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Left Libertarian or just plain Liberal

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 12:56

On the libertairan thread, so another moby-ish declaration from ldb ..

Like many Libertarians, I've always assumed that the out of control national debt will eventually cause an implosion.

Uh NO. Libertarians are offended byspending as it reduces LIBERTY.

While the current spending regime will accelerate this process, it has been going on since Reagan. The Reps can make all the noise they want about it, but they are as complicit as the Dems (and it's amazing that they only started making noise when they got booted out of power).

CURIOUS distortion of history. Spending by LBJ, FDR etc ignored.

So, with that being equal, I'm voting my social conscience."

How is a social conscience' different from a plain old 'conscience'. Is it minus the plain-old values and morals that make up personal responsibility? If not, why not just 'conscience'?

"I have no desire to live in a theocracy."

Neither do the millions of  Christians and others in this country, beseiged by a secularist culture that increasingly is intolerant of Christian expression and tolerant of attacks on Christian culture. Will you fight beside them to fight Political Correctness, the attaks on free speech inherent in Hate Crimes bills, and the encroachments of the Secularist Theocracy? Will you join them in defending their 1st amendment freedom to worship?

"I have no desire to abandon everything America stands for morally by torturing people."

Surely you jest that 'everything America stands for" hangs in the balance of the whether AQ terrorists are interrogated roughly or not. People arent tortured in America.

I believe that all men are created equal

Created by WHOM?

and that economic discrimination based on a couple's genital plumbing arrangement is wrong.

Quotas to pick minorities over more-qualified whites on behalf of affirmative action is racial discrimination. Discrimination like that is wrong. The rest is just babble.

I believe that science, not superstition, should be paramount in schools.

Good, so the stupidity of whole language foisted by liberals in Cali and other states, vs phonics, you oppose. You oppose putting pseudo-religiou eco-extremist BS in schools. So you are on the forefront with me in getting that MOCK-umentary for Al Gore that indoctrinates false and phony things out of the schools. And you will help get the failed and wrong Planned Parenthood pro-abortion sex ed to stop trying to replace more successful 'worth the wait' type sex ed I trust.

I believe that immigration enforcement should be aimed at the businesses who hire them

The issue is whether you deport illegal aliens or not. If you do, you are pro-enforcement, if you dont, you are anti-enforcement since you are saying that law-breakers should be allowed to continue to break the law.

I believe that 8-10 million children without insurance should still have access to health care.

I believe that Hollywood should never make a bad movie, and that everyone who goes to Vegas should win ... Now, if you are going to socialize medicine, you are being dishonest with your "libertarian" label.  WHO PAYS? We already have Government paying for the medical bills of 50+ million Americans. Who gets to be a taker and who pays?

Do you favor freedom or socialism in helathcare?

I think abortion is bad, but making it illegal is worse.

If you think killing a pre-born human is bad, how is protection of that life worse? The consistent libertarian position is the pro-life position.

I believe invading a nation based on lies is wrong to the tune of 1 trillion dollars.

So you opposed the Clinton invasion of Haiti to the tune of 1 trillion dollars? huh.

In the end, I think the author is a faux libertarian, speaking of nothing wrt liberty but rather a litany of left-liberal distortions/elocutions on policy.

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Comments

left-libertarians

Submitted by chemjeff on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 13:22.

Well I would not be as harsh as you, Freedom's Truth, but I think there is a lot of truth to what you write.  My general impression is that people who call themselves 'left-libertarians' or 'liberaltarians', particularly among the younger set, are really just leftists who disagree with liberals on only a couple of issues having to do with individual liberty (perhaps, gun rights or capital punishment).  But for about 80% of the time they are down-the-line Democrats, and that includes with issues such as higher taxes, higher spending, and greater socialization of the economy.

In general I think they have a very confused notion of what constitutes liberty.  They take A LOT for granted and don't really see the daily tasks that they do in their lives as examples of a free person exercising individual liberty.  They cannot even fathom that, for instance, being able to quit one's job and find another one, is only possible when you have a relatively free market in labor.

I don't blame them entirely for it, since we all have an inherent tendency to take the world which we inherit as a default, normative standard and base our views accordingly.  Since the younger crowd today is growing up already with a high degree of socialism, to them it sounds 'libertarian' to be in favor of the status quo, except for maybe being in favor of individual gun ownership.  It is certainly more libertarian to be in favor of the right to keep and bear arms than it is to oppose it, but in the grand scheme of things it's not anything to write home about if that is your only contribution to libertarian thought.

I'm anti-prisons.

Submitted by Maleficent on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 13:31.

that's my contribution, and rehab works!

For my two cents, I think universal health care will create a more flexible and freer labor market. I'm not sure whether that will be the best thing ever (how many jobs can a man handle?), but it certainly incentivizes flexibility -- and savings.

moral confusion

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 14:57.

In general I think they have a very confused notion of what constitutes liberty.  They take A LOT for granted and don't really see the daily tasks that they do in their lives as examples of a free person exercising individual liberty.

I agree. Maybe they havent read about what communism did, or what it took to defeat Hitler. Maybe they dont understand what the Stalin Show Trials were. etc.

There is a moral confusion on a number of levels.

My general impression is that people who call themselves 'left-libertarians' or 'liberaltarians', particularly among the younger set, are really just leftists who disagree with liberals on only a couple of issues having to do with individual liberty (perhaps, gun rights or capital punishment).  But for about 80% of the time they are down-the-line Democrats, and that includes with issues such as higher taxes, higher spending, and greater socialization of the economy.

So they oppose the inalienable right to life, the inalienable rights to liberty, and attack economic and property rights - our right to pursuit of happiness. In what sense are they libertarians out to defend rights and liberties?  I think in many cases such people have confused Morality and Order and the polar opposite of Liberty (see previous post on Adam Smith). They are intellectual heirs of Rousseau, the French Revolution ... and the subsequent 'free love' liberals, and fabian socialists. libertarians only in the 'faux' sense.

BTW, I may have been a bit harsh in part because someone who claims to be libertarian then spouts left-liberal talking points may well be dishonest and not just confused. I cant be sure.

 

left-liberal-libertarian-ism

Submitted by chemjeff on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 16:33.

Maybe they havent read about what communism did, or what it took to defeat Hitler. Maybe they dont understand what the Stalin Show Trials were. etc.

Well I'm sure they do, but only on a purely academic level.  Besides, Hitler and Stalin were Bad People(TM) who lived in a Particular Age and their experiences could never be duplicated here!  Or so the denial goes.

So they oppose the inalienable right to life, the inalienable rights to liberty, and attack economic and property rights - our right to pursuit of happiness. In what sense are they libertarians out to defend rights and liberties?

Well they're not, really.  They simply disagree a little bit with doctrinaire liberalism in the direction of greater liberty, and they think that earns them the right to call themselves by a different label.  Fundamentally, I think they accept most of the same premises as most liberals do - that the state must act to save the helpless, that the state must stand in opposition to "big business", etc.

Now I will say there are exceptions to this - Will Wilkerson springs to mind - but the general impression I have is that liberaltarians are way more liberal than they are libertarian.

They are intellectual heirs of Rousseau, the French Revolution ... and the subsequent 'free love' liberals, and fabian socialists.

Well yeah, they are more willing to be receptive to the socialist definition of liberty, which is, succinctly, that if the state provides everything for you, then you will be "free" to pursue your passions.  Just remember: a gilded cage is still a cage.

My da knew a guy who was the tastetester for Stalin...

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 08:03.

Shtil, di nacht iz oysgeshternt,  Un der frost - er hot gebrent;  Tsi gedenkstu vi ich hob dich gelernt  Haltn a shpayer in di hent.

 A moyd, a peltsl un a beret,  Un halt in hant fest a nagan,  A moyd mit a sametenem ponim  Hit op dem soynes karavan.

Never be duplicated here? Surely you're joking! The eliminationist rhetoric out of the farRight is enough of a wakeup call for me.

Naturally most of the people who are all hysterical about Fascism don't make the slightest effort to have a bulletproof way out of the country.

Me? I'd rather have the way out than get hysterical.

 

The state should act to save it's people. LIFE, yes, an inalienable right. A right to not be killed intentionally and willfully by your employer, all in the pursuit of the mighty buck (Paradise is gone, don'tcha know?)

I think that it is not imperative on the state to provide justice to everyone at all times. However, there's certainly a compelling enough case for some social leveling.

simply because we may disagree about methods

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 08:08.

you really should not imply that liberals are "morally confused"

Surely you can see that sounds pretty patronizing? (oof. Am I the one who's being patronizing now? if so, you have my apologies, both for the patronization and the hypocrisy).

Science erodes our right to private property. The more destructive power that a single person can possess, the less society can afford to let us have truly free transactions. (note: this is not a gun control rant. guns aren't too dangerous).

Rousseau's idea of a social contract does not imply socialism, though it has that potential.

moral confusion

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 15:14.

you really should not imply that liberals are "morally confused"

We have liberals who say they are for freedom and then advocate restrictions on it. Or give lame excuses for their beliefs based on Or they will say guff like:

Science erodes our right to private property.

oh wait - YOU said that? Sorry, that's utter nonsense. I have to conclude that liberals are either deliberate sophists/word-twisters or have confusion of categories. Let's parse this down - science is an activity and a result. A scientific result (eg F=ma) has NO relation to what happens to property rights. Science erodes nothing, it merely changes what we know. F=ma has been unchanged and our knowledge of it erodes no rights. The only thing that erodes our right to private property is Government actions that limit it.

The more destructive power that a single person can possess, the less society can afford to let us have truly free transactions.

This is a value statement. It has nothing to do with 'science' perse. What you are REALLY saying is "Science/progress  is creating conditions/situations that cause me as a Liberal to conclude we need more restrictions on property rights." You have co-opted 'science' as your 'ally' rhetorically in this, twisting things around and turning a *value statement* into a claimed fact (which it is not). ... it's an insult to science to conscript it in your political agenda, and it's factually incorrect (limiting property rights is no more justified no than 100 years ago IMHO).

I can't think of a better term for the conflation/ confusion thus exhibited than "morally confused".

Surely you can see that sounds pretty patronizing?

Whatever.

Rousseau's idea of a social contract does not imply socialism, though it has that potential.

I did not mean to imply that Rousseau would approve of people taking his trend of thinking to its illogical conclusion.

oh! how cheerily delightful!

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 15:30.

I've found at last someone who wants to own his very own nuclear weapon! And who thinks such a thing is justifiable! Well, you're welcome to it. Buy your own damn country if you feel like it. But keep the nuclear weapons the hell away from me.

You are correct, I should have stated technology and not science.

Private property rights were coined in an age where the potential destruction of any article of property was minimal. They are not fundamental rights, but ones bequeathed upon people contingent on other values.

Private property is a highly efficient system, and yet it is not one that works well, these days, without boundaries.

Or do you want to buy a biological weapon too? Exactly how much bullshit do you own?

sigh ... value statements vs facts

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 15:40.

You are entitled to your own value statements.

You are not entitled to your own facts.

And you certainly are not entitled to project a non-fact on me ("Oh he wants to own nukes") simply because I've corrected you on prior two points.

Private property rights were coined in an age where the potential destruction of any article of property was minimal.

So what?

Free speech rights were coined in an age where the potential distribution of any article of free speech was minimal, limited to paper. The internet doesnt justify more limits on free speech simply because the technology wasnt thought of by the founders.

Whatever choice you make on this is a VALUE judgement by YOU, not the technology itself. If you cannot understand the distinction then, yes, you are 'morally confused'.

 

of course the concept of rights is a value judgement!

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 15:50.

when you get right down to it, all rights are relative. Again, empirically, you can't measure them.

I maintain that the proper scope of private property decreases inversely with the potential destructiveness of the particular item of property.

While it is perfectly fine to own guns, we require licenses for mortars and TNT. Beyond that, we require significant background checks.

With each layer of new technology, our own ability to have private property decreases. A geiger counter can determine whether or not you have a nuclear weapon, and even you would not say that is an illegal infringement on your private property! (unlike, say, the infringement done on the marjiuana grower's property)

people aren't tortured in America???

Submitted by Maleficent on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 13:22.

please, don't make me laugh. at least not that laugh.

People in America are not tortured by government officials -- or when they are, there is generally hell to pay.

Plenty of people in America are tortured, however, when they are sent to "gay reeducation camps" and other nonsense. Children, tortured.

Civil liberties are predicated on protecting us from the government. There's precious little standing in the way of a parent signing their kid away to 'reeducation'...

Rules and exceptions

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 14:20.

 

In response to an absolutist statement I gave a generalization.

It's not the policy of the US to engage in torture or as you say  .. People in America are not tortured by government officials

Except when we have, I would add. But exceptions dont negate the rule, and GWOT is hardly the largest exception.

It's beyond silly to have some few exceptions (if any existed, they didnt IMHO) somehow equate to the abandon everything America stands for morally standard .... 3 waterboarded AQ terrorists is hardly the Trail of Tears or lynchings or  the LA riots.

Torture happens?

Well - 1.4 million abortions each year - I guess that is worse than torture.

As for...

Plenty of people in America are tortured, however, when they are sent to "gay reeducation camps" and other nonsense. Children, tortured.

lol... please adjust the tin foil ... otoh. I have the same reaction to teletubbies. Pure. Absolute. Torture.

I have that reaction to Sailor Moon.

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 08:14.

can you believe that it's primary demographic is older men? Per Ver Ted.

Yes, the brutal torture and murder of over a hundred prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan and GITMO is hardly the worst thing we've done. But, you know what? I don't want to live in an America that considers that acceptable, that considers one tortured person "okay" while a thousand tortured individuals are "not okay". Kantian, not utilitarian, about that.

To quote langston hughes "America never was America to me" and "The america that never was (but yet may be)."

Allow me my dreams, my ideals, my "America does not torture" banner. Don't shred it by proclaiming to the world that three makes it okay.

 

i think this gets to an

Submitted by molotov on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 08:33.

i think this gets to an interesting and valid point. Those who are against torture are not that way because we "love the terrorist" or are "weak on national security". We are against it because we want out country to be a better place than all those countries who do torture.

the Right's argument is that we need to be safe and so we have to be able to do this.

But if i need to become my enemy in order to defeat my enemy then at what moment do I get be myself again? or is it even possible? and have I already been defeated?

at that point, you become your means.

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 10:53.

your morality remains the same.

 

... but you're still a killer, whatever the cause. Outside the Law -- and there's no going back.

It's a hard path to travel, but it's best traveled in shadow. That way, at least during the day, you have some pretense to propriety.

Warlords who rule through fear rarely live long.

 

For the nonce, America has stepped back from the brink of being a bully, the rabid wolf that the dogs Must Hunt Down, regardless of how many will die in the process.

Left Libertarians see the common enemy as Oligarchs.

Submitted by Maleficent on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 13:58.

You too have common cause with them when you rail against no-bid contracts, the appointment of soviet-style political officers to our intelligence agencies (gosslings, they're called), and when you rail against the bailouts of the banks (and the bond/stockholders of GM and other large companies).

The best example of a left-libertarian is Adam Smith. To read his writings is to understand the fundamental justness of an inheritance tax.

Libertarians are pro-capitalist

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 15:56.

All libertarians are rooted in freedom.

You cannot be for freedom while being against economic freedom. Property rights is the cornerstone of human rights, without economic freedom, you can be made a slave and have no freedom period.

To be for economic freedom, you must be for the natural economic result/system of that - capitalism. All libertarians are pro-capitalist.

To be against govt-controlled systems of power is one thing, and to be against abuse of such power is another.

But in the end, it's an oxymoron to be an anti-capitalist libertarian. That's why anti-capitalist left-libertarians are just poseurs and confused individuals who havent thought realistically or logically about reality.

 

 

 

being pro-free market

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 16:01.

is a far far cry from being procapitalist. As adam smith might tell you. ;-)

It is in every single capitalist's best interest to create monopolies, as they increase the profit margin dramatically. Hell, it's what I'd do if I had a business.

Do you favor a free market or not, brother? Comrade? Serf? Tool?

government is indeed an enemy of the free market -- but it's by far the least problematic at the moment, and the easiest to sway towards a particular goal.

pro-free-market =pro-capitalism

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:44.

Being pro-capitalism is NOT being for whatever any particular capitalist wants to do, its for supporting the natural economy unburdened by govt destruction of natural economy.

 

the question naturally arises

Submitted by Maleficent on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:50.

as to how we can best protect the free market. Teddy Roosevelt, among others, would have asked for the government to intervene against the oligarchs and monopolists.

Do you disagree?

Adam Smith, conservative

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 14:44.

The best example of a left-libertarian is Adam Smith.

No, that's another great example of mislabelling people and terms.

Adam Smith is author of the "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and in that tome, he shows the classic appreciation of moral values and sentiments and their utility to the society:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS.html

Left-libertarians do not talk this way:

The character of virtue, it is evident, must either be ascribed indifferently to all our affections, when under proper government and direction; or it must be confined to some one class or division of them. The great division of our affections is into the selfish and the benevolent. If the character of virtue, therefore, cannot be ascribed indifferently to all our affections, when under proper government and direction, it must be confined either to those which aim directly at our own private happiness, or to those which aim directly at that of others. If virtue, therefore, does not consist in propriety, it must consist either in prudence or in benevolence. Besides these three, it is scarce possible to imagine that any other account can be given of the nature of virtue.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS7.html

He was born too soon to fall for the folly of moral relativism or utilitarianism, and so he recognizes the value and importance of moral duties. As do today's conservatives, but which divides both him and modern conservatives from the left-libertarians, who fall more into the Rousseau camp of thinking of moral duties as chains to be untied.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith asks that most fundamental question: Why do we regard certain actions or intentions with approval and condemn others? At the time, opinion was divided: some held that the only standard of right and wrong was the law and the sovereign who made it; others, that moral principles could be worked out rationally, like the theorems of mathematics. Smith took a completely new direction, holding that people are born with a moral sense, just as they have inborn ideas of beauty or harmony. Our conscience tells us what is right and wrong: and that is something innate, not something given us by lawmakers or by rational analysis. And to bolster it we also have a natural fellow-feeling, which Smith calls "sympathy". Between them, these natural senses of conscience and sympathy ensure that human beings can and do live together in orderly and beneficial social organizations.

http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/tms-intro.htm

Such an understanding would be familiar to Burkean conservatives, understanding how selfishness and altruism are intertwined, and understand that our voluntary acts derived out of moral duties to eachother are what makes for civil and liveable society. This induces appreciation of the 'little platoons' of  community, and it certainly separates Adam Smith as not a libertarian at all, but what we call today a 'conservative'.

Taken together with his understanding of the value of human liberty and human economic behavior directed for self-interest ('the invisible hand'), Adam Smith and his world-view fits well within today's conservative worldview. Smith believed in a free and civil society. Those same conservatives who today rail against the bailouts would have a friend in Adam Smith who railed against the mercantilists. In his own day, he might be a classical liberal. As were the founding fathers. With socialists taking over the word, that leaves 'conservative' as a label for 17th century liberals and their intellectual heirs.

http://www.adamsmith.org/

"because I say so"

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 08:20.

I'm sorry, but I continue to find that non-empiricist philosophy is basically intellectually bankrupt.

Anyone who cannot understand the fundamental "moral relativism" of the universe?

Tell me, then, how to measure good and evil! How good is a Quark? Gravity? If you cannot decipher such a riddle (and believe me, there's truly no point in trying), then you must agree that morality is not absolute -- not something physical, to be measured and interpreted.

Morality is achieved through consensus, through persuasion.

Just as love is relative, so are morals.

Things are not correct simply because they exist in your head. (hence my title)

My dear moral relativist friend ...

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 16:01.

"Just as love is relative, so are morals."

!!! I am sure that Adam Smith's Theory of Moral sentiments would address/correct most of your concerns. Honestly, I haven't read his tomes, but maybe the cliff notes versions would be worth a try.

I'm sorry, but I continue to find that non-empiricist philosophy is basically intellectually bankrupt.

Adam Smith was a good friend of David Hume, so this statement is quite ironic.

ps. Empiricism is not relativism.

 

relativism, in the limited form that I mean it

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 16:06.

is entirely equivalent to empiricism.

People seem to think that because I acknowledge that morals are not FACTS, are not intrinsic qualities, that I believe all systems of morality are created equal. That is emphatically not the case!

One can, at a minimum, judge a system of morality by it's results -- hence my argument that we are seeing a rather gradual dimunition of the concept of "private property" as our destructive capabilities grow through technology.

But,  there's more! You can judge a system of morality by logical coherence, and by inherent plausibility [this is why many God based systems can be seen to be less than one created in the cold harsh light of logic]

To say that something is relative, is not to say that you will refrain from judging it, at least not in my book.

more confusion

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:47.

of two distinct terms.

Words mean things. Unless you are a Clinton or a liberal, in which case words mean whatever you want them to mean.

It's perhaps a form of progress that you acknowledge your judgmentalism. lol.

yes, words mean things

Submitted by Maleficent on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:53.

... but just because in a poor black neighborhood it might be the best policy to throw a huge party if you come into some money, doesn't mean that I'm going to do it. It does, however, mean that I won't condemn them for being spendthrifts, when they're in fact nourishing the far more important bonds of friendship.

Moral relativism, when you apply it to strange cultural pecadillos, is very different from applying it to something like Murder or Terrorism. (we can talk marriage later, that's more... sticky)

the collusion and market manipulation in the stockmarket

Submitted by Maleficent on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 08:34.

is as staggering as the collusion that Adam smith witnessed in his day:

 

"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations 

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy when part of the members are poor and miserable."-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations 

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations 

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

 

"When the regulation is in support of the workman, it is always just and equitable — but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters."

--Adam Smith

A Conservative Libertarian says on economic issues: leave them the fuck alone. I've seen precious little argument for even the mildest regulation on this site.

A Liberal Libertarian says "Government, guard us from monopolies, for your own sake!"

"Guard us from deliberate manipulation of the market by companies -- do not let them force us into poverty so that they can make another dollar!" (if you don't understand this one, you need to get out more)

The latter is much more in keeping with Adam Smith, the man and not the legend.

I consider myself...

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 16:52.

...a Lockean Libertarian who has been mugged by reality.

 

In other words, a Republican.

 

 

 

 

 ex animo

davidfarrar

Dittos - Lockean is foundational

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 16:58.

Jefferson's Declarations in our DofI that declared "certain inalienable rights" and asserted that Government exists to protect those rights is pure Lockean theory.

We are Lockeans, if we adhere to what our founders bequeathed to us.

I have a book of Locke's "On Civil Government" with a foreward written by Russell Kirk. Kirk called Locke the first great Whig and Burke the last great Whig.

Todays conservatives are the classic liberals ... who have been mugged by the reality of how god-awful the totalitarian and collectivist alternatives could really be.

 

 

Standard positions

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 05:56.

Liberal: Economic, redistributionist; social, humanist; foreign policy, focused on diplomatic organizations.

Libertarian: Economic, anarchist; social, anarchist; foreign policy, isolationist.

 

Not much I see similar there.

Suppose I see libertarians as being one step away from anarchists (they don't want the government to be illegalized).

 

For that matter, why would people vote for Anarchism-Lite when they could have Anarchism?.  

I was really hoping...

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 19:08.

... that someone would be able to explain to me the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist.

Obviously, my views are heavily colored by those libertarian-types that I have had personal interaction with.

Oddly, since finding The Next Right, I find that two of my favorite writers here (one who doesn't post anymore, because, as he told me, he felt that it had turned into a hangout for liberal trolls) are self-identified libertarians.

And I can't help but to think-- If I find myself in agreement with them so much, then shouldn't I be able to understand them a bit better?

So, someone, please-- because I really want to know-- what is it that separates libertarians from anarchists, or are they of the same cloth but of a finer grade? 

anarchism vs. libertarianism

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 19:31.

Well, I am not a card-carrying Libertarian, but I flirted with libertarian fancies in my youth.  I even voted for Harry Browne.  So I don't know if I can give you the "definitive" answer but I'll give it a shot anyway.

In my opinion, the main difference between libertarianism and anarchism is that libertarians believe in a minimalist state to defend private property rights.  Inherent in this purpose is the obligation of national security, which is interepreted as simply defense of private property rights on a national scale.  They will also tend to favor a minimalist judicial system to adjudicate disputes among individuals.  The reasons for this are practical - it's hard to earn a living if you have to stay at home defending your property all day - as well as philosophical; you don't want private self-defense armies turning into marauding warlords imposing their will on a weaker population, it nullifies the entire concept of 'ordered liberty'.  The reason for the judicial system is mainly for enforcement of contracts.

So that's my take on it.  I'm sure Jon Henke or other "real" libertarians can add some more to this.

chemjeff has it mostly

Submitted by Double D on Sun, 05/24/2009 - 09:18.

chemjeff has it mostly right.  No libertarian wants to eliminate government.  You really would end up with warlordism and marauding.  No rational person wants that.  The idea is that goverment is a neccesary evil that is best employed to promote and protect liberty and provide a cohesive defense of its borders.  The libertarian is aware that any goverment, no matter how benevolent, will ultimately infringe on the individual liberty that it should be promoting.  Thus, though government is wholly neccesary, it should be kept as small as possible to minimize abuse of power, property, and citizenry.

and left-libertarians favor stronger gov't control of

Submitted by Maleficent on Tue, 05/26/2009 - 12:08.

corporations, both to create a free market, and for interests of national security