The central goal of Libertarianism is hard to disagree with: freedom.

Not really. It's negative freedom. Positive freedom is still freedom and Libertarians are staunchly opposed to it.

It's tempting to think of Libertarianism as nothing more than old-school Republicanism, but it's always been partially left-wing, drawing from a long history of American anarchism

Geez, this sentence is a complete howler. Libertarianism is a slight remix of the American Classical Liberal tradition. Not anarchism. Libertarians, all else being equal, are different shades of mini-archists. Anarchists are a minority and in no way the defining foundation of Libertarianism. This goes without saying that Libertarians hi-jacked the term from the European Left.

"Everybody is Libertarian about something in this country,"

Everybody is also authoritarian about something: Do you favor age-of-consent laws? Baby Executions? Compulsory school attendance? The right of the state to remove children from their parent's custody? Court forced alimony/child Support? The right of kids to do drugs and alcohol?

Suicidal Writer:Not really. It's negative freedom. Positive freedom is still freedom and Libertarians are staunchly opposed to it.

interesting read... i just wanted to quote this paragraph from it to make some heads explode in paradox

As Berlin showed, negative and positive liberty are not merely two distinct kinds of liberty; they can be seen as rival, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal. Since few people claim to be against liberty, the way this term is interpreted and defined can have important political implications. Political liberalism tends to presuppose a negative definition of liberty: liberals generally claim that if one favors individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state. Critics of liberalism often contest this implication by contesting the negative definition of liberty: they argue that the pursuit of liberty understood as self-realization or as self-determination (whether of the individual or of the collectivity) can require state intervention of a kind not normally allowed by liberals.

If I were to kowtow to any "-ism," which I shall never do, the Libertarianism would be pretty high up on the ist.

Alas, it isn't, in this case, the "-ism" I cannot stand, it is the "-ists."

I knew a very, very smart one in graduate school, and he and a self-professed communist always got into arguments whenever they were near together, which they were often. As far as expressing tehir views went, the effect was the same as when, at that same school, the two professors who tended to stutter got on an elevator together: you could hear them coming two floors away, but neitherwas doing anything but stuttering.

Suicidal Writer:Positive freedom is still freedom

Positive freedom is mutual slavery. The idea that you're owed something- time, effort, resources- from the rest of humanity just because you exist and can claim it as a matter of right, including ultimately through forced labor if taken to its logical conclusion.

Suicidal Writer:Geez, this sentence is a complete howler. Libertarianism is a slight remix of the American Classical Liberal tradition. Not anarchism. Libertarians, all else being equal, are different shades of mini-archists. Anarchists are a minority and in no way the defining foundation of Libertarianism.

You should read up on the actual history of libertarianism before making such pronouncemnts. Anarcho-capitalists, the term coined by Murray Rothbard, are certainly a minority but they're also a strong intellectual influence on the ideas of the movement. And the anarcho-capitalists draw on an American tradition of individualist anarchism dating back to Henry David Thoreau and Lysander Spooner.

Suicidal Writer:Everybody is also authoritarian about something:

Which leads, ironically, to government becoming the mechanism of the war of all-against-all rather than the preventer of just that.

Suicidal Writer:Do you favor age-of-consent laws?

Depends. A 40 year-old abusing a 7 year-old is clearly not consensual in any meaningful sense, but two 12 year-olds being stupid shouldn't be a crime.

Suicidal Writer:Baby Executions?

What the hell are you talking about?

Suicidal Writer:Compulsory school attendance?

Absolutely not.

Suicidal Writer:The right of the state to remove children from their parent's custody?

There is no such blanket "right". In cases of abuse or neglect which rise to the level of the parent abdicating their responsibility, the state does have a just power to do that, though. Not on whatever whim they want, though, which is increasingly the direction we've been moving in.

Suicidal Writer:Court forced alimony/child Support?

Nope.

Suicidal Writer:The right of kids to do drugs and alcohol?

Sure. That doesn't mean I condone it (though I think a 17 or 18 year old smoking a joint or having a beer is pretty harmless), but trying to suppress it with the force of government is just a miniature form of Prohibition. And just like Prohibition, it makes the problem worse, not better.

I don't dwell in technicalities. Our Congress and White House--both parties--just voted to forgive the most massive privacy violation in human history.

The present and all of corporate telecom decided to break the law with regards to the entire country. The KGB on its worst day could not pull of this level of intrusion. No one has come forward to deny that they are recording every phone conversation in America.

If it sounds like a conspiracy to you, think about it. They have the money, the technology and the will to do it. And it appears they have absolutely no remorse or level of restraint.

How do we know it? No one is responsible. The president will not vouch for what level of snooping he is doing and not one person in elected office says they know what is going on and standing by all of it.

Until Democrats and Republicans get right on this issue, I will not vote for any of them again.

I am not too fond of Bob Barr, but he is the only one who is standing up to the end of a free society. The fact that Obama caved on this issue because he didn't want to pick a fight with a president with %24 popularity rating disgusts me. I don't know what change he is looking for if he can't recognize outright treason when he sees it. As for McCain, he didn't even think it was important enough to show and vote.

Libertarian it is. At least they will earn my vote.

Suicidal Writer

Positive liberty is sometimes referred to as "communism".

You can shove your positive liberty up your pinko ass.

Churchill2004:Suicidal Writer:Positive freedom is still freedom

Positive freedom is mutual slavery. The idea that you're owed something- time, effort, resources- from the rest of humanity just because you exist and can claim it as a matter of right, including ultimately through forced labor if taken to its logical conclusion.

positive freedom is having the sense to realize that unless you were born in the forest and raised by wolves, the rest of society invested their time and money into your life.

Churchill2004

You did that much better than me. If I ever join your debating team, I'll be the guy that breaks people's fingers. They still do that in debate class, don't they?

I am a Libertarian.

To me being a Libertarian means:
- I value a lack of government and other supervision and influence on my daily life.
- I believe laws should exclusively cover the protection of freedom.
- Freedom is for everyone.

I believe in capitalism. I don't think it is the only system that does/can work. We should not force anyone into capitalism. If individual groups of people can find other ways to live thats fine, it's none of our business as long as freedom is not being violated.

I do believe the government should exist, and some form of taxes should be levied to support it. There has to be someone to maintain our interstate highway system, and yes, we do need a military. However the governments roles need to be clearly defined and limited, much, as our country was originally founded, not what it's become.

The tax system needs to be a support what you use system. Everyone has to support the military, the roads have to be supported by those who use it, fuel, tire, perhaps vehicle taxes should cover that. Fuel mostly.

No welfare. Churches, relatives, community programs support and run by communities need to handle that. This is also known as personal responsibility.

As for freedom - your right to punch ends where my nose begins.

The thesis of positive vs. negative is interesting, but begins with a false statement. "they can be seen as rival, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal."

Although rival, they are complementary. Yin and Yang if you will. The goal is not to have one prevail over the other, but to strike a balance in which government intervention at the personal level is strictly limited.

The thesis also uses a nonsensical analogy. Personal goals should not be trivialized by comparing them to a chemical addiction.

burndtdan:positive freedom is having the sense to realize that unless you were born in the forest and raised by wolves, the rest of society invested their time and money into your life

I don't deny that. What I'm denying is that such investment can be demanded as a matter of right, that it's an inherent "freedom" on the same level as self-ownership.

I'm voting Obama because even if he's the Anti-Christ and a secret Muslim terrorist, he's still a better choice than John McCain.

My problem with Libertarianism is that it simply hands unchallenged control of everything over to big companies. Yes, a healthy market would keep that from happening.

We haven't even got that now. Take away antitrust regulation and it'll get worse.

Without a convincing way out of this, I consider Libertarianism fundamentally flawed.

Churchill2004:burndtdan:positive freedom is having the sense to realize that unless you were born in the forest and raised by wolves, the rest of society invested their time and money into your life

I don't deny that. What I'm denying is that such investment can be demanded as a matter of right, that it's an inherent "freedom" on the same level as self-ownership.

it isn't about demanding it. the whole concept of positive freedom is the concept that if we work together, we will be free to achieve greater things than if we don't. it's a concept of synergy.

it can be bastardized into bad things, the same way that negative liberty can be bastardized into anarchy, which can easily devolve into no one being free without a system of laws to protect them.

neither is inherently bad though, and the best scenario is ultimately a mixture of the two.

ArbitraryConstant:My problem with Libertarianism is that it simply hands unchallenged control of everything over to big companies. Yes, a healthy market would keep that from happening.

We haven't even got that now. Take away antitrust regulation and it'll get worse.

Without a convincing way out of this, I consider Libertarianism fundamentally flawed.

that's corporatism, not libertarianism.

Churchill2004:You should read up on the actual history of libertarianism before making such pronouncemnts. Anarcho-capitalists, the term coined by Murray Rothbard, are certainly a minority but they're also a strong intellectual influence on the ideas of the movement. And the anarcho-capitalists draw on an American tradition of individualist anarchism dating back to Henry David Thoreau and Lysander Spooner.

Anarcho-capitalists aren't even the most influential school in libertarianism currently. They logically are influenced by old anarchist traditions, but these are few and far between as anarchism was often a collectivist/egalitarian philosophy and the Northeastern traditions of the late 19th century were rather apolitical and rejectionist when it came to society. I'm not claiming there is zero influence. My statement was an attack on the writer missing the clear fact that libertarianism is a descendant of Classical Liberalism. Had the writer included CL in the paragraph, I wouldn't have said nothing. A lot of people in the general public who aren't into political philosophy are going to walk away with the perception that libertarianism is an anarchist philosophy.

Positive freedom is mutual slavery. The idea that you're owed something- time, effort, resources- from the rest of humanity just because you exist and can claim it as a matter of right, including ultimately through forced labor if taken to its logical conclusion.


Slavery intends to imply a master. Equal conditions makes the use of the term slavery to be dubious. If a law, for instance, were to be just, would it not have to apply to everyone? I suppose an anarchist could make the argument that the state's monopoly on force and use of force to enforce the law is slavery.

Universal healthcare is probably the best current example I can think of in which advanced societies have went in the direction of positive liberty and recognized that humans, by virtue of being alive, are entitled to medical care. Liberty means little if one can't pursue goals. So little as to question its existence. The man made homeless by medical bills may have the liberty to pursue goals in life, but what is the use of this if he is suffering in aimless despair? A socially-just society has an obligation to protect its members and give its members the ability to take some sort of control of their life. This is why compulsory education for children is a net-benefit, even though under negative-liberty it would be considered a violation of liberty.

burndtdan:that's corporatism, not libertarianism.

Yes, the two are equivalent as long as Libertarians pretend they'll get a healthy marketplace without regulation.

burndtdan:it isn't about demanding it. the whole concept of positive freedom is the concept that if we work together, we will be free to achieve greater things than if we don't

That's fine, but that's not what positive freedom means. It means that a claim to a positive freedom (having something provided for you) can be used to trump some one else's negative freedom (the freedom to control your own life). That's true of any system which is a "mixture of the two", it's simply a matter of degree.

ArbitraryConstant:My problem with Libertarianism is that it simply hands unchallenged control of everything over to big companies.

No, not at all. Big corporations are dependent on the government to shield them from the market forces that usually act to check and balance the profit motive- competition, consumer choice, etc. It's no coincidence that the most heavily regulated markets (insurance, for example) are also the ones where the unchecked profit motive is running rampant and customer service sucks.

Not to mention corporate welfare.

Churchill2004:No, not at all. Big corporations are dependent on the government to shield them from the market forces that usually act to check and balance the profit motive- competition, consumer choice, etc.

In other areas, market forces help monopolies form. Utilities are good examples of this, and careless deregulation in these areas leads to nothing but trouble.

Laz Long:Although rival, they are complementary. Yin and Yang if you will. The goal is not to have one prevail over the other, but to strike a balance in which government intervention at the personal level is strictly limited.

The thesis also uses a nonsensical analogy. Personal goals should not be trivialized by comparing them to a chemical addiction.

Actually, the chemical addiction analogy works well because it is salient when it comes to the free-will debate. Another, probably even more accurate, analogy is mental illness. It depends on what you mean by limiting intervention. Addiction is recognized as an illness and one that alters judgment and perception of the world. Society tends to favor protections for children because their ability to reason and make sound judgments are not on the level of an adult's due to their brain formation and lack of experience. So what happens when an adult suffers brain damage or his ability to live is compromised by an illness of the brain?

The social implications of the legalization of drugs are huge in the positive-negative liberty debate. Should the right to use harmful substances/hard drugs (meth, crack) take precedence over the social consequences of an addicted society (crime increases, broken families, lower property values, etc?). The costs and consequences for individual actions do not remain at the individual level. We have to all pay for it.

Suicidal Writer:Anarcho-capitalists aren't even the most influential school in libertarianism currently

I didn't say they were. I said they're one influence out of many.

Suicidal Writer:They logically are influenced by old anarchist traditions, but these are few and far between as anarchism was often a collectivist/egalitarian philosophy and the Northeastern traditions of the late 19th century were rather apolitical and rejectionist when it came to society

The reason they were apolitical is because they, unlike Rothbard, thought participating in the system gave it legitimacy and that working within it, even to help change it, is bad. Some radical libertarians still think that today. But the basic arguments against the legitimacy of the state and in favor of individual freedom are the same.

Suicidal Writer:'m not claiming there is zero influence. My statement was an attack on the writer missing the clear fact that libertarianism is a descendant of Classical Liberalism

Anarcho-capitalism is an offshoot of Classical Liberalism, too. Look at Rothbard's history of revolutionary and colonial America. "Conceived in Liberty"'s the title, which should give you some idea what he thought of classical liberalism.

All of libertarianism is really a descendant of classical liberalism, really.

Suicidal Writer:A lot of people in the general public who aren't into political philosophy are going to walk away with the perception that libertarianism is an anarchist philosophy

I agree about that. And I think you should give the author credit- he was much more aware of and perceptive of the internal struggles of the movement, particularly the whole radical niche vs. broad coalition thing, than most mainstream journalists have ever been.

Suicidal Writer:Slavery intends to imply a master. Equal conditions makes the use of the term slavery to be dubious

That's why I said "mutual slavery". Though in reality there's always some person or group of people who get singled out to be the master, even if in theory there is none.

Suicidal Writer:If a law, for instance, were to be just, would it not have to apply to everyone?

Absolutely, but that is not the only quality a just law must have.

Suicidal Writer:I suppose an anarchist could make the argument that the state's monopoly on force and use of force to enforce the law is slavery

They do make that argument, but that's straying away from the topic of positive freedom.

Suicidal Writer:Universal healthcare is probably the best current example I can think of in which advanced societies have went in the direction of positive liberty and recognized that humans, by virtue of being alive, are entitled to medical care.

Which means that "freedom" overrides some one else's negative freedom. Ultimately, if the people whose negative freedom is being violated decided to stop complying, the only way to provide people with this "freedom" is forced labor. Which isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Just ask any of the numerous doctors around the world who have been conscripted into military service so that their service could be compelled.

Suicidal Writer:Liberty means little if one can't pursue goals

Liberty means little if your goals are set by some one else.

Suicidal Writer:The man made homeless by medical bills may have the liberty to pursue goals in life, but what is the use of this if he is suffering in aimless despair?

So you think it's justified for him to rob people at gunpoint to pay for his medical bills?

Suicidal Writer:A socially-just society has an obligation to protect its members and give its members the ability to take some sort of control of their life

"Society" is an abstraction. To speak of it as a single entity capable of entering into obligations is a fallacy.

Suicidal Writer:This is why compulsory education for children is a net-benefit, even though under negative-liberty it would be considered a violation of liberty

So, forcing people to go along with a "the government knows best" governing philosophy is acceptable, as long as it's a "net benefit" by your standards?

ArbitraryConstant:In other areas, market forces help monopolies form. Utilities are good examples of this, and careless deregulation in these areas leads to nothing but trouble

"Deregulation" of those industries has amounted to little more than the government abdicating responsibility over a government-imposed monopoly. That's not "market forces" at work.

Any true deregulation would have to include the break-up of the previous coercive monopoly.

Suicidal Writer:It depends on what you mean by limiting intervention.

The government should have no right to intervene at a personal level unless an individual takes action to violate the rights of another. If you chose to do drugs or partake of another type of risky behavior, the government should neither help nor hinder you. However, once your behavior infringes on another, you should be a ward of the state under authoritarian rule. If your behavior results in self destruction, so be it.

By the way, the majority of the people are capable of rational self interest. Dragging in the dregs of society to illustrate your point tends to ignore that fact.

burndtdan:the rest of society invested their time and money into your life.

And it got paid via free trade and market operations.

Go fark yourself. I don't owe you shiat.

Further, your BS idea that "working together" achieves more than alone is sick. Free markets allow people to 'work together' just fine without the influence of violent government intervention, thankyouverymuch. Your idea of "working together" is just empowering those in the government class to take it out on those in the non-government class of society and claiming that such is better for everyone. It's not.

Only through voluntary trades and actions does everyone benefit. If the trade or action isn't voluntary, then it's hurting someone by definition as they don't value it highly enough to do it on their own.

Economics 101, let me show you it.

Churchill2004:Suicidal Writer:Liberty means little if one can't pursue goals

Liberty means little if your goals are set by some one else.


And thus the problem of all state intervention - whenever government acts, it's forcing the valuation of the cop/politician/whatever upon someone who is not a cop/politician/whatever.

Government is merely the way a class of people say, "I'm better than you and my judgments are superior to yours. Obey me."

If the Libertarians can expunge the psuedo-anarchist loons, they might stand a chance.

hehehehe.....this thread is teh funnay!

Durendal:If the Libertarians can expunge the psuedo-anarchist loons, they might stand a chance.

That's like dehydrating an ice cube depending on your definition of anarchy.

Durendal:If the Libertarians can expunge the psuedo-anarchist loons, they might stand a chance.

You mean if they lose their principles and become more like the Republicrats that run this country, they might win more elections?


I guess I can't disagree with that.

This thread is missing something, I'm not sure what it is.

I think social-libertarian, fiscally liberal party could do pretty well. Most people I know who have a libertarian bent (including myself) are more interested in the guns/drugs/wiretapping angle than privatizing everything.

Paulistinian:Go fark yourself. I don't owe you shiat.

Do you owe Newton anything?

Paulistinian:Durendal:If the Libertarians can expunge the psuedo-anarchist loons, they might stand a chance.

You mean if they lose their principles and become more like the Republicrats that run this country, they might win more elections?


I guess I can't disagree with that.

There's a middle ground between .4% radical anarchists and totally selling out. If you lake at issues polling, there's a good 10-25% of the electorate that leans libertarian. The Libertarian Party should be a vehicle for a broad libertarian coalition. No need to "expel" the anarcho-capitalists from the party, but at the same time they need to understand that they can't angrily denounce every one who disagrees with them on anything as a fascist.\

The LNC (the national party structure) has actually been more or less successfully "taken over" by the moderates. The state affiliate parties are still a mixed bag, though, which is causing Barr some headaches with ballot access.

Suicidal Writer:The central goal of Libertarianism is hard to disagree with: freedom.

Not really. It's negative freedom. Positive freedom is still freedom and Libertarians are staunchly opposed to it.

"Positive freedom" is not freedom.

burndtdan:the whole concept of positive freedom is the concept that if we work together, we will be free to achieve greater things than if we don't. it's a concept of synergy.

Wow. Just wow. If you really believe that, I have to wonder how you manage to tie your shoes in the morning.

Suicidal Writer:
Everybody is also authoritarian about something: Do you favor age-of-consent laws? Baby Executions? Compulsory school attendance? The right of the state to remove children from their parent's custody? Court forced alimony/child Support? The right of kids to do drugs and alcohol?

I just wanted everyone to know that I am totally down with baby executions.

That is all.

ScubaDude1960:Wow. Just wow. If you really believe that, I have to wonder how you manage to tie your shoes in the morning.

It is pretty amazing that people who hold different opinions than you are able to perform simple tasks, isn't it?

ScubaDude1960:burndtdan:the whole concept of positive freedom is the concept that if we work together, we will be free to achieve greater things than if we don't. it's a concept of synergy.

Wow. Just wow. If you really believe that, I have to wonder how you manage to tie your shoes in the morning.

What, he's completely right. That concept is stopped by human greed. That's the reason Socialism and Communism will never work. People are greedy bastards. The concept is completely sound otherwise.

GAT_00:What, he's completely right. That concept is stopped by human greed. That's the reason Socialism and Communism will never work. People are greedy bastards. The concept is completely sound otherwise

How can an idea be "completely sound" if it's fundamentally at odds with human nature?

Your idea of greed is people who object to being slaves to whoever happens to have become "the voice of the people".

GAT_00:This thread is missing something, I'm not sure what it is.


Smokin hot Libertarian chicks


I'll be not wondering if the carpet matches

Psychotropic:I'm voting Obama because even if he's the Anti-Christ and a secret Muslim terrorist, he's still a better choice than John McCain.

And this is why the Libertarians don't succeed. Because the 2 major parites have brainwashed the sheep in this country like Psychotropic into believing that they are the only choice, and that you must vote the lesser of two evils, not what you really believe.

It's too bad Libertarians can't explain anything in less than 100 pages.

For this reason alone they'll never be mainstream.

There may end up being something called "libertarian" the general populace embraces, but it will resemble libertarianism as much as the soviet union resembled actual communism.

submitter:mainstream America may finally be ready for them

Like Imperial Russia's and Bourbon France were ready for the Bolsheviks and the guillotine...it's not really good to be this desperate. Of course, mainstream America voted the situation into office.

angryjd

Until Democrats and Republicans get right on this issue, I will not vote for any of them again.,,

...Libertarian it is. At least they will earn my vote.

And another voice heard from those who have opted completely out of the electoral process.

Vote AGAINST THE INCUMBENT, if you want anyone to pay any attention. Nobody gives a flying fiddler's fark about people who vote Libertarian. Vote the current rascals out, whatever their party, and it will gradually begin to percolate through that you are not happy.


Weaver95

hehehehe.....this thread is teh funnay!

I agree, if only because most humor is based on a sense of relief that you are not in the same sad boat as those you are laughing at.

Churchill2004:

Eh, thats just a T shirt model. Cameltoe is on the curb for her candidate. Besides, all the real hotties are anarchists.

My main problem with libertarianism is the idea that our society would police itself if only we legalized ALL drugs (even the hardest ones) and ALL guns, simultaneously.

While I do lean more libertarian in my 2nd Amendment ideas (for a liberal), I also believe there needs to be some control over the populace, because although you might be smart, and I might be smart, that guy over there (and the other 1,000 with him) are farking idiots who need some restrictions.

I'm just not a fan of this whole "hands-off government" idea, because I've seen how stupid people are, and I don't want to be the one who keeps the morans from screwing everything up for the rest of it. Let the government do that kind of dirty work.

Who still reads books anymore?