Libertarianism

What does everyone here think of libertarianism and the Libertarian Party? Personally I'm a huge fan of libertarianism, it's the best party in my opinion, I do however believe there should be some government involvement in the economy and that we shouldn't abolish minimum wage, but I agree with pretty much everything else they stand for, what about you? Below is some information regarding the Libertarian Party and libertarianism in general, taken from the official Libertarian Party website.


Taken from: http://www.lp.org/platform
Preamble
As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.

Consequently, we defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

In the following pages we have set forth our basic principles and enumerated various policy stands derived from those principles.

These specific policies are not our goal, however. Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands.
Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

1.0 Personal Liberty
Individuals should be free to make choices for themselves and to accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make. No individual, group, or government may initiate force against any other individual, group, or government. Our support of an individual's right to make choices in life does not mean that we necessarily approve or disapprove of those choices.

1.1 Expression and Communication
We support full freedom of expres

 

Libertarianism sits at the table with communism as one of those "great on paper, fails in reality" types of philosophies. At best, it's naive. At worst, it's a haven for anarchist and sociopaths.

I mean, it sounds good, but it's unworkable. Take the very first principle:

Individuals should be free to make choices for themselves and to accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make.

What about how the choices of certain individuals impact other individuals?

For example, should a hot dog vendor be free to choose to sell meat that he knows is of poor quality, even potentially a health hazard? And can his customers really be said to have made the choice for themselves to eat his wares when they were not given all the relevant information, namely that he had no quality control on his product? The choice is then between fear and hedonism. How can you be sure that what you're eating is safe without having to do your own tests or take your life into your hands just to have lunch? So maybe we just designate a group of people whose job it will be to check on that and report to the rest of us if the food is safe or not. Whoops, you've just created a rudimentary regulatory body!

As Barney Frank (I believe) has said, at its best, "government" is simply the name we give the actions we choose to take together. There's nothing inherently bad about a government or regulation if it serves and represents the people. It's only when it gets mired in special interests or starts navel-gazing and forgets that it isn't a closed system, and starts taking action at the expense of the people, that it becomes a problem.

Less government and better government are not automatically the same thing. If anybody thinks they are, I invite you to buy some property in Nigeria or Somalia and let us know how that works out for you.

 

I think there's elements of libertarianism that are very good, but I can't sign on to it completely. I think that people should have the right to make decisions for themselves, but I also support government helping people to make those decisions. So, for example, along DorkmanScott's example, I think that it's absolutely acceptable for the government to require vendors to display the ingredients and the calorie counts of foods. I don't, however, think it's government's position to decide that I can't eat something because it has trans fats, or has too much sugar, or too many calories or something like that.

Similarly, and again, this is largely as I'm insanely pro-education, I view education as a key role for government (although, not necessarily federal government), and think that not only should the government provide education for K-12, but that for select fields and occupations, college should also be fully provided by the government as the level of funding that would be needed for a standard 4-year public university.

 

I like John Stossel.

 

Does this mean you're free to form a union, but your employer is free to not consider it valid? How does this even work? So, if there is a union, the employer can disregard a strike as an illegal action, since he doesn't recognize their right to?

 

I could be free to turn my property into a garbage dump? Right in the middle of town? And potentially lower the property value of all the properties around me?

Awesome.

But yeah, I like some of the principles of Libertarianism...but as a whole I just think it has the potential to be dangerous.

 

The John Stossel whose rants inevitably fall into '**** the poor!' John Stossel? That one? Yeah, he's an ***hole.

For libertarianism, I myself have flirted with the notion of a libertarian viewpoint, but when I really thought about it and grew a brain--it seems to lack any foresight into how humans will invariably react. Not to get on an 'all humans are bastards' rant, but have you seen how Americans act toward each other? We're recklessly destroying ourselves and trying to institute some sort of theocracy. And when the people aren't trying to do that they're busy killing each other over petty things sneakers. Now, maybe someday we'll all evolve to a point where such things are possible, but right now libertarianism is a flawed ideology that puts too much faith in corporations to act humanely and too much faith on us to act humanely toward each other.

By the way, the current 'libertarian' philosophy that is popular in today's US is a form of religious nuttery and conservative ideals that would mean the end of taxes. Which is amusing since a lot of these psychopaths are on social security and medicare.

 

Yeah, well, Ron and "not named after Ayn" Rand Paul show the reality of the Libertarian Party.

 

I envy Ron Paul - the man came out of medical school fluent in monetary and financial knowledge. Oh, wait.

 

"How to screw over your fellow man and still act like you're 'one of them' even though Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism is all about being greedy and screwing over everyone and being 'special' just by being in the same room as your 'inferior'."

That reality? Why yes, he certainly showed the Libertarian party for what it is: bull****.


The even sadder fact is that briefly I toyed with the notion of being libertarian until I read up on it. Now I found I have a profound distaste for it and want it stamped out from humanity as quickly as possible. The sooner bad ideas die, the better.

 

Apparently unlike several people, I find libertarianism disgusting both in concept and practice.

 

Hey, don't you dare out-disgust me. I'm disgustable! Which is like combustable...but with more vomit and chew toys.

 

So you believe in a political philosophy that stresses acceptance of circumstances allowing those with power to make use of said power without restrictions, but then you complain that your thread gets locked by someone with more power than you? God damn do I love lolbertarians. You might as well sum up the political philosophy as "Every man for himself except me because I'm special me me me."

 

Then those individuals seek legal reciprocity.

 

On what basis? Under libertarian theory, it shouldn't be a crime to sell poisoned, spoiled, or low quality foodstuffs. The business owner has a right to do so, after all.

And this sort of thing is exactly why libertarianism is an idiotic proposition.

 

That's an idiotic statement. There would still be a government, but minimal government and one based on contracts between private entities fully enforceable through the court system.

And you act like governments protect us from poisoned, spoiled, or low quality food now.

Damn, I love you archaic-collectivists. You're like a bad penny.

 

See, the government did protect us from bad food and such, but since buying into 'tort reform' they've since made punishment laughable for the crimes corporations perpetrate. So yes, at one point the government tried its best. But thanks to those ****suckers in the Republican party they have ceased to give a crap.

And a government that small would be a government too small to govern or even place sanctions against companies who sell poisoned stock.

 

I'm not going to dignify jokes with serious responses. But if you honestly meant that you don't think there's a difference between our current system, and one where there was no FDA or food safety regulations of any sort, then that probably ranks as one of most ignorant non-troll comments I've ever seen posted on these boards. Come on.

Also, why is the statement "idiotic?" Buying food from a restaurant or grocer isn't a contract. There's nothing to enforce, so long as the seller gave you the item that you said you wanted, and you paid the price for it.

For more fun, how would a libertarian government handle a heavy industrial company that dumped toxic waste into a nearby river, poisoning local residents (sometimes fatally)? As in the case above, there would be no contract violation, as the company is in fact producing the items it was hired out to. This time, the victims aren't even party to the contract, so how could they possibly have any standing?

 

The same way they do now: they sue for restitution. Also, the river would no longer be a commons, freely exploited by big corporations, but one either owned collectively by a community or private individuals so the "heavy industrial company" would be under a contract with the neighboring property owners to internalize their negative externalities.

All they do now is petition government and attain favors and loopholes in laws. So these industries use governments to flaunt regulations anyway.
Contracts and property rights extensions are better.

 

And you are suggesting a contract would be drafted every single time a person stops at McDonald's? What's to keep contracts from being coercive? And if you have some sort of safeguard to ensure contracts don't do things like grant the right to sell poisoned food, how is that different than simply having a regulatory body that declares such behavior illegal as a matter of course?

You make it really hard to take you seriously. Again, do you seriously believe that there is no control of water quality right now? Do you have any idea why rivers don't catch on fire anymore?

You seem to dislike government only because you have a very dim idea of what it actually does.

 

EDIT: Not really sure how this happened, sorry.

 

Well, it's murdered hundreds of millions of people and spent numerous nations into financial ruin.

Congrats. I'll keep my big bad evviill corporations thank you.

 

Do you find it evenly mildly ironic that you're ridiculing what you perceive to be overly broad caricatures by using your own overly broad caricatures? I'm half-expecting you to argue "Yeah well Nazi Germany was a government, too!"

 

You mean like Monsanto?

Seriously, Google Monsanto. They patent their seeds, set those seeds to blow onto private citizens' farms, then claim they own the farms. Not a good thing.