Five myths about Libertarianism

[NightFox]

We have an excellent idea how many libertarians there are by how many votes Libertarian candidates get,

How do you account for people that didn't vote? how do you account for libertarians that for whatever reason don't vote for an LP candidate? how do you account for voters that vote for a libertarian candidate that are not themselves libertarians?, once again your logic is flawed.

at least as far as politics is concerned.

You can't even answer the question as far a politics is concerned let alone answer as far as philosophy is concerned.

So most libertarians don't support the Libertarian Party, so the last poster told me.

Personally I don't know, since I don't know (or really care) how many libertarians support the LP or how many libertarians exist. It's really not a question that I find any value in seeking an answer to since I deal with people where my influence is likely to have the most impact which is on an individual basis.

What do they do on election day? Stay home and render themselves irrelevant, or do they vote either Republican or Democrat,

One suspects a combination of both, I don't know how you conclude that the only way to be "relevant" is to vote, as if your entire range of influence revolves around casting a non-binding ballot, and before you ask, yes that means I really am not concerned whether a Democrat or a Republican gets elected to XYZ office because the preponderance of the evidence suggests to me that it really doesn't make a bit of difference.

 

[Foxfyre]

How do you account for people that didn't vote? how do you account for libertarians that for whatever reason don't vote for an LP candidate? how do you account for voters that vote for a libertarian candidate that are not themselves libertarians?, once again your logic is flawed.


You can't even answer the question as far a politics is concerned let alone answer as far as philosophy is concerned.

So most libertarians don't support the Libertarian Party, so the last poster told me.

Personally I don't know, since I don't know (or really care) how many libertarians support the LP or how many libertarians exist. It's really not a question that I find any value in seeking an answer to since I deal with people where my influence is likely to have the most impact which is on an individual basis.

What do they do on election day? Stay home and render themselves irrelevant, or do they vote either Republican or Democrat,

One suspects a combination of both, I don't know how you conclude that the only way to be "relevant" is to vote, as if your entire range of influence revolves around casting a non-binding ballot, and before you ask, yes that means I really am not concerned whether a Democrat or a Republican gets elected to XYZ office because the preponderance of the evidence suggests to me that it really doesn't make a bit of difference.

As an active participant in the Tea Party movement and because I am aware of the initiatives of the 9/12ers, the tax reform groups, constitutionalists, etc.--libertarians all--and knowing that most are registered Republicans, Democats, and/or Independents, I can say with a great deal of confidence that most libertarians (small "L") are NOT members of the Libertarian Party.

 

[NightFox]

Then the Constitution need not exist?

Are you asserting that? because I certainly didn't, I pointed out what should be self-evident (that the constitution is a piece of paper). Using your example; You don't need an amendment to the Constitution to make one human being killing another human being illegal and immoral (absent self defense of course) and if you can demonstrate through empirical evidence that a fetus meets the criteria of a human being to the satisfaction of the preponderance of society then killing a fetus becomes de facto both illegal and immoral.

Our morality isn't derived from the Constitution, if it were then generally accepted morality couldn't have existed prior to the Constitution and the historical evidence demonstrates that this is not the case. The purpose of the Constitution was to create a nation under the rule of law instead of the rule of man, not to codify the eternal morality of the citizenry.

Passing a law banning all abortion is unconstitutional, so yes you do need an amendment to the Constitution, or at the very least an overturning of Roe, to make that 'killing' illegal.

You don't need to pass a law banning all abortion if you can demonstrate that a fetus is a human being since killing a human being is already against the law, right? It's also against generally accepted morality, right? If you cannot demonstrate that a fetus meets the generally accepted criteria for a human being then preventing the mother from aborting it would violate the mothers right to self-ownership, right?

The Constitution is the law of the land, not JUST a piece of paper.

It's just a piece of paper, it has words on it, it's not some magic relic that supplants the need for morality and reason.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Lie to your self all you want but the MAJORITY of those calling themselves libertarians have the same stand as progressives on MOST issues.

Progressives think the government should regulate everything from war to who does business with whom. I bet you can't find anyone who calls themselves a libertarian who agrees with that.

No they just say it is a state issue.

No, I do not believe there is not a single libertarian that would support the progressive ideal of the soda ban implemented by Bloomberg. That is not even a local city issue, it is a fundamental issue of personal freedom, and the government should have no say in it.

On the other hand, I can find quite a few people on this board that supported it, and would not be surprised to find out that you are one of them.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Good friend will be dead in a year if we are lucky as they said 6 months 3 months ago.
Watched the baseball game at his condo tonight.
He smokes twisty and has to obtain it illegally.
And that is fucked up beyond all reason.
Because of right wing kooks that force their shit on other people without using their brain to determine if someone is suffering or not.
That is what being a Libertarian is, allowing him to do that legally.

Instead you want to force a toxic substance on people for what???? The ability to get high? The people haven't made it legal yet stop crying.

The people haven't made it legal? What people is that? The ones inside your head?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Its the people not the party? LOL Thats what I have been saying. Libertarianism is a selfish ideology. Yet some who call themselves libertarians are not selfish. Like conservatives that say they are republican. Now Libertarians are like the 60's idealists. Quite a bit of it sounds good but reality doesnt work that way. Like Marxism. No I am not saying Libertarians are communist I am saying it is like Marxism in that it looks good on paper yet in use it doesnt work. Some of it will....Yet not all of it.... You know why? People are different.

Look at the libertarians slamming me. Now we both know I like to poke at them cause they scream like little girls but look at how they are. They refuse to allow ANY differing view put forward. When it happens they personalize and attack. They scream that you dont know shit! you are a NeoCon! A authoritarian ! It is as if others are not allowed to state the obvious.

Libertarianism (little "L") is not at all selfish. What is selfish about wanting people to have power over their own choices and destiny? And what further makes libertarians unselfish is that of all the philosophical groups, they are the most likely to recognize and identify unintended negative consequences. Liberals fancy themselves the most generous and altruistic of all the groups, and yet by selfishly promoting the society THEY think best, they are unwilling to acknowledge or address the unintended consequences of that very promotion. And of all groups they are the most likely to harm those they think or report they are helping.

That the libertarian recognizes that the fairest, most altruistic, most beneficial society is one in which the people are most free and most unhindered by self serving authoritarian government is not selfish. It is honest.

Your confusing the idealism with the reality.... Nothing is wrong with having more freedoms. Except we live in a republic where states choose how much that is and libertarians seem to want to force THEIR freedoms on everyone and consequences be damned.

I don't want to force my freedoms on anyone, as far as I am concerned you are free to become a slave. The problem comes when you want to force your slavery upon me, I will then fight back with all the tools at my disposal. If the only means I have of being free from your slavery is to destroy the government which enslaves you then I will do so, and you will find yourself left without a master.

You are now left with a choice, live as a slave and leave me alone, or try to force me to be a slave and be without your security blanket.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So if I support the fundamental principles of Roe v. Wade, which I do,

am I a libertarian or not?

Is it really so hard to understand that a political philosophy is NOT based on a single position. Must you agree with 100 percent of the democrat position to be a democrat? Do you really think that democrat party platforms always embody liberal ideology? Are you ready to accept, then, that the governments new spy machine is actually a democrat ideal?

Remind me of this post the next time the Republican Party nominates a pro-choice candidate for president.

Let me frame my question differently.

Is supporting the principles of Roe v. Wade in keeping with the principles of libertarianism,

and if not, why not?

and if not, what position on abortion best represents libertarian principles?

Which principles are you talking about?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You dont think legalizing drug and cut and running isn't legislating morality?

Ok... i try not to step in the thanatos, I really do, but this is too hilarious to pass up. You're saying legalizing something is 'legislating morality'? Do other people think this way? Anybody?

Technically, he is correct. The sad part is he doesn't see that criminalizing drugs is legislating a different morality. That might be because he doesn't know how to argue.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Lie to your self all you want but the MAJORITY of those calling themselves libertarians have the same stand as progressives on MOST issues.

Progressives think the government should regulate everything from war to who does business with whom. I bet you can't find anyone who calls themselves a libertarian who agrees with that.

What percent of Americans would you estimate believe that business should not in any way be regulated?

What percentage of your brain cells did you use in totally misinterpreting my post?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I think some of you are under the mistaken impression that we can have a government but one that somehow does not legislate morality and society.

How exactly does that work?

Every law every regulation represents SOME KIND of moral value.

There is simply no way to avoid the reality that governments and their laws are the codification of the value system of the society they represent.

I think you are under the mistaken belief that you are smarter than everyone else.

The problem does not lie in the inherent necessity that government must regulate morality, it lies in the inherent evil of government imposing your morality on people who disagree with you. Or, what you would consider even worse, when it imposes a morality you disagree with on you.

Give the government unrestricted power to impose morality and someone will eventually use that power to impose a common ideology on everyone. At that point you have lost, even if you think you have won.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Libertarianism (little "L") is not at all selfish. What is selfish about wanting people to have power over their own choices and destiny? And what further makes libertarians unselfish is that of all the philosophical groups, they are the most likely to recognize and identify unintended negative consequences. Liberals fancy themselves the most generous and altruistic of all the groups, and yet by selfishly promoting the society THEY think best, they are unwilling to acknowledge or address the unintended consequences of that very promotion. And of all groups they are the most likely to harm those they think or report they are helping.

That the libertarian recognizes that the fairest, most altruistic, most beneficial society is one in which the people are most free and most unhindered by self serving authoritarian government is not selfish. It is honest.

Your confusing the idealism with the reality.... Nothing is wrong with having more freedoms. Except we live in a republic where states choose how much that is and libertarians seem to want to force THEIR freedoms on everyone and consequences be damned.

The problem with Libertarianism is related to what I pointed out earlier. What would libertarians do if they really had the kind of power in government that on occasions both the Democrats or the Republicans have had.

We have no idea how libertarianism would manifest itself in a real world scenario because it is a fringe group that can never muster enough popular support to ever actually be put in a position to govern.

That is why, I think, they are throwing tantrums in this thread every time I bring up the Libertarian Party platform...

...even libertarians can't cope with the idea of the Libertarian Party being a real party, that has to take real stands on real issues and potentially make real policy and real legislation in that regard.

Libertarianism is an idle fantasy.

So far you and thanatos have been throwing all the tantrums.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I think some of you are under the mistaken impression that we can have a government but one that somehow does not legislate morality and society.

How exactly does that work?

Every law every regulation represents SOME KIND of moral value.

There is simply no way to avoid the reality that governments and their laws are the codification of the value system of the society they represent.

Nobody is really against legislating morality. Mostly they're just against the other guy legislating morality they don't agree with.

I disagree with my morality when it comes to government legislation. That is because, unlike you, I understand that the concept of legislating morality is inherently evil, even if done by people with good intentions.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

What percent of Americans would you estimate believe that business should not in any way be regulated?

Let's not equivocate, eh?

The statement I replied to claimed that there are no libertarians who want to regulate business.

I'd like an estimate of how many people that represents. How many people want no business regulation?

No it did not, it claimed that there were no libertarians that agree with the government regulating everything from war to who does business with whom. Want to try again, or do you prefer to lie about everything?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

What percent of Americans would you estimate believe that business should not in any way be regulated?

Let's not equivocate, eh?

How many things that go on, of any consequence, in life can you say you do not want regulated in any way?

Just about everything, why?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

How so? The other poster claimed that no libertarians want business regulated in any way.

How many of those people are there?

Libertarians want businesses regulated by the invisible hand of the market place. People vote democratically with their money.

.

So there's no need, for example, for certain medicines to be regulated, for example, by requiring prescriptions?

There's no need for doctors to be in any way licensed? No need for safety regulations on automobile manufacturing?

There is no conceivable argument you can lay out that makes sense to anyone who does not support government interference in the doctor patient relationship, which you claim is sacrosanct when it cones to abortion. I dare you to try so I can show you how stupid requiring a prescription for anything is.

As for doctors, the reason they are licensed is because of something called rent seeking.

And you really do not want to try and defend regulating automobile manufacturing, you will find out that the government is actually regulating cars to be less safe than they can be.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Good friend will be dead in a year if we are lucky as they said 6 months 3 months ago.
Watched the baseball game at his condo tonight.
He smokes twisty and has to obtain it illegally.
And that is fucked up beyond all reason.
Because of right wing kooks that force their shit on other people without using their brain to determine if someone is suffering or not.
That is what being a Libertarian is, allowing him to do that legally.

This is the perfect example of why I call you out every single time we get into a conversation, you are a partisan hack. Democrats are in charge right now, and Obama is about as far from the right wing as it is possible to get, but he actually ramped up the war on drugs when it comes to people using medical marijuana over what Bush was doing. Yet, for some reason that makes no sense, unless I assume you are a lying sack of shit, you blame the other side for what is happening.

The war on drugs was started by a REPUBLICAN, reinforced by a republican, re-reinforced by a REPUBLICAN who was the last Republican President:
From the Bush platform 2004:
1. "Jail time is an effective deterrent to drug use"
2. "Continued assistance with funds to drug test in all the schools"
3. "Clinton surrendered in the drug war"
4. "Under Clinton the entire nation suffered with their surrender with the war on drugs"
5. "In a Republican administration the DOJ will require all federal prosecutors to aggressively pursue drug dealers"

So let us look at the Democratic Party Platform:
1. Enacted the fair sentencing act
2. Let the countries that produce the drugs make their own rules and fight who they believe needs to be fought on their own turf
3. Stop drugs from those countries coming here
4. Dry up demand with youth, drug testing in prison, clean and get out and expand drug treatment.

Now I don't like the current administration's total approach either but the war on drugs was started by Republicans and enforced by Republicans and facts are facts.
Obama did not ramp it up, Bush did and all Obama does on many issues such as the war is ditto what Bush did.

I don't give a **** who started it, it is wrong. The only people that try to justify a policy by who supports are partisan assholes. Until you get that through your tiny partisan brain you will remain as stupid as you are now.

FYI, drug treatment is based on the assumption that drugs are evil.

They are not evil, only people are evil.

 

[Foxfyre]

Its the people not the party? LOL Thats what I have been saying. Libertarianism is a selfish ideology. Yet some who call themselves libertarians are not selfish. Like conservatives that say they are republican. Now Libertarians are like the 60's idealists. Quite a bit of it sounds good but reality doesnt work that way. Like Marxism. No I am not saying Libertarians are communist I am saying it is like Marxism in that it looks good on paper yet in use it doesnt work. Some of it will....Yet not all of it.... You know why? People are different.

Look at the libertarians slamming me. Now we both know I like to poke at them cause they scream like little girls but look at how they are. They refuse to allow ANY differing view put forward. When it happens they personalize and attack. They scream that you dont know shit! you are a NeoCon! A authoritarian ! It is as if others are not allowed to state the obvious.

Libertarianism (little "L") is not at all selfish. What is selfish about wanting people to have power over their own choices and destiny? And what further makes libertarians unselfish is that of all the philosophical groups, they are the most likely to recognize and identify unintended negative consequences. Liberals fancy themselves the most generous and altruistic of all the groups, and yet by selfishly promoting the society THEY think best, they are unwilling to acknowledge or address the unintended consequences of that very promotion. And of all groups they are the most likely to harm those they think or report they are helping.

That the libertarian recognizes that the fairest, most altruistic, most beneficial society is one in which the people are most free and most unhindered by self serving authoritarian government is not selfish. It is honest.

Your confusing the idealism with the reality.... Nothing is wrong with having more freedoms. Except we live in a republic where states choose how much that is and libertarians seem to want to force THEIR freedoms on everyone and consequences be damned.

I try not to brag or make myself the issue, but in all due respect, I rarely ever, if ever, confuse idealism with the reality. Idealism does not change the reality. The reality does not change the idealistic principle involved.

I have to agree that Libertarians (big "L") do in fact sometimes want to do that. By wanting the federal government to force people to organize their societies as they interpret the Constitution, they seem unable to see how such a concept actually inhibits and/or cancels out liberty. It is precisely that phenomena that has kept me pretty far away from the Libertarian Party even though I am libertarian to the core.

I have gone toe to toe with a number of dedicated Libertarians (big "L") on the board who would deny a school the ability to teach Creationism, who would deny my village the ability to enjoy a traditional creche on the courthouse lawn, who would deny my neighborhood the right or ability to form a social contract for mutual benefit. So that brand of Libertarianism--which is actually just another manifestation of authoritarianism--does resemble modern American liberalism. But it is not libertarianism (little "L"). Libertarianis (little "L") abhor government instructing the people on what they may or may not do when they choose for themselves and violate nobody else's rights.

Federal authoritarianism is power to tell people how they MUST conduct their lives or what they must NOT be allowed to do. Libertarianism (big "L") might promote a hands off policy re how a person uses his/her own property, but when it extends to social contract, it is just as out of line as the most rabid modern liberal doctrine.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

In this context I was referring to thantos believing that the government not jailing you for doing drugs was somehow equivalent to ‘legislating’ drug abuse as MORAL. In that context, your statements do not make any sense. I can agree with your supposition in general but in context of the quoted statements, there is no dual morality shown. Rather, there is the admission that anything the state does not make illegal is somehow moral ergo the state is defining morality.

I understand completely where you are coming from, what I was trying to get at (ineffective communication on my part) was the idea that the person that contends that government legalizing something is "legislating morality" doesn't understand morality correctly in the first place. They can't because the basis of their view of morality is a lie, after all how can one be said to understand morality if one believes that the same morals don't apply to everyone?

Sorry I didn't mean to derail your discussion or anything....

what a arrogant piece of work you are.

**** off, you are the arrogant one right now.

And, yes, I am arrogant, I know it and admit it, so don't bother trying to make me look bad by pointing it out.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Then the Constitution need not exist?

Are you asserting that? because I certainly didn't, I pointed out what should be self-evident (that the constitution is a piece of paper). Using your example; You don't need an amendment to the Constitution to make one human being killing another human being illegal and immoral (absent self defense of course) and if you can demonstrate through empirical evidence that a fetus meets the criteria of a human being to the satisfaction of the preponderance of society then killing a fetus becomes de facto both illegal and immoral.

Our morality isn't derived from the Constitution, if it were then generally accepted morality couldn't have existed prior to the Constitution and the historical evidence demonstrates that this is not the case. The purpose of the Constitution was to create a nation under the rule of law instead of the rule of man, not to codify the eternal morality of the citizenry.

Passing a law banning all abortion is unconstitutional, so yes you do need an amendment to the Constitution, or at the very least an overturning of Roe, to make that 'killing' illegal.

The Constitution is the law of the land, not JUST a piece of paper.

If science conclusively proved that an unborn baby is human and alive how hard do you think it would be to overturn Roe?

 

[Foxfyre]

Are you asserting that? because I certainly didn't, I pointed out what should be self-evident (that the constitution is a piece of paper). Using your example; You don't need an amendment to the Constitution to make one human being killing another human being illegal and immoral (absent self defense of course) and if you can demonstrate through empirical evidence that a fetus meets the criteria of a human being to the satisfaction of the preponderance of society then killing a fetus becomes de facto both illegal and immoral.

Our morality isn't derived from the Constitution, if it were then generally accepted morality couldn't have existed prior to the Constitution and the historical evidence demonstrates that this is not the case. The purpose of the Constitution was to create a nation under the rule of law instead of the rule of man, not to codify the eternal morality of the citizenry.

Passing a law banning all abortion is unconstitutional, so yes you do need an amendment to the Constitution, or at the very least an overturning of Roe, to make that 'killing' illegal.

The Constitution is the law of the land, not JUST a piece of paper.

If science conclusively proved that an unborn baby is human and alive how hard do you think it would be to overturn Roe?

Science has proved conclusively that an unborn baby is human. That was never the argument in favor of Roe.

The Supreme Court wrote Roe in full consciousness that an unborn baby is human. What they couldn't agree on is whether the unborn human baby has constitutional rights. That is why the Court compromised to give most of the power to the individual in the first trimester, to give the state some say in the matter in the second trimester and considerable say in the matter in the third trimester. You know, that exquisite language that subsequent liberal courts have shrugged of as irrelevent?

The authoritarian Libertarian would leave the matter wholly as a matter of conscience of the individual. The libertarian (little "L") wants the federal government to stay out of it and for the local community to regain the liberty to exercise its collective conscience in the matter, whatever that might be.