The problem with libertarianism, in a nutshell, is demonstrated in the naive mistaken view that David Boaz takes in the above essay towards government. To decry the growth of government as somehow a disutility, as somehow a correlation between government size and decreasing freedoms is simplistic and frankly wrong. Hasn't the size of economies and human population grown exponentially in the last two hundred years? What is government for then? With the increasing economic size and population comes increasing consequences when things go wrong: conflicts between individuals and groups, and increasing "externalities", downstream effects of economic activities that can harm "third parties" and the environment that supports agriculture and the natural world. Global Warming is the mother of all externalities, and it's obvious that economic growth is making it exponentially worse. Markets alone are a big part of the problem, and solving it or at best alleviating or mitigating its effects requires government regulation and coordination between governments on a global scale. From my interactions with various libertarians I have seen a lot of denial surrounding climate change: denial that it is happening, denial that it is caused by human activity, and denial that it is a serious problem. In my view this is evidence that libertarians in general are evading the issue mainly because it undermines their simplistic view that "government is the problem" and that markets can always provide the solutions. To pretend that a threat to society does not exist when it does exist, and to eschew the means to prevent or mitigate this threat because it conflicts with one's pure philosophy is the height of irresponsibility. The exponential increase in disinformation and out and out lies, and the popularity of fascist politicians like Donald Trump is a direct result of these kinds of evasion.
Government is a framework through which entities like you rob folks to finance initiated up-to-lethal enforcement of entities' opinions against folk by entities like you.
Libertarianism is a belief: Don't initiate physical force, and don't take other folks' stuff without their informed consent. That is all it is.
RobertL39 and you apparently think that government is a proper framework for reducing folks' misery. I hold that government is a framework for increasing folks' misery to control folks.
Folks move out of states for a lot of reasons. Some leave because they hope that their destinations offer better options than their starting points, even though government folks offer services such as "health care", "education", or "security against foreign invasions". Governments such as United Kingdom, Russia, Cuba, China, Canada, Germany, United States all offer these sorts of service; and folks leave because they think life can be better for themselves elsewhere.
It's a vicious circle, take away government support and level of education, quality of diet, health and lifespan all decrease. When they decrease, people become more desperate and vulnerable, making them easy prey for con-artists and demagogues. The less-educated are less able to tell misinformation and disinformation from the truth. Public goods, which are not adequately provided for by the market, are essential for general health and well being and economic productivity. Canada is a poorer country than the U.S., but we have a higher lifespan and better overall health because we have universal medicare and the U.S. does not. Less developed nations are less productive than industrial nations because their infrastructure, educational systems, legal systems, and healthcare systems are backward and only serve a minority of the population.
I am not interested in saving the world; fuck the world.
I am only interested in hands-on-local service: periodically cleaning up a stretch of highway or helping distribute food to unfortunate folks. or helping folks needing a helping hand.
I have no interest in helping unfortunate folks in other parts of the world; speaking only for myself, fuck 'em all, let the devil sort 'em out.
This essay is otherwise a well-written description of what I do think at a local level.
Consider Doc's comment carefully. It was probably completely unintended by the author, but it's a the most succinct description of bare-bones libertarianism I've ever read! In a couple sentences he says as clearly and no less accurately what Charles Justice says in the full paragraph comment above.
If it works for you, use it. But it doesn't capture the complete lack of "caring" (per J. Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory) that's such a HUGE part of libertarianism. Whereas the short comment above mine did so quite nicely. A good friend of mine called libertarians "conservatives without a conscience" and I think that sums it up pretty well too, though Haidt's MFT suggests they're actually more aligned with liberal foundations than conservative ones.
Keep on writin' them tunes! Check out Bo Carter: "I'm an All-Around Man".
All-Around Man is excellent.....I saved the song to my Covers file. I only found one chord arrangement of Bb and Eb and expect to transcribe that to Amajor7th and Dmajor7th due to the fact that I tune my major7th guitar to the key of D#.
The lack of caring that you ascribe to libertarianism is related to brutalism. There are compassion oriented libertarians who hold that government is not the proper framework for caring for folks. And then there are reform libertarians who hold that liberty-inclined folks can fix government.
Charles Justice and you apparently think that government is a proper framework for reducing folks' misery. I hold that government is a framework for increasing folks' misery to control folks.
Thank you for referring me to I'm an All-Around Man.
I like this historical definition of liberalism. Although I think it still tends to “both sides” the extremes today when the far right is much more active and dangerous.
Nonsense. The far left is absolutely as active and as dangerous as anything else we see in the world today. It is ridiculous l, or rather partisan, to say otherwise.
If Trump is reelected and starts cracking down on web sites he doesn’t like such as Substack or the bulwark, will you step up personal attacks on Trump or try to lay low?
“These enemies used to reside mainly on the socialist left in the last century,” wait, what? In the era of literal Nazis enemies of liberalism were _mainly_ on the left?
Why even pick a “mainly”? Illiberalism creeps up on us everywhere.
Was it really defeated? Or was it like confederacy was defeated in the Civil War but remained festering with Jim Crow? Anyway I think communism/fascism are more alike than people like to admit (horseshoe left) and we should probably adjust our thinking to a democracy vs autocracy axis.
I agree with your assessment of the similarities of communism/fascism BuckeyeGuy but your comment above about the "far right being more active and dangerous today" doesn't comport with reality. Leftists control the vast majority of institutions today, from the presidency, the Senate, the FBI , CIA and the military to education, silicon valley, the media, Hollywood and corporate board rooms. The power they
exert dwarfs talk radio, conservative media, the House
and SCOTUS. Also, calling Trump a facist only diminishes the real evil of Nazi Germany and never seems to be accompanied with any examples. His administration was successful in increasing peace and prosperity despite his admittedly narcissistic personality and the four year tantrum thrown by leftists/Democrats.
Your lumping of social and political institutions is misleading and sensationalistic, Ted The latter change hands all the time so Dems or libs are not in "control" of them. As for the former, those have progressive leanings because progressives promote justice and equality, which are universal desires. They have their excesses and their means are not always liberal. But to depict such desires as inherently dangerous is what's mobilizing the destructive culture wars, which is the real problem.
Point well taken about the political institutions Shikha, at least when it comes to the presidency and Congress. As far as the other government institutions go though, the administrative state is certainly under the control of leftists/liberals and can't be described as democratic or responsive to the people since the bureaucrats that populate them are all unelected. Washington is a liberal town without a doubt, and not likely to change anytime soon.
As far as the social institutions being about "justice and equality" under liberal control, I think a more accurate description of their agenda is "social justice" and equality of outcome. Both of these latter ideas are anathema to the former ones. Social justice ignores personal responsibility/merit in favor of group membership. This is a particularly divisive and destructive idea. Do you want to fly on an airliner flown by a pilot chosen on the basis of "equity" rather than merit? Do you want your surgeon chosen according to her group membership instead of merit? This is the world we are fast approaching.
1) I think thought experiments like "do you want to be flown by a pilot chosen on the basis of equity" scare rather than inform because all pilots and doctors have to go through a rigorous training system and pass a gazillion exams to become pilots and doctors. (2) The argument of progressives is that there are all kinds of affronts to merit baked into our social system to privilege dominant, native groups. So merit is a myth. That argument, once you start looking around, has a lot of truth to it. As far as I am concerned, the best response should be to dismantle those privileges and create a truly level playing field. But if you are not going to do that, then offering some small advantage to the historically discriminated who meet basic qualifications isn't all that awful (I used to advocate only the first but now have changed my mind) 3) I take those sticking up for merit more seriously when they agree to throw open the economy to competition from the best and the brightest around the world. But that is not want MAGAism is about. Its radical restrictionism is essentially affirmative action for natives to shield them from competition. Yet you are flown by products of that system everyday without any untoward incidents. Those truly concerned about merit should target that ideology and its leader, Trump, a poster child to affirmative action for the rich, white.
Trump can do even more damage than Hitler, as in starting World War III. He's already suggested using nukes for some trivial skirmish . We all need to make sure he never sees the inside of the White House again. It's so obvious that besides being a big fan of Putin, who is an out and out fascist, Trump admires Hitler - he's just bashful about admitting it. You don't like the comparison because you just don't get it, nor did German Conservatives get how dangerous Hitler was until it was too late.
For the first time in decades there were no new involvements/wars started by the U.S. during the 4 years of Trump. You make rather serious accusations about him, again without any examples to back them up. Your hatred of him clouds your judgement and causes you not to "get it".
Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine was a direct result of January sixth. Trump's refusal to accept defeat in a legitimate election and his subsequent attempt at an insurrection seriously weakened American standing in the world. Putin saw his chance and spent the rest of that year massing troops and the machinery of war for the big invasion. Trump's idiotic treaty with the Taliban took the spirit out of the Afghanistan's government and it folded like a house of cards after Biden withdrew American troops. The only reason more damage around the world was not done during Trump's presidency is that he had competent secretaries of defence who restrained him, all of whom now totally repudiate Trump. He will be unrestrained this time.
If you need examples of Trump as you state than you are either arguing in bad faith or are so completely lost to reality that it’s no longer worth it to even engage with you and your fascism curious outlook. Good day.
I have to completely disagree with your assessment about leftists controlling the vast majority of institutions today, in fact it’s the complete opposite of that and I can’t comprehend how you would actually think that other you’ve been brainwashed by the libertarian right propaganda of the past 40 years.
Obviously we can't even agree on the facts. If you think institutions like Harvard, Yale, U. Penn, Hollywood and the mainstream media are controlled by conservatives, I'm at a loss as to what to say.
The problem with libertarianism, in a nutshell, is demonstrated in the naive mistaken view that David Boaz takes in the above essay towards government. To decry the growth of government as somehow a disutility, as somehow a correlation between government size and decreasing freedoms is simplistic and frankly wrong. Hasn't the size of economies and human population grown exponentially in the last two hundred years? What is government for then? With the increasing economic size and population comes increasing consequences when things go wrong: conflicts between individuals and groups, and increasing "externalities", downstream effects of economic activities that can harm "third parties" and the environment that supports agriculture and the natural world. Global Warming is the mother of all externalities, and it's obvious that economic growth is making it exponentially worse. Markets alone are a big part of the problem, and solving it or at best alleviating or mitigating its effects requires government regulation and coordination between governments on a global scale. From my interactions with various libertarians I have seen a lot of denial surrounding climate change: denial that it is happening, denial that it is caused by human activity, and denial that it is a serious problem. In my view this is evidence that libertarians in general are evading the issue mainly because it undermines their simplistic view that "government is the problem" and that markets can always provide the solutions. To pretend that a threat to society does not exist when it does exist, and to eschew the means to prevent or mitigate this threat because it conflicts with one's pure philosophy is the height of irresponsibility. The exponential increase in disinformation and out and out lies, and the popularity of fascist politicians like Donald Trump is a direct result of these kinds of evasion.
@Charles Justice
Government is a framework through which entities like you rob folks to finance initiated up-to-lethal enforcement of entities' opinions against folk by entities like you.
Libertarianism is a belief: Don't initiate physical force, and don't take other folks' stuff without their informed consent. That is all it is.
When you have no government services it's called a failed state. People emigrate from failed states in order to survive.
Charles Justice
RobertL39 and you apparently think that government is a proper framework for reducing folks' misery. I hold that government is a framework for increasing folks' misery to control folks.
Folks move out of states for a lot of reasons. Some leave because they hope that their destinations offer better options than their starting points, even though government folks offer services such as "health care", "education", or "security against foreign invasions". Governments such as United Kingdom, Russia, Cuba, China, Canada, Germany, United States all offer these sorts of service; and folks leave because they think life can be better for themselves elsewhere.
It's a vicious circle, take away government support and level of education, quality of diet, health and lifespan all decrease. When they decrease, people become more desperate and vulnerable, making them easy prey for con-artists and demagogues. The less-educated are less able to tell misinformation and disinformation from the truth. Public goods, which are not adequately provided for by the market, are essential for general health and well being and economic productivity. Canada is a poorer country than the U.S., but we have a higher lifespan and better overall health because we have universal medicare and the U.S. does not. Less developed nations are less productive than industrial nations because their infrastructure, educational systems, legal systems, and healthcare systems are backward and only serve a minority of the population.
@Charles Justice
Thank you for your comments.
Be well
I am not interested in saving the world; fuck the world.
I am only interested in hands-on-local service: periodically cleaning up a stretch of highway or helping distribute food to unfortunate folks. or helping folks needing a helping hand.
I have no interest in helping unfortunate folks in other parts of the world; speaking only for myself, fuck 'em all, let the devil sort 'em out.
This essay is otherwise a well-written description of what I do think at a local level.
Consider Doc's comment carefully. It was probably completely unintended by the author, but it's a the most succinct description of bare-bones libertarianism I've ever read! In a couple sentences he says as clearly and no less accurately what Charles Justice says in the full paragraph comment above.
@RobertL39
Bare-bones libertarianism in one sentence:
Don't initiate physical force, and don't take other folks' stuff without their informed consent.
If it works for you, use it. But it doesn't capture the complete lack of "caring" (per J. Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory) that's such a HUGE part of libertarianism. Whereas the short comment above mine did so quite nicely. A good friend of mine called libertarians "conservatives without a conscience" and I think that sums it up pretty well too, though Haidt's MFT suggests they're actually more aligned with liberal foundations than conservative ones.
Keep on writin' them tunes! Check out Bo Carter: "I'm an All-Around Man".
RobertL39
All-Around Man is excellent.....I saved the song to my Covers file. I only found one chord arrangement of Bb and Eb and expect to transcribe that to Amajor7th and Dmajor7th due to the fact that I tune my major7th guitar to the key of D#.
The lack of caring that you ascribe to libertarianism is related to brutalism. There are compassion oriented libertarians who hold that government is not the proper framework for caring for folks. And then there are reform libertarians who hold that liberty-inclined folks can fix government.
Charles Justice and you apparently think that government is a proper framework for reducing folks' misery. I hold that government is a framework for increasing folks' misery to control folks.
Thank you for referring me to I'm an All-Around Man.
I like this historical definition of liberalism. Although I think it still tends to “both sides” the extremes today when the far right is much more active and dangerous.
Nonsense. The far left is absolutely as active and as dangerous as anything else we see in the world today. It is ridiculous l, or rather partisan, to say otherwise.
What’s your proof?
If Trump is reelected and starts cracking down on web sites he doesn’t like such as Substack or the bulwark, will you step up personal attacks on Trump or try to lay low?
“These enemies used to reside mainly on the socialist left in the last century,” wait, what? In the era of literal Nazis enemies of liberalism were _mainly_ on the left?
Why even pick a “mainly”? Illiberalism creeps up on us everywhere.
Fascism was defeated in WW II leaving socialism as the main contender of liberalism. But now it’s back!
Was it really defeated? Or was it like confederacy was defeated in the Civil War but remained festering with Jim Crow? Anyway I think communism/fascism are more alike than people like to admit (horseshoe left) and we should probably adjust our thinking to a democracy vs autocracy axis.
I agree with your assessment of the similarities of communism/fascism BuckeyeGuy but your comment above about the "far right being more active and dangerous today" doesn't comport with reality. Leftists control the vast majority of institutions today, from the presidency, the Senate, the FBI , CIA and the military to education, silicon valley, the media, Hollywood and corporate board rooms. The power they
exert dwarfs talk radio, conservative media, the House
and SCOTUS. Also, calling Trump a facist only diminishes the real evil of Nazi Germany and never seems to be accompanied with any examples. His administration was successful in increasing peace and prosperity despite his admittedly narcissistic personality and the four year tantrum thrown by leftists/Democrats.
Your lumping of social and political institutions is misleading and sensationalistic, Ted The latter change hands all the time so Dems or libs are not in "control" of them. As for the former, those have progressive leanings because progressives promote justice and equality, which are universal desires. They have their excesses and their means are not always liberal. But to depict such desires as inherently dangerous is what's mobilizing the destructive culture wars, which is the real problem.
Point well taken about the political institutions Shikha, at least when it comes to the presidency and Congress. As far as the other government institutions go though, the administrative state is certainly under the control of leftists/liberals and can't be described as democratic or responsive to the people since the bureaucrats that populate them are all unelected. Washington is a liberal town without a doubt, and not likely to change anytime soon.
As far as the social institutions being about "justice and equality" under liberal control, I think a more accurate description of their agenda is "social justice" and equality of outcome. Both of these latter ideas are anathema to the former ones. Social justice ignores personal responsibility/merit in favor of group membership. This is a particularly divisive and destructive idea. Do you want to fly on an airliner flown by a pilot chosen on the basis of "equity" rather than merit? Do you want your surgeon chosen according to her group membership instead of merit? This is the world we are fast approaching.
1) I think thought experiments like "do you want to be flown by a pilot chosen on the basis of equity" scare rather than inform because all pilots and doctors have to go through a rigorous training system and pass a gazillion exams to become pilots and doctors. (2) The argument of progressives is that there are all kinds of affronts to merit baked into our social system to privilege dominant, native groups. So merit is a myth. That argument, once you start looking around, has a lot of truth to it. As far as I am concerned, the best response should be to dismantle those privileges and create a truly level playing field. But if you are not going to do that, then offering some small advantage to the historically discriminated who meet basic qualifications isn't all that awful (I used to advocate only the first but now have changed my mind) 3) I take those sticking up for merit more seriously when they agree to throw open the economy to competition from the best and the brightest around the world. But that is not want MAGAism is about. Its radical restrictionism is essentially affirmative action for natives to shield them from competition. Yet you are flown by products of that system everyday without any untoward incidents. Those truly concerned about merit should target that ideology and its leader, Trump, a poster child to affirmative action for the rich, white.
Well said.
Trump can do even more damage than Hitler, as in starting World War III. He's already suggested using nukes for some trivial skirmish . We all need to make sure he never sees the inside of the White House again. It's so obvious that besides being a big fan of Putin, who is an out and out fascist, Trump admires Hitler - he's just bashful about admitting it. You don't like the comparison because you just don't get it, nor did German Conservatives get how dangerous Hitler was until it was too late.
For the first time in decades there were no new involvements/wars started by the U.S. during the 4 years of Trump. You make rather serious accusations about him, again without any examples to back them up. Your hatred of him clouds your judgement and causes you not to "get it".
Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine was a direct result of January sixth. Trump's refusal to accept defeat in a legitimate election and his subsequent attempt at an insurrection seriously weakened American standing in the world. Putin saw his chance and spent the rest of that year massing troops and the machinery of war for the big invasion. Trump's idiotic treaty with the Taliban took the spirit out of the Afghanistan's government and it folded like a house of cards after Biden withdrew American troops. The only reason more damage around the world was not done during Trump's presidency is that he had competent secretaries of defence who restrained him, all of whom now totally repudiate Trump. He will be unrestrained this time.
If you need examples of Trump as you state than you are either arguing in bad faith or are so completely lost to reality that it’s no longer worth it to even engage with you and your fascism curious outlook. Good day.
I have to completely disagree with your assessment about leftists controlling the vast majority of institutions today, in fact it’s the complete opposite of that and I can’t comprehend how you would actually think that other you’ve been brainwashed by the libertarian right propaganda of the past 40 years.
Obviously we can't even agree on the facts. If you think institutions like Harvard, Yale, U. Penn, Hollywood and the mainstream media are controlled by conservatives, I'm at a loss as to what to say.