The problem you have is that you keep demanding answers to questions that 90% of small-l libertarians don’t care about, and getting angry when they don’t give you an answer on *your * terms.
There is a really, really simple way to find out what most libertarians think and care about, and one that 99% of the people that bitch about it on places like the SDMB will never do: go to the mainstream libertarian websites like reason.com and cato.org and see what they’re talking about.
It turns out they’re all about the current US political and legal landscape, and the how to work within them to advance libertarian values. Why? Because that’s what they care about. That IS libertarianism. There’s no discussion of “libertaria” or what their ideal fantasy governmental structure is or all the rest of that crap, any more than you’ll find that stuff being discussed at National Review or Mother Jones or any other partisan site. To find that kind of thing, you have to go to extremists – both for libertarians and for libs/conservs.
No, there is no specific, codified prescription that 100% of its adherents agree on about what they’ll do when they win the day and what exactly defines them. There isn’t one for any other political philosophy, or for that matter, most religions or intellectual schools of thought, either. Most intelligent people are able to grasp what is meant by “Feminism” or “Transcendentalism,” or “Protestantism,” even though each of those describes a broad intellectual movement with significant diversity and few universally-agreed-on statements of doctrine. If you can’t … well, that’s your problem.
You’re stamping your feet and demanding the Buddhists stop telling what they believe and instead just tell you “what Buddhism is.” And then getting angry when they just stare at you.
I’m trying to find out what it is that separates libertarianism from not-libertarianism. Libertarians will say things like “libertarians believe in freedom”. Well, okay, but non-libertarians believe in freedom as well. So what is it about the libertarian belief in freedom that makes it different?
I don’t see why libertarians (a number of whom post on this board) need a special place to post about their beliefs. If I’m asking questions here, why can’t they answer them here?
If I’m not “getting” libertarianism, it’s because nobody seems willing to give it. So I have to guess and ask questions like “Is this what libertarianism is?” and the libertarians get angry and say “No, you’ve got it all wrong. That’s not libertarianism.” Well, fine, but instead of just telling me I’m wrong, why not tell me what’s right?
So libertarianism is the advancement of libertarian values? Okay. But what are libertarian values? How do you tell if a value is libertarian or not libertarian?
The constraints put on government. Libertarians believe that the government should be much more limited in its powers. It’s not some revolutionary idea, but an evolutionary one that is not dissimilar from what John Locke was preaching 300 years ago. You could learn this by reading the “history of libertarianism” section of the wikipedia page.
N.b.: There are several branches of Libertarianism, and some European branches might bewilder an American. For the purposes of this thread, I’m assuming we’re talking about American Libertarianism as exhibited by the Libertarian Party.
What is it about Democrats that make them different from Republicans? What is it about socialists that makes them different from Communists? How are Communists different from Fascists?
Belief systems overlap. You can’t put everyone in little boxes. Often the differences between ideologies come down to where each group chooses to draw a particular line in the sand. Socialists claim to want a capitalist structure with heavy social programs, whereas Communists want the means of production to be controlled by the state. But lots of socialists approve of the state taking over parts of the economy. Fascists and Communists both favor a strong state, but for different reasons. The lines get blurry.
Why should libertarianism be any different? If you demand that we describe our perfect state to you, why shouldn’t you also be forced to describe your perfect progressive society? And if that perfect society seems impractical, should your progressive beliefs be completely dismissed because they don’t lead to a plausible utopia?
It might be better to think of these things as directions rather than destinations. After all, a person who considers himself a ‘libertarian’ as compared to the amount of government power we see today may find himself jumping off the train once it goes a certain distance. Likewise, a ‘progressive’ today might be for more federal control of many things, but at some point the state may grow to the point where the progressive says, “Okay, that’s enough for me.” and become ‘conservative’ in that particular context.
So think of it this way: A libertarian is likely to vote for measures which reduce the scope and size of government today. That means economic policy and social policy. A Conservative might vote for smaller government from an economic standpoint, but advocate for more government interference in terms of protecting the social status quo or reverting it to some time in the past the conservative thinks represents better ‘values’. A progressive might vote for more government wherever he sees a social OR economic problem that needs to be addressed.
Now, as government gets smaller I would expect some ‘libertarians’ on the margin to change parties or rethink their philosophy. As as some conservatives and some progressives would as the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state changes. No one in any group thinks there’s a final ‘end game’ that represents the perfect society, even if that’s a fun topic in college dorm bull sessions and on message boards.
Uh, no. You don’t live in an unlimited Democracy. You live in a constitutional Republic of enumerated powers and strict limits on Democracy. 51% of the people cannot vote to kill the other 49%. There’s those things called ‘inalienable rights’ which are supposed to be beyond the reach of democratic change. Furthermore, the federal government is constrained by a constitution in many areas, and that can’t be changed by a simple majority vote either.
Actually, a strict literalist interpretation of the Constitution is a pretty good framework for a reasonable libertarian government. It’s just that centuries of increasingly liberal interpretation of the constitution has weakened much of it.
Change too many things, and you no longer have a Libertarian government.
We are going to set things up so that no one can ever change these certain things.
I don’t know any Libertarians who would support #2. But the same could be said about Conservatism or Progressivism. Anyone who insists that the purity of the system is more important than the democratic process is going to go for #2.
So, Libertarians would set up things so that our system was strongly Libertarian and it would take a super-majority to change things, but the idea that there would need to be a 4th branch of government to ensure “purity” is nothing more than fantasy.
And then you wonder why people are doubtful that you are just asking questions. You are setting up strawman after strawman and wondering why people get tired of knocking them over. There are entire books written about Libertarianism, and it’s not like someone can reproduce that in a post on a MB. This thread was supposed to be about the primacy of property rights over personal liberty. We’ve already explained that is incorrect. But you are still reaching for some other wild claim to somehow prove that Libertarianism is something that it isn’t.
Why couldn’t they be in Libertaria? You posit that they might not be, but have offered no evidence other than having heard something from some people that is no different from what we hear from average Americans every day.
Democrats are more in favor of government regulation and Republicans are more in favor of deregulation. Democrats tend to be more pro-labor and Republicans tend to be more pro-management. Democrats tend to support diversity and Republicans tend to support conformity. Democrats tend to view people through group identity and Republicans tend to view people through individual identity. Democrats tend to be more willing to try new programs while Republicans place greater trust in established traditions.
Socialism differs from Communism in rejecting the idea of inevitable conflict between different classes. Socialism says that sound economic management can produce results that benefit everyone. Communism says that some classes must be eliminated because they cannot be accommodated in a communist system.
Fascism differs from Communism in having an element of cultlike leadership. Fascist leaders are portrayed as being different from the common people while Communist leaders are portrayed as being representative of the common people. Communism is also universalist with the ideal that anyone can be a potential communist and everyone can be equal. Fascism has a strong element of ethnic identity with certain roles in society being inherent to one’s ethnicity.
There’s the issue I raised earlier. Could a law making abortions illegal be enacted in Libertaria?
The answer to this is easy in a democratic country. If the majority wants abortions to be legal, they can make it legal. If the majority wants abortions to be illegal, they can make them illegal. Either way, the fundamental principle of democracy is in effect. (And, yes, a I realize a simple majority wouldn’t be enough to make abortions illegal in the United States. But if enough people wanted abortions to be illegal, they could make it so. The principle of democratic rule doesn’t mean every decision is subject to a simple majority vote - some decisions require a larger majority.)
What would be the equivalent situation in Libertaria? Could a majority vote make abortions illegal? Or make marijuana or firearms or gambling illegal? And if that’s the case, how is Libertaria different than a non-Libertarian democracy? What’s the fundamental principle of libertarianism that always remains in effect in Libertaria?
Have we not told you half a dozen times that Liberteria would be democratic?
Why must there be one? What’s the fundamental principle of progressivism that always remains in effect in Progressivaria? What is the fundamental principle of conservatism that always remains in effect in Conservativaria?
There certainly are a few Rubicons that, once crossed, takes out out of Liberteria. Slavery was discussed as one earlier in this thread. But it’s simply ridiculous to demand that Libertarianism have some attribute that no other political philosophy has-- some overarching principle that lets one tell definitively whether country X can be called Libertarian or not. There is going to be a spectrum, and it makes more sense to say where on the spectrum a given country resides. And even then, it may reside on a different part of the spectrum depending on what metric one is using.
I have no idea why this concept is so hard for you. It has been explained over and over again. There is no Libertaria any more than there is a Liberaltaria or Progressivetopia. ‘Libertarianism’ (small ‘l’) is an axis on the political spectrum. Its opposite is ‘authoritarianism’. It isn’t an idea dependent on revolution like communism is. Instead, it is an ideal that can be embraced more or less but never fully achieved. Libertarianism is based on the philosophy of individual freedoms that do not directly conflict with the individual freedom’s of others rather than more centralized control and collective-minded policies.
Libertarianism doesn’t prescribe any specific social or economic model although it tends to work best with a strong Constitution that protects inalienable individual rights and capitalism. The vast majority of libertarians are moderate libertarians who see merit in some specific ideas from other policies in given situations. That means that they (we) favor policies that emphasize individual autonomy and responsibility over more collective and authoritarian minded goals. That includes the freedom to fail miserably as well as succeed. More libertarian policies could be implemented in the U.S., Canada, Switzerland and lots of other countries without fundamentally changing the existing government structure.
Abortion doesn’t have anything to do with libertarianism in particular because some people make plausible arguments that it is equivalent to murder and all such crimes are still completely illegal under libertarian ideals. I suspect that most libertarians are pro-choice but that says nothing about the political philosophy itself.
You can check out this thread from less than a year ago where Sam Stone, John Mace and I explained it in more detail. If you still don’t get it after that, I can’t help you anymore unless you have more accurate and honest questions. I don’t understand why so many people have such a problem understanding what libertarianism is really about when almost everyone has some libertarian oriented beliefs themselves. Someone whose beliefs are predominately libertarian rather than authoritarian is one to some degree.
It’s a democracy, not a dictatorship. If the constitution changes back to what we have now, it becomes less libertarian… There is no “Purity Council” that overrides the will of the people.
Missed the edit window. A few things that come to mind right away:
No Commerce Clause.
No draft.
An explicit “free exercise” clause for economics, similar to what we have for religion
The power to tax would be eliminated or greatly reduced (depending on your flavor of libertarianism).
The Commerce clause has arguably been the one thing, more than anything else, used to expand the long arm of the government into what libs consider personal freedom and that would be the first thing to go.
I respect you as a poster in general but you have gone so far off the rails in these questions over time, I think it is a hopeless cause. Do you realize what you just wrote makes no sense and why that is?
Libertarian systems are generally democratic as well. They are complimentary and certainly not mutually exclusive. Those two terms are not in opposition.You are mixing terms and putting different concepts in opposition to one another when they aren’t.