he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it’s become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don’t want to be called Repuiblicans
I had a similar progression myself when I was in my teens, maybe even early 20s.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview. It took me a while to realize how common it is for self-identifying libertarians to lack any capacity for nuance. The natural extreme of “libertarianism” is just anarchy and feudalism.
In a sane world, I might still call myself a libertarian. In a sane world, that might mean letting people live their own damn lives, not throwing them to the wolves (or more literally, bears ) and dismantling the government entirely.
I’m all for minding my own business, but I also acknowledge that maintaining a functional society is everybody’s business (as much as I occasionally wish I could opt out and go live in a cave).
The core political belief I hold is that so long as you are not directly harming someone else, you should be free to do that. That said, I have a lot built up on that.
I do not extend it to corporations or government. I believe that regulation is undoubtedly necessary for a functioning society.
And with laws, nuance is in everything. Nothing is ever so black and white to have a zero tolerance policy.
Why limit it to direct harm? There’s tons of easily avoidable ways to indirectly cause harm. The most obvious to me are about our natural world: taking anything in an unsustainable way deprives others of opportunity, up to and including their ability to feed themself. Reckless hunting or fishing, poisoning water with agriculture runoff, introducing invasive species for personal gain or through negligence, even just cutting down all the trees around you can have loads of consequences with the impact to animal habitat and increased soil erosion.
Indirect becomes nebulous. At what degree of indirect harm do we set that limit. Almost every action we do may cause indirect harm to others. It might be better phrases as “physically” harms someone. I don’t want to get into someone doing something to themselves like taking drugs and restrict it solely on the basis that it will hurt their family and friends to see what happens to them.
I use it as the core base of my beliefs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think that freedom divests them of any responsibility for their indirect actions. It’s the default position until something convinces me why it should be restricted or outlawed.
I also limit it to individuals working alone. Once they work in groups and organize the damage that can be done is different. Or doing it for commercial reasons. I believe private businesses can only exist under strict regulation.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview
The problem is obviously that nobody lives in isolation. Everyone takes actions which impact other people.
If there are going to be laws, then the government needs a police force and a judiciary that are big enough to enforce those laws. If there are going to be companies, the government has to be bigger than the biggest company, otherwise it won’t be able to effectively enforce anything. The bigger the biggest company gets, the bigger the government has to be in order to be able to enforce the laws. But, big government is antithetical to the libertarian philosophy. If you want to limit the size of the government but still want government to be able to enforce laws, you need to limit the size of companies. But that’s a regulation, and government regulations are antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.
Arguing for the idea that the government should generally let people mind their own business as long as nobody is getting hurt, or that consenting adults are knowingly and willingly consenting to being hurt, that’s fine. Same with the idea that regulations shouldn’t be overly burdensome. There’s always going to have to be a line drawn somewhere, but it’s fine if you tend to want that line to be drawn in a way that allows for more freedom vs. more babysitting by the government.
The ridiculous bit is when libertarians try to argue that some extreme form of libertarianism is possible. Anarchy is certainly possible, but it isn’t something that most people, even libertarians, think is a great plan.
The extreme forms of Libertarianism or Anarchy are only possible if everyone engages in good faith. They have no built-in protections against bad actors. Someone wants to divert a river for any reason? Sucks to be downstream.
Anarchism can. Anarchism is not the stupid “no rules” thing the media portrays. It’s a lack of hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have government, rules, and protections. In fact, I think any Anarchist would agree they’re required or else people can be exploited and lose their freedom, or things like your example can happen. We should just do it in a more cooperative form, not with a ruling class making the rules for us peasants.
I had a similar progression myself when I was in my teens, maybe even early 20s.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview. It took me a while to realize how common it is for self-identifying libertarians to lack any capacity for nuance. The natural extreme of “libertarianism” is just anarchy and feudalism.
In a sane world, I might still call myself a libertarian. In a sane world, that might mean letting people live their own damn lives, not throwing them to the wolves (or more literally, bears ) and dismantling the government entirely.
I’m all for minding my own business, but I also acknowledge that maintaining a functional society is everybody’s business (as much as I occasionally wish I could opt out and go live in a cave).
The core political belief I hold is that so long as you are not directly harming someone else, you should be free to do that. That said, I have a lot built up on that.
I do not extend it to corporations or government. I believe that regulation is undoubtedly necessary for a functioning society.
And with laws, nuance is in everything. Nothing is ever so black and white to have a zero tolerance policy.
Why limit it to direct harm? There’s tons of easily avoidable ways to indirectly cause harm. The most obvious to me are about our natural world: taking anything in an unsustainable way deprives others of opportunity, up to and including their ability to feed themself. Reckless hunting or fishing, poisoning water with agriculture runoff, introducing invasive species for personal gain or through negligence, even just cutting down all the trees around you can have loads of consequences with the impact to animal habitat and increased soil erosion.
Indirect becomes nebulous. At what degree of indirect harm do we set that limit. Almost every action we do may cause indirect harm to others. It might be better phrases as “physically” harms someone. I don’t want to get into someone doing something to themselves like taking drugs and restrict it solely on the basis that it will hurt their family and friends to see what happens to them.
I use it as the core base of my beliefs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think that freedom divests them of any responsibility for their indirect actions. It’s the default position until something convinces me why it should be restricted or outlawed.
I also limit it to individuals working alone. Once they work in groups and organize the damage that can be done is different. Or doing it for commercial reasons. I believe private businesses can only exist under strict regulation.
The problem is obviously that nobody lives in isolation. Everyone takes actions which impact other people.
If there are going to be laws, then the government needs a police force and a judiciary that are big enough to enforce those laws. If there are going to be companies, the government has to be bigger than the biggest company, otherwise it won’t be able to effectively enforce anything. The bigger the biggest company gets, the bigger the government has to be in order to be able to enforce the laws. But, big government is antithetical to the libertarian philosophy. If you want to limit the size of the government but still want government to be able to enforce laws, you need to limit the size of companies. But that’s a regulation, and government regulations are antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.
Arguing for the idea that the government should generally let people mind their own business as long as nobody is getting hurt, or that consenting adults are knowingly and willingly consenting to being hurt, that’s fine. Same with the idea that regulations shouldn’t be overly burdensome. There’s always going to have to be a line drawn somewhere, but it’s fine if you tend to want that line to be drawn in a way that allows for more freedom vs. more babysitting by the government.
The ridiculous bit is when libertarians try to argue that some extreme form of libertarianism is possible. Anarchy is certainly possible, but it isn’t something that most people, even libertarians, think is a great plan.
The extreme forms of Libertarianism or Anarchy are only possible if everyone engages in good faith. They have no built-in protections against bad actors. Someone wants to divert a river for any reason? Sucks to be downstream.
Anarchism can. Anarchism is not the stupid “no rules” thing the media portrays. It’s a lack of hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have government, rules, and protections. In fact, I think any Anarchist would agree they’re required or else people can be exploited and lose their freedom, or things like your example can happen. We should just do it in a more cooperative form, not with a ruling class making the rules for us peasants.
How can rules be enforced without a heirarchy of privilege? What stops someone from saying “I don’t consent to being told what to do”?