I lean left in the libertarian spectrum. On a daily basis I am confronted with moral / ethical dilemmas which I usually debate out loud to myself during drive time. Yes , I talk to myself. I cut through the mental chatter and try to formulate a concise verbal argument . Hopefully a valid one.
Here is the dilemma of the week : I finished reading "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is one of the strongest voices for atheism and free thought in the world today. It was the Danish social service programs which not only saved her life but housed, fed, and educated her. She then rose to become a member of Danish Parliament . During her period of education she worked for the state in programs that rescued many Muslim woman from forced marriages, beatings, and honor killings. The Danish spent millions on a complicated security plan to protect her from the fanatics that butchered Theo Van Gogh. They sent a state funded security detail with her while she worked in the private sector for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. Today she advocates for an accelerated Age of Enlightenment that would usher liberal thought into the Muslim world. We are enriched by her life.
I doubt the private sector would have performed so well. The only hope I have here to defend Libertarianism is to imagine that the entire Muslim world had adopted a Libertarian Atheist world view in about 1966 striking the head off the serpent that tries to kill her to this day. One can dream.
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I'll lay out the serious problems with libertarianism (imo):
1. There are no such thing as free markets; there never have been (short of cave man bartering), and there probably never will be. So right out of the gate we can disregard about 50% of libertarian talking points.
2. Nation states without a powerful central governments quickly fall to nation states with powerful central governments. It is a necessary evil.
3. Libertarians say they are opposed to the use of force by governments, but in almost the same breath they tell us society should be run by contracts between consenting parties. However, it takes force to turn words on paper into a meaningful contract.
4. The Libertarian platform states that people and businesses should be allowed to discriminate against other people based on their race (or anything else for that matter). As members of the most hated minority in the US (atheists), we would have to go back to the closet in a libertarian society. Well at least you can hide if you're a white male atheist; if you're a woman and/or black, good luck to you!
Nyarlathotep is spot on correct about libertarianism. Leaving the private sector to it's own devises only allows those of privilege and power to retain and abuse that power. The Central government is key in providing a fair and free system that insures competition and opportunity. To end prejudice and discrimination. Oversight monitored by a central government is paramount to a free society. Remember that YOU are the government in a free society. Only corrupt powerful people want to end the fed, which would take power from you and let them get away with anything they want. Nyarlathotep is correct in the fact that there is no "what the market will bear" environment, no matter how much conservatives and libertarians claim there to be.
So is Libertarianism essentially just a load of crock filled with false promises? I don't think I could shoot for that.
Oh you know what the libertarian answer for global warming is right? You guessed it: nothing, it is a myth!
https://www.lp.org/poll/is-human-generated-global-warming-a-myth
That is actually much worse than the Republican average, although not quite as bad tea party average.
56%? Well, that's about 250,000 points of credibility out the window. Chimp, your fellows are making you look bad.
We aren't making chimp3 look bad. We are pointing out the fallacies of the libertarian party.
I didint say the two of you were. I was merely pointing out that, to an outside observer, the "Smokescreen Effect" makes it seem that, through association, chimp would feel the same on that on statistic. Not nesasarily saying I think it makes him look bad to myself, or that I myself think he shares this veiw, just pointing out something.
No offense taken. Obviously my post above shows I am willing to be challenged . I do so with myself.
In order for Libertarianism to work everyone would have to behave themselves. It requires everyone to be responsible , sociable , and self governing. The same holds for social democracy. If you have ever seen the TV show Lillihammer with Steven Van Zandt you have seen the American version of socialism. The public sphere becomes a feeding trough for pigs.
Nyarlathotep : Can you cite any historical examples to support this claim :
"Nation states without a powerful central governments quickly fall to nation states with powerful central governments."
You are correct when you say :
"There are no such thing as free markets; there never have been"
Any claims to the evils or goodness of free markets are pure conjecture. In the U.S. we have had crony capitalism or its hand servant - the regulated market stacked in the capitalists favor.
"The Libertarian platform states that people and businesses should be allowed to discriminate against other people based on their race (or anything else for that matter)."
We have never had a period in this nation where discrimination was not empowered by and encoded in the law. Free individuals petitioned , fought , and finally persuaded the governments to act decently. The current example is the fight for equality for the LBGT community. Is the problem the bigoted cake bosses who will not put two female bridal figures on top of the cake or is it the local and federal governments that wield control of marriage through the licensing process? Eventually free thinkers and the progressive minded will win the day and someone in government will stand for a photo-op acting like they championed the process through committee.
"Libertarians say they are opposed to the use of force by governments"
Force can only be used in the cases of violent behavior against others : Assault , murder ,rape, theft , fraud(which is theft) . Self defense is an accepted practice. The use of force in cases such as strangling a man to death for selling loose cigarettes is immoral.
On global warming : Libertarians as a community really need a dose of skepticism to become credible. Luckily for all the rest we are likely to see 3% of the vote this election season at the most. Not anything to worry about.
chimp3 - "In order for Libertarianism to work everyone would have to behave themselves."
I started to write up a huge reply to your post but I don't think I need to. I actually agree 100% with the above statement. And since we all know that won't happen (people are not going to behave themselves), what more needs to be said? This is pure fantasy. Which re-enforces this snippet from your original post:
chimp3 - "The only hope I have here to defend Libertarianism is to imagine that the entire Muslim world had adopted a Libertarian Atheist world view in about 1966 striking the head off the serpent that tries to kill her to this day. One can dream."
It seems libertarianism requires several layers of fantasy.
---------------------------
chimp3 - "Libertarians as a community really need a dose of skepticism to become credible."
Because of the fantasies required by libertarians, I suggest that skepticism and libertarianism don't play well together.
The concept of extreme freedom is an evolutionary one. We are not there yet. I also consider social democracy just as full of fantasy and fallacy. Humans are fallible and easily corrupted. All forms of government require management by humans. It is best not to put too much power in the hands of relatively small groups. When Madison invented the concept of the separation of powers he wanted to limit a government tiny in comparison to now. Population of US in 1776 approximately 2,500,000 (I doubt this census number includes Blacks and Native Americans) . Now roughly 120 million Democrats and Republicans , all desiring a central government to manage us. I think we can do better.
Here is an example of political power wielded by a democrat that smashes free expression. The crony capitalists links to the public trough are being blocked by a powerful man with his own agenda :
http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/06/andrew-cuomos-executive-order-on-israel
"Everyone should condemn Cuomo's authoritarian streak, because government-enacted suppression of political speech is the most dangerous kind of censorship"
Cuomo's action was legal and binding. Also it was necessary to curb an overreaction. Executive orders can be overriden. Therefore no executive has complete autonomous power. Having NO oversight which is the aim of libertarians only allows the rich and powerful to lord over everyone else...ergo an oligarchy. Privatizing everything would be fine if everyone had the means to get services needed and that those services met a safety standard and the companies that provided goods and services didn't exploit labor, customers, environment. It is a fantasy to expect large corporations to be good actors. Companies only look at spread sheets. They don't want competition. They want forced customers. They don't want to be responsible for dangerous or faulty products. They want an exploited/slave labor force. "What the market will bear" doesn't actually happen and never will. Only a fair and well represented central government can insure safeguards. The is no version of conservatism (which only favors the top 3%), republican, tea party, reform party, or libertarian, that helps or serves anyone but that top 3%. Any conservative form of government, any conservative politician, favors discrimination, exploitation of customers/labor/environment.
I haven't really discussed what I do for a living here, but today I will a little. I work risk management for a well known corporation, doing almost exactly what you describe. Essentially, all possible decisions are collected, models are constructed by permutation of those potential decisions, then the models are tested to determine which unique set maximize profits, and then that is the set of decisions that are chosen; all other concerns are basically disregarded. This is how it is done within the weak current regulations that at least (somewhat) constrain the list of possible decisions, if those regulations were to be lifted, it would be much much worse.
It seems you want to replace an inefficient system with no system at all: no currency, no fraud regulations, no enforcement of contracts, no fire protection, no police protection, no education for the poor, no basic scientific research, no public defense, no roads, no legal defence for the poor, no infrastructure, no environmental protection, no labor laws (child or otherwise), no civil rights, and no security net for the young, elderly, or sick. A better term would be "caveman capitalism".
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0a...
You nailed it. Spot on!