# A couple of questions about libertarianism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 26, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871 "2011-06-26T01:14:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/141 "2011-07-04T04:37:56Z")
> [@Mapache](#): > > Here in Mexico every imported food is labeled in English (or Italian or Polish or whathaveyou) and Spanish (as long as it comes in a bottle or can or box; they don’t do it with vegetables). They just attach a sticker, which I doubt costs even a penny. Do you have any idea what translation costs? > Hint: not much. The Canadian government manages to spend about $1.8 billion translating documents from English into French. I suppose you’re right, that’s not very much. [http://www.fraseramerica.org/newsandevents/news/6672.aspx](http://www.fraseramerica.org/newsandevents/news/6672.aspx) How about instead of giving hints, you get off your ass and go to Staples or what ever the Mexican equivalent is and price out the cost of those stickers, plus the cost of printing on them (unless you assume printers and ink are free, are they free in Mexico?). Then price out the cost to have a union worker stick one of those labels on each and every product. Don’t forget to pay that guy a living wage, in a safe environment, with a health plan and benefits. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/142 "2011-07-04T14:13:33Z")
Today it was in the news that the government is planning to require automobiles to get _ **twice** _ the gas milage they do now. And the auto industry says that’s technically possible but only by essentially banning large heavy automobiles. So now we’re facing the automobile equivalent of the large-tank toilet ban. To me, this illustrates a growing challenge to personal freedom and individualism: the idea that in an ecologically limited world, there is (or will be) no such thing as individual freedom, since everything you do including literally _breathing_ impacts the rest of the world. What I have derisively referred to in the past as “ecosocialism” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/143 "2011-07-04T14:24:51Z")
… and what is called, out in the real world, the tragedy of the commons. You have to pretend that reality isn’t real in order to support that brand of irresponsibility. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/144 "2011-07-04T15:14:06Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > … and what is called, out in the real world, the tragedy of the commons. > > You have to pretend that reality isn’t real in order to support that brand of irresponsibility. The government agency in Nova Scotia, Canada, that runs the regional hospitals put a ban on the sale of doughnuts and muffins in hospitals. I can’t believe we ever supported that sort of irresponsible behavior. 14 states still have bans on Sunday alcohol sales, and at least 2 ban car sales on Sundays. How is it that we allow the other 36 to continue such irresponsible behavior, on the Lord’s Day no less. Currently 29 states have a constitutional ban on same sex marriage. Imagine if that was changed all the people that wouldn’t be able to resist corporations and end up marrying a dude. Just like all those people tricked into getting shitty mortgages. _The FBI reported Saturday [2004] that the number of arrests for violations of the marijuana laws hit an all-time high of 755,186 in 2003. Despite a decade of marijuana law reforms and protestations by police chiefs across the land that marijuana is not a priority, that figure is nearly double the number of people arrested for pot in 1993. The number of people arrested on marijuana charges last year also exceeds the number arrested for violent crimes by more than 150,000._ > **[Marijuana Arrests at All-Time High, Far Exceed Violent Crime Arrests](https://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/180/2003_pot_arrests.htm)** What that stat suggests to me is that either we’re paying twice as much for police efforts as we need to, since the police are wasting half their time with pot offenses. Or for the same cost we could get twice the effectiveness by allowing people to decide for themselves how responsible they want to be. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/145 "2011-07-04T15:20:07Z")
And that has _what_, pray tell, to do with environmental protection? :dubious: Or are you, as it appears, simply ranting at random? ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/146 "2011-07-04T16:19:03Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > And that has _what_, pray tell, to do with environmental protection? :dubious: > > Or are you, as it appears, simply ranting at random? It’s all part of the same problem of assuming the government can fix our problems through authoritarian measures. Should people be allowed to decide for themselves how much gas they use or should we have government rationing? Should people be allowed to decide for themselves what car they buy or should they be assigned based on need from an approved list? How far are you willing to go to legislate responsibility? Or should we conclude from your multiple little one and two line posts that those represent the extent of thought you’re capable of putting forward? If you are curious what happens in the real world, when gas prices shot up, people switched their behavior, lowering fuel consumption and demanding more fuel efficient vehicles–all without the government. The free market is responding faster than the government, and providing better results. Auto manufacturers are responding to demand and producing cars with fuel efficiency that exceeds weak government mandates. Both Nessan and Chevy put out electric vehicles, and if they prove to be profitable more manufacturers will follow. People are voting with their wallets, without coercion. No, wait, I take that back, clearly those are the people that can’t resist The Corporations. Those car sales were probably bait and switch tactics, no doubt fraudulent. What we obviously need are more regulations in the auto sales industry, perhaps if we ban sales on Sundays God will look more favourably on the lowly consumer. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/147 "2011-07-04T16:55:54Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > … and what is called, out in the real world, the tragedy of the commons. > > You have to pretend that reality isn’t real in order to support that brand of irresponsibility. The Tragedy of the Commons merely illustrates that people have no individual motive to preserve what “belongs to everybody”. Farmers who own their own land know better than to overgraze it (or they go bankrupt quickly). Case in point: once upon a time, the American alligator was endangered by overhunting. The solution was to require people to own harvesting rights to the portion of the swamps that they took 'gators from. The alligator population is now stable and the alligator-skin market has reached a sustainable steady state. Moral of the story: make people vote with their wallets, and the right thing also becomes the smart thing. ---
**Author:** ![Mapache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@Mapache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mapache)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/148 "2011-07-04T17:36:17Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > The Canadian government manages to spend about $1.8 billion translating documents from English into French. I suppose you’re right, that’s not very much. > [http://www.fraseramerica.org/newsandevents/news/6672.aspx](http://www.fraseramerica.org/newsandevents/news/6672.aspx) > > How about instead of giving hints, you get off your ass and go to Staples or what ever the Mexican equivalent is and price out the cost of those stickers, plus the cost of printing on them (unless you assume printers and ink are free, are they free in Mexico?). Then price out the cost to have a union worker stick one of those labels on each and every product. Don’t forget to pay that guy a living wage, in a safe environment, with a health plan and benefits. OK, so I checked. Called a local print shop- do you really think wholesale importers buy labels at Staples? and got a price of two thousand four hundred pesos (about two hundred twenty dollars) in lots of ten thousand 2" x 3" stickers. (2.2 cents each) As for the "union workers " sticking the labels on, do you imagine that Heinz or Campbells have a bunch of little gnomes labeling, one by one, seven million cans of soup, or bottles of ketchup? The Mexicans stick the labels on with the same machine they use to put labels on their own products. And the Canadians: how much of that $1.8 billion is spent on translating soup can labels, and how much on contracts, wills and other legal documents? ---
**Author:** ![Mapache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@Mapache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mapache)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/149 "2011-07-04T17:43:57Z")
[quote=“emacknight, post:141, topic:586871”] The Canadian government manages to spend about $1.8 billion translating documents from English into French. I suppose you’re right, that’s not very much. [http://www.fraseramerica.org/newsandevents/news/6672.aspx/QUOTE/](http://www.fraseramerica.org/newsandevents/news/6672.aspx/QUOTE/) And what’s this bullshit about “I suppose you’re right”? Kindly stop misrepresnting my posts; I didn’t say anything about Canada or their translating expenses. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/150 "2011-07-04T22:56:22Z")
> [@Mapache](#): > > OK, so I checked. Called a local print shop- do you really think wholesale importers buy labels at Staples? and got a price of two thousand four hundred pesos (about two hundred twenty dollars) in lots of ten thousand 2" x 3" stickers. > (2.2 cents each) > As for the "union workers " sticking the labels on, do you imagine that Heinz or Campbells have a bunch of little gnomes labeling, one by one, seven million cans of soup, or bottles of ketchup? The Mexicans stick the labels on with the same machine they use to put labels on their own products. > And the Canadians: how much of that $1.8 billion is spent on translating soup can labels, and how much on contracts, wills and other legal documents? 2.2 cents on what, an 80cent can of soup? That’s a 2.75% “tax” on anything that gets a little extra label put on. I assume you were initially referring to the extra label that most Asian importers put on packages. I guess 2.75% isn’t much for a family already struggling to afford food. Your other point about Kraft is what I was trying to say earlier, this sort of regulation costs them nothing. They already have the labeling equipment, printing equipment, and translation services built in to their costs. It’s the smaller shops, that yes still put labels on by hand, that get hit the hardest. Regulations like this actually favour the large corporations at the expense of smaller ones. And the best part, is that after you’ve bought and paid for 10,000 stickers, then paid to have them printed on, the government decides to change the regulations, rendering your labels worthless. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/151 "2011-07-05T00:47:32Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Moral of the story: make people vote with their wallets, and the right thing also becomes the smart thing. Great, so how do libertarians propose to divide up the air so everyone takes care of their own piece of it? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mapache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@Mapache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mapache)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/152 "2011-07-05T02:54:36Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > 2.2 cents on what, an 80cent can of soup? That’s a 2.75% “tax” on anything that gets a little extra label put on. I assume you were initially referring to the extra label that most Asian importers put on packages. I guess 2.75% isn’t much for a family already struggling to afford food. > > Your other point about Kraft is what I was trying to say earlier, this sort of regulation costs them nothing. They already have the labeling equipment, printing equipment, and translation services built in to their costs. > > It’s the smaller shops, that yes still put labels on by hand, that get hit the hardest. Regulations like this actually favour the large corporations at the expense of smaller ones. > > And the best part, is that after you’ve bought and paid for 10,000 stickers, then paid to have them printed on, the government decides to change the regulations, rendering your labels worthless. This is a hijack, and I’m not going on with it, except to say that: A family that’s struggling to buy food doesn’t buy much imported food; Smaller shops don’t import, they buy from wholesale importers with the stickers already attached; And a lot of people would be glad to pay two cents to know how much sugar, salt, grease and MSG is in their soup. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/153 "2011-07-05T15:49:25Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > This thread (and the dozen others) are full of people bitching and scaremongering about the effects of libertarian philosophy. Repealing Prohibition was a libertarian policy. The fact that it coincides with what a libertarian would do doesn’t make it libertarian. You choose to define libertarianism by how it is similar to the way most people think without recognizing that this is not what makes libertarianism a distinct philosophy. What in your mind makes libertarianism different? > [@](#): > > Allowing same sex marriage will be a libertarian policy. Or a liberal one seeing as how we don’t see Ron Paul or the tea partiers marching at the gay pride parade. > [@](#): > > Having slightly less regulations in the banking industry isn’t libertarian, but getting the government out of the mortgage business is. So by your reasoning, the Republicans are libertarians. > [@](#): > > If you have a cite for that you are welcome to present it. Otherwise I’ll take it as simply YOUR misguided opinion of a philosophy you don’t understand, laugh at you, and dismiss the rest of your nonsense as the ramblings of a person who has a bent against letting people make their own choices. > **[Night-watchman state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism)** > > A night-watchman state, also referred to as a minimal state or minarchy, whose proponents are known as minarchists, is a model of a state that is limited and minimal, whose functions depend on libertarian theory. Right-libertarians support it only as an enforcer of the non-aggression principle by providing citizens with the military, the police, and courts, thereby protecting them from aggression, theft, breach of contract, fraud, and enforcing property laws. > In the United States, this form of... Why don’t you tell me what YOU think Libertarian means to you because your version isn’t the same version as the CATO institute’s version. > [@](#): > > You know the answer to this and it’s not the government, it’s private charities. The US has over 1.6million non-profits, that received $227.41 billion in personal donations. Do you think the government is able to pick up the slack? Like I said, private charities are woefully underequipped to do so. Its not a theoretical experiment. We have seen what the world looks like when we rely on private charities to feed the hungry, just look back to before we had government programs. > [@](#): > > If a woman has an eating disorder or an abusive husband, where is the government? Why is it she has to turn to private charities like The Emily Program or Tubman House? > [http://nccs.urban.org/statistics/quickfacts.cfm](http://nccs.urban.org/statistics/quickfacts.cfm) I’m not saying that private charities are useless, I’m saying that they are not capable of feeding the hungry. > [@](#): > > You can repeat that as many times as you like, but it’s not going to make it true, funny, or relevant. It is all three no matter how embarrassing it is for you. > [@](#): > > Who said anything about elimination? Would you like your strawman back now? I am under the impression that the government is just as subject to corruption and manipulation as corporations in the free market. So why favour one over the other? One assume one can provide for the hungry but the other can’t? If there is no difference in corruption between the private sector and government (which is a dubious claim at best) then why not assign functions to the private sector that the private sector is good at and functions to the public sector that the public sector is good at. The private sector charities suffer a freerider problem that causes under capacity. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/154 "2011-07-05T15:51:12Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > No, you are looking for a True Scottsman and we’re all telling you it doesn’t exist. It’s not a religious dogma. There happen to be a handful of vocal people on tv calling themselves libertarian, and fighting for attention. There are a handful of morons that use “libertarian” to try and justify what they’re doing. > > But if you want, we can say that Catholicism means raping little boys, because we all knew a few Catholic priests did just that. Any other groups you’d like to paint with a nice broad brush? You are saying “here are all these people who call themselves libertarian but they’re not REALLY libertarians because a real libertarian would…” That’s true scottsman as I understand it. Its not a handful of people on tv callingn themselves libertarian that are doing this. Practically everyone on tv that call themselves libertarian do this. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/155 "2011-07-05T16:02:40Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > Not a libertarian government. Unless you are some how proposing we shouldn’t allow a conservative government. Heck I’m not even proposing we shouldn’t allow something as silly as a libertarian government if thats what we vote for. > [@](#): > > Libertarianism is economically conservative, and socially liberal, meaning it covers the economic half of the Republican Party, and the social half of the Democratic Party. Oddly enough, only the economically conservative people get called libertarian. Mostly because the socially liberal people don’t call themselves libertarian. > [@](#): > > If you guys didn’t have such a hardon for this topic, you’d realize that a few years ago the Republicans put a big push on the word “socialist” as a way to attack the economically liberal members of the Dems. That word represents half of the Democrat platform that wants more government involvement and less individual choice, the opposite of libetarianism. What does economically liberal mean? > [@](#): > > As to the issue of education, here is the official [Libertarian Party Platform](http://www.lp.org/platform) on the topic: > \*2.8 Education > > Education, like any other service, is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Schools should be managed locally to achieve greater accountability and parental involvement. Recognizing that the education of children is inextricably linked to moral values, we would return authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. In particular, parents should have control of **and responsibility** for all funds expended for their children’s education.\* Bolding mine. So what do you think they mean by parents should have responsibility for all funds expended for their children’s education? Are they proposing keeping public funding for education but letting parents decide how the money is spent? In other words, keep the money spent by government about the same but let parents have the money in the form of vouchers OR do you think they mean that parents should pay for their own damn kids. > [@](#): > > Note that it doesn’t prevent people from starting, running, and contributing to a non-profit school that could provide education to low income families. It doesn’t prevent private for-profit schools from offering scholarships. And it doesn’t prevent religious organizations from providing the same service they’ve been offering for centuries. Nothing prevents that right now. > [@](#): > > The difference between a libertarian system of public education and what we have now is the choice of whether or not you want to support someone else’s education. > > On a personal note, I would never support a madrasah that won’t teach girls, would you? I don’t want to support schools that won’t teach proper sex ed, because that’s important to me. And I sure as hell don’t want my money providing money to schools that “teach the controversy” and give equal time to intelligent design. I very happily donate money to a school in Tanzania that teaches girls ([http://www.canadianharambee.ca/](http://www.canadianharambee.ca/)), I’ve been to it and I like what they do. I’d rather my money go there than some of the shit holes in the US/Canada where high school students still aren’t literate. Oh so you DO think that private charities can provide education to all American’s regardless of ability to pay. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/156 "2011-07-05T16:16:54Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Now, what that has to do with the post you responded to, I have no idea. We were discussing the idea that libertarians would want to defund initiatives they thought were unconstitutional, and I noted that this is not unique to libertarians. And this whole thread is based on the incorrect assumption that a libertarian government would have weak policing powers. I don’t think libertarians would have weak police powers. How else would they protect property rights and enforce contracts? It seems like you and emacknight have some disagreements. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/157 "2011-07-05T16:38:28Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t think libertarians would have weak police powers. How else would they protect property rights and enforce contracts? OK. But that is at least one fundamental assumption that the OP is making, and which other posters continue to make. > [@](#): > > It seems like you and emacknight have some disagreements. I’ve not debated him in this thread. I haven’t really paid too much attention to his posts, as they are not that easy to read, but I think he’s spending a lot of time talking about fairly peripheral things like language labels on products. Not a lot of meaty philosophy in that particular issue. At any rate, I’m not a Libertarian, although I understand that philosophy pretty well. But don’t expect two Libertarians to always agree with each other any more than two Progressives or two Democrats will always agree. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871/158 "2011-07-05T17:07:18Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OK. But that is at least one fundamental assumption that the OP is making, and which other posters continue to make. > I’ve not debated him in this thread. I haven’t really paid too much attention to his posts, as they are not that easy to read, but I think he’s spending a lot of time talking about fairly peripheral things like language labels on products. Not a lot of meaty philosophy in that particular issue. > > At any rate, I’m not a Libertarian, although I understand that philosophy pretty well. But don’t expect two Libertarians to always agree with each other any more than two Progressives or two Democrats will always agree. I understand the CATO institutes brand of libertarianism pretty well (although it seems to have shifted to conservative libertarianism recently). But Emacknight sometimes makes up his own definition for things and then complains loudly when I apply the commonly accepted definition to the words he uses. Even in this thread, his definition of libertarian seems to be a moving target. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-questions-about-libertarianism/586871.md?page=7)