Maaan, I liked the rant but still don’t get the squirrel metaphor.
Like squirrels just grab any acorn they find and bury it where they _hope_ to dig it up in winter; with a success rate of ~10%?????
me at a loss
still that’s just me, ScienceGuy wrote an excellent rant about Liber___arians,
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
I’ve heard rumors that squirrels altruistically share their acorn hoards with hungry squirrels.
but that’s just a rumor
Akira MacKenziesays
In my later college years, I had thought I transferred out of conservatism and into libertarianism. One of my Journalism professors, a crusty old Lefty who wore his socialism on his sleeve, said I was a right-winger.
“I’m not a right-winger,” I countered. “I’m a libertarian. We oppose both the Left and the Right!”
“Are you for capitalism?” He asked. “If so, you’re a right-winger, shut up.”
At that time, I was pissed at him for such an insult against my character. After-all, right-wingers were prudes who opposed sexual freedom, and drug prohibition, and banning abortion. They were just as “tyrannical” as the Left with their socialism, gun control, and environmentalism. I was for individual rights, and freedom, and because I applied my notions of”liberty” consistently, I was morally superior to those hypocritical liberals and conservatives.
Twenty years of woe later, I’ve come to realize who fucking stupid and childish and wrong “consistancy” can be.
erichougsays
Yeesh, Libertarians. Some of their ideas I 100% agree with, like ending the war on drugs and some other laws that are basically about enforcing someones idea of morality. But then they just get off into the bat poop crazy ones like not needing a drivers license or the national sales tax. If you’re an idiot or an asshole they are good ideas right up until you start looking into them then you see the stupid.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
I recall first reading about libertarianism about 30 years ago. Sounded interesting. Too interesting, raising my skeptical alert. Then I asked what was missing. Thought a couple of minutes, then the obvious came to me, the Public Good and Public welfare. AHA moment. Dismissed the idea. Took about 15 minutes from start to finish.
Tax is theft? How do you fund the services governments provide? Only the wealthy have police and civil laws?
It’s like saying charging for goods and services is theft. Only those that want to pay have to?
gijoelsays
Libertarians are like communists, they both have a worthy central idea (communism = proletariat is exploited by the capitalists, individual rights are important). But they both extend and uses these ideas in areas where their philosophy has no right being.
qwintssays
It’s sad that the liberal-libertarian alliance of convenience of the Bush years disappeared. The ideas that libertarian and liberals had in common were pretty damn awesome. Really didn’t see the Democrats becoming the party of deportation and drones.
unclefrogysays
qwints
I quit smoking weed years ago things just do not look like that to me any more.
uncle frogy
laurentweppesays
Libertarians are like communists, they both have a worthy central idea (communism = proletariat is exploited by the capitalists, individual rights are important). But they both extend and uses these ideas in areas where their philosophy has no right being.
It’s not that they “extend” the ideas, it’s that they add perverse central tenets:
Leninism added to Marx the claim that the proles were too stupid to rebel on their own and therefore needed the benevolent autocratic rule of ideologically similar intellectuals who’d have the cognitive capacity and mental fortitude to organize the necessary genocide of the owner class
Randologism adds the claim that the proles are too stupid to make trustworthy economic actors and therefore need the benevolent autocratic rule of ideologically similar businessmen who’ll have the cognitive capacity and mental fortitude to organize the necessary campaign of social darwinism“
jeffjsays
Ah, libertarianism: the political philosophy for those who really want to be right-wing but are are savvy enough to avoid the trappings of the conservative right. At least they know a losing battle when they see one.
A classic tweet from @crushingbort:
“hmm well I’d say I’m fiscally conservative but socially very liberal. the problems are bad but their causes…their causes are very good”
Mike Huben’s blog offers the most comprehensive takedown: critiquesoflibertarianism.blogspot.com
and mtraven’s is scathing and entertaining: libertardian.wordpress.com
Sadly both have been quiet lately.
multitoolsays
Most critiques of Libertarianism only work from outside its adherents’ point of view. E.G. people argue against it from a place of compassion, or the public good, or our culture, etc. none of which are particularly on the Libertarian radar.
I’d like to see more arguments that take it down from the inside, that is expose its severe self-contradictions.
For example:
1) If someone is on your private property and starts badmouthing you, should you have the right to throw them out? (Yes)
2) So what fraction of the world should be private property? (Solid Libertarian answer: all of it)
3) So where should you be allowed to practice freedom of speech? (Answer: nowhere except your living room? And only *if* you own the living room and are not renting.)
multitoolsays
I’ve noticed also that a lot of Libertarian rationales against law & order come down to ‘everyone’s survival depends on their reputation, therefore everyone is deterred from acting dishonestly because it would harm their reputation, and therefore their life’.
You know, there isn’t any government or other institution, right now in the real world, to interfere with this ‘natural justice’ process. We don’t need a Libertarian president to prove if it works or not. Yet somehow major criminals still exist. How can that possibly be?
Ichthyicsays
It’s not that they “extend” the ideas, it’s that they add perverse central tenets:
Leninism added to Marx the claim that the proles were too stupid
uh, not perverse, realistic. The “proles” WERE too stupid (or at least uneducated).
it is a fact that your average joe was really not educated enough to pull something like that off.
it is a fact that your average joe is not educated enough… TODAY… for a pure democracy to function properly. this is not intended as insult… it is just a fact. I give you all the failures of direct democracy you can muster over the last 30 years as examples, including “brexit”.
You always will need smart people for things like a huge government shift that requires serious organizational and management and reasoning skills. It’s the whole “benevolent” thing that causes idealistic systems to fall apart, as benevolence has fuck all to do with how smart one is.
which of course, is exactly why the libertarian utopia can never happen either.
it all comes down to that “benevolent” thing.
anymsays
#7, DanDare
Tax is theft? How do you fund the services governments provide? Only the wealthy have police and civil laws?
It’s like saying charging for goods and services is theft. Only those that want to pay have to?
In Libertaria, if you want services, you pay for them; its the coercive nature of tax that’s the problem. People are reasonable, and will be happy to pay for the upkeep of infrastructure and the provision of security services and so on. But you must’t force them to pay for it, heavens no. See, for example, the US healthcare system. Private insurance policies are reasonable and fair, and government funded healthcare is unreasonable theft and oppression. This is why everything is so much worse in the looter-controlled european socialist hellholes, and people are so unhappy there.
But don’t go thinking that Libertarians are cruel and entirely contemptuous of the less fortunate. Want a social safety net? Why, then you can either donate to charities that provide such things if you’re rich, or throw yourself upon their mercies if you are not. Surely conforming to the ideologies behind those charitable organisations is a small price to pay when you have no other choices!
ck, the Irate Lumpsays
anym wrote:
In Libertaria, if you want services, you pay for them; its the coercive nature of tax that’s the problem.
Yep, and the choice between paying $50,000 for a life-saving surgery versus paying nothing and dying must be upheld at all costs. Allowing someone to pay nothing and get to survive past tomorrow is oppression or something.
Maaan, I liked the rant but still don’t get the squirrel metaphor.
Like squirrels just grab any acorn they find and bury it where they _hope_ to dig it up in winter; with a success rate of ~10%?????
me at a loss
still that’s just me, ScienceGuy wrote an excellent rant about Liber___arians,
I’ve heard rumors that squirrels altruistically share their acorn hoards with hungry squirrels.
but that’s just a rumor
In my later college years, I had thought I transferred out of conservatism and into libertarianism. One of my Journalism professors, a crusty old Lefty who wore his socialism on his sleeve, said I was a right-winger.
“I’m not a right-winger,” I countered. “I’m a libertarian. We oppose both the Left and the Right!”
“Are you for capitalism?” He asked. “If so, you’re a right-winger, shut up.”
At that time, I was pissed at him for such an insult against my character. After-all, right-wingers were prudes who opposed sexual freedom, and drug prohibition, and banning abortion. They were just as “tyrannical” as the Left with their socialism, gun control, and environmentalism. I was for individual rights, and freedom, and because I applied my notions of”liberty” consistently, I was morally superior to those hypocritical liberals and conservatives.
Twenty years of woe later, I’ve come to realize who fucking stupid and childish and wrong “consistancy” can be.
Yeesh, Libertarians. Some of their ideas I 100% agree with, like ending the war on drugs and some other laws that are basically about enforcing someones idea of morality. But then they just get off into the bat poop crazy ones like not needing a drivers license or the national sales tax. If you’re an idiot or an asshole they are good ideas right up until you start looking into them then you see the stupid.
I recall first reading about libertarianism about 30 years ago. Sounded interesting. Too interesting, raising my skeptical alert. Then I asked what was missing. Thought a couple of minutes, then the obvious came to me, the Public Good and Public welfare. AHA moment. Dismissed the idea. Took about 15 minutes from start to finish.
slithey tove: Please educate yourself about the squirrel menace before the Squirrelpocalypse is upon us—and it’s too late.
Part 1: biological warfare.
Part 2: depravity and terrorism.
Part 3: action plan.
#deathtosquirrels
Tax is theft? How do you fund the services governments provide? Only the wealthy have police and civil laws?
It’s like saying charging for goods and services is theft. Only those that want to pay have to?
Libertarians are like communists, they both have a worthy central idea (communism = proletariat is exploited by the capitalists, individual rights are important). But they both extend and uses these ideas in areas where their philosophy has no right being.
It’s sad that the liberal-libertarian alliance of convenience of the Bush years disappeared. The ideas that libertarian and liberals had in common were pretty damn awesome. Really didn’t see the Democrats becoming the party of deportation and drones.
qwints
I quit smoking weed years ago things just do not look like that to me any more.
uncle frogy
It’s not that they “extend” the ideas, it’s that they add perverse central tenets:
Leninism added to Marx the claim that the proles were too stupid to rebel on their own and therefore needed the benevolent autocratic rule of ideologically similar intellectuals who’d have the cognitive capacity and mental fortitude to organize the necessary genocide of the owner class
Randologism adds the claim that the proles are too stupid to make trustworthy economic actors and therefore need the benevolent autocratic rule of ideologically similar businessmen who’ll have the cognitive capacity and mental fortitude to organize the necessary campaign of social darwinism“
Ah, libertarianism: the political philosophy for those who really want to be right-wing but are are savvy enough to avoid the trappings of the conservative right. At least they know a losing battle when they see one.
A classic tweet from @crushingbort:
“hmm well I’d say I’m fiscally conservative but socially very liberal. the problems are bad but their causes…their causes are very good”
Mike Huben’s blog offers the most comprehensive takedown: critiquesoflibertarianism.blogspot.com
and mtraven’s is scathing and entertaining: libertardian.wordpress.com
Sadly both have been quiet lately.
Most critiques of Libertarianism only work from outside its adherents’ point of view. E.G. people argue against it from a place of compassion, or the public good, or our culture, etc. none of which are particularly on the Libertarian radar.
I’d like to see more arguments that take it down from the inside, that is expose its severe self-contradictions.
For example:
1) If someone is on your private property and starts badmouthing you, should you have the right to throw them out? (Yes)
2) So what fraction of the world should be private property? (Solid Libertarian answer: all of it)
3) So where should you be allowed to practice freedom of speech? (Answer: nowhere except your living room? And only *if* you own the living room and are not renting.)
I’ve noticed also that a lot of Libertarian rationales against law & order come down to ‘everyone’s survival depends on their reputation, therefore everyone is deterred from acting dishonestly because it would harm their reputation, and therefore their life’.
You know, there isn’t any government or other institution, right now in the real world, to interfere with this ‘natural justice’ process. We don’t need a Libertarian president to prove if it works or not. Yet somehow major criminals still exist. How can that possibly be?
uh, not perverse, realistic. The “proles” WERE too stupid (or at least uneducated).
it is a fact that your average joe was really not educated enough to pull something like that off.
it is a fact that your average joe is not educated enough… TODAY… for a pure democracy to function properly. this is not intended as insult… it is just a fact. I give you all the failures of direct democracy you can muster over the last 30 years as examples, including “brexit”.
You always will need smart people for things like a huge government shift that requires serious organizational and management and reasoning skills. It’s the whole “benevolent” thing that causes idealistic systems to fall apart, as benevolence has fuck all to do with how smart one is.
which of course, is exactly why the libertarian utopia can never happen either.
it all comes down to that “benevolent” thing.
#7, DanDare
In Libertaria, if you want services, you pay for them; its the coercive nature of tax that’s the problem. People are reasonable, and will be happy to pay for the upkeep of infrastructure and the provision of security services and so on. But you must’t force them to pay for it, heavens no. See, for example, the US healthcare system. Private insurance policies are reasonable and fair, and government funded healthcare is unreasonable theft and oppression. This is why everything is so much worse in the looter-controlled european socialist hellholes, and people are so unhappy there.
But don’t go thinking that Libertarians are cruel and entirely contemptuous of the less fortunate. Want a social safety net? Why, then you can either donate to charities that provide such things if you’re rich, or throw yourself upon their mercies if you are not. Surely conforming to the ideologies behind those charitable organisations is a small price to pay when you have no other choices!
anym wrote:
Yep, and the choice between paying $50,000 for a life-saving surgery versus paying nothing and dying must be upheld at all costs. Allowing someone to pay nothing and get to survive past tomorrow is oppression or something.