have a very large government which serves its people better. It's entirely possible that in order to serve its citizens, governments must "shove themselves in the face" of their citizens. Libertarians go with the a priori assumption that government must not interfere with the lives of private citizens except as little as possible, but what does "as little as possible" mean? It's code for I don't want to pay for what I don't use.

It means for the individual, as little as possible to hurt himself, which may hurt others and society at large. So sorry Archaic and Rogue and people who don't realize that what benefits the individual can harm the group. This is a logical implication of highly praising individual benefit over group benefit, so if you're too stupid to reject libertarianism on those grounds then you're just not understanding the implications of libertarianism. The core tenet of libertarianism is praise of the individual over the group, no matter what shade it is.

The usual libertarian rebuttal is to say no such rift between individual benefit and group benefit exists, but come the fuck on. You hear people all the time saying they don't want to pay for shit they don't use, but that's as narrow minded as the idea car users shouldn't pay for public transit or healthy people shouldn't pay for sick people.

[K. A. Pital]

It is entirely possible to have a very large government which serves its people better.

Indeed so, at the height of social democracy development in Germany and other european countries the state sector peaked to over half of the economy, and in Japan too. Oh noes, I guess those states are worse than the US with it's effective healthcare and education. Or, maybe not. The US is a laggard on first world social and medical conditions.

[Darth Wong]

Fuck you, IP. I live on my own in the fucking lowest rent apartments in town, work for $8.36 an hour stocking at a factory, and sure as hell do not get any financial help from my parents or anybody else. I moved out over a year and a half ago now. Do not even start to tell me I'm a sheltered college kid.

So? Your boo-hoo story doesn't cut it. As Albert Einstein once said, everything that you think of as your self-identity is a product of the hard work and sacrifice of generations before you. Without their groundwork, you would be born, live, and die like an animal. Even if you disregard past generations, you are lucky as hell to be born in an affluent society. Human society is an organic thing, you are a part of it, and when you say that you deserve to keep the fruit of your labour for yourself, you are acting as though you actually earned it all on your own.

As I've acknowledged twice in this thread, yes, we're all beneficiaries of the government. I pay my taxes, and I support the idea of government power within the bounds of the government's constitutional limitations.

Ah yes, "constitutional limitations": the favoured catch-phrase of the libertarian. What better way to limit a government than to constrict its scope of influence to that which was explicitly laid out in a >200 year old document written by slave-owning primitives wearing powdered wigs?