This is exactly correct, and not only is it correct, it’s an excellent illustration of the unintended consequences of any political philosophy that values idealistic principles over actual outcomes, unintended or otherwise – a detachment from reality that libertarianism seems actually proud of.
So we get to hear about guns as an absolute and sacredly untouchable pillar of freedom despite the carnage they cause, the removal of any vestige of social welfare in the broadest sense despite the injustices and horrors and social strife this would cause, and the alleged necessity of complete non-intervention in commerce or employer-employee relations despite the obvious historical consequences of doing that because of the real-world reality of who actually holds the overwhelming balance of power and wealth.
We should understand by now that extremist idealism never works, on either extreme side of the political spectrum, and that ignoring history and experience is never a good basis for any political system.
Er…in case you missed it, I’m pointing out how libertarianism is consistent with gun control, because libertarianism does agree that regulating externalities is necessary. The disagreement is that ownership of guns has an externality in the first place. If you could convince Bone that it has an externality, he would be on the side of regulating it.
I realize that you’re trying to take a somewhat ambivalent non-position here, but the statement nevertheless makes the point I claimed, as do the other analogous ones, all equivalently opposed to any kind of regulation.
He would? He seems much more concerned about principles than outcomes:
The Libertarian Party agrees: “We … oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.”
Sure sounds like “no gun laws” to me. In fact it sounds a lot like the rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ wild west before the sheriff comes to town.
No it does not make the point you claim, and it doesn’t become so just by your saying it does. You claim that the failure is in valuing ideals over outcomes, but it is actually a case of valuing different outcomes.
And it fits in with the principle. I too am arguing on the principle, not the outcome. I’m not saying liberty of gun owners should be curtailed because outcomes for others are bad. I’m saying liberty of gun owners should be curtailed because it curtails the liberty of others, which is the principle that libertarians agree with.
Sure, because, like I said, they’re not convinced that gun ownership has externalities. If you’re convinced of that, then gun control is perfectly in line with libertarian principles. It’s a problem of not being able to agree on premises.
It’s not at all hard to grasp. One of the failings of libertarianism is it’s too simple. It’s too simple to actually work.
That’s why most informed people aren’t libertarians. We understand the limits of libertarianism. Libertarians are the ones who fail to grasp those limits.
I can’t imagine anyone’s too dumb to understand libertarianism. But there are obviously people who can’t get beyond libertarianism.
To use your math metaphor, libertarians are the people who only know basic arithmetic and are mocking other people for using calculus. They’re saying those calculus people must not grasp how arithmetic works. But the calculus people do grasp arithmetic - and they also grasp how calculus sometimes works better.
Yep, you’re the smart one. And all the non-libertarian people in the thread telling you you’re the one with the facile understanding, why, they’re* all* wrong.
My claim that libertarianism values ideals more than outcomes is based on the fact that one or more of its supporters in this thread have stated or implied it at least three times. One also gets the strong impression from the Libertarian Party platform that they, too, are obsessed with principles – there are few if any statements of social or economic objectives, only statements about “Freedom!”
But if what you say is true, then it does constitute a legitimate debate. My argument there would be that all historical experience seems to show that the kind of anti-government non-regulation proposed by libertarians ends up causing social strife and instability and great injustices, in labor markets, in health care, in the social safety net, in the ability of small businesses to compete fairly with giant multinationals, and throughout society.
There is, for example, as has so often been pointed out, no possible rational justification for running the most expensive yet one of the least efficacious health care systems in the world except the justification that says “Choice! Freedom! Rah!”. It’s one of several libertarian principles that have indeed gone mainstream, to the benefit of no one except enormous and entrenched health insurers and many providers. This is not a matter of political ideology, it’s a fairly objective matter of health care economics, an objective specialized field of economics that demonstrates the value of a broad-based universal collective approach to such an essential service. Libertarianism would never allow such a compromise of its sacred principles, no matter what the evidence, no matter how beneficial the outcome, and no matter how much money it saves.
To use the math metaphor, libertarians are like those who stick with arithmetic despite the fact that it’s been shown again and again that it cannot solve certain kinds of problems, but they stick with it anyway because they like the rules and are impressed as hell that it does solve certain categories of simple problems. So they don’t care that the answers they get for more complex problems lead them to design bridges that fall down and airplanes that can’t fly.
You could put a lot of effort into explaining why one plus one equals three. But the fact that I don’t accept your explanations doesn’t mean I have a problem.
If you want to talk outcomes, as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, the government closest to libertarian ideals was that of the US in the 19th century, and several similar systems in the western world, and it’s hard to argue against the success of the model. The governments furthest away from the libertarian ideal were that of the Soviet Union and several similar systems in India and China, and it’s hard to argue against their failure. Personally, I chalk that up in favour of the capitalist/libertarian models.
This is an entirely different debate, with considerable merit on both sides, but you can’t put down the American system as being the fault of libertarian ideals. The biggest distortion in your markets - insurance companies funded by employers - exists because the government favoured employer provided health insurance in their tax code. Government attempts to improve outcomes entrenched large distortions into healthcare - which is already a very imperfect market to begin with. I don’t know if market solutions could work in healthcare. It may not be possible, although given recent technological developments, it might be. But to say that your current problems are because of libertarian ideals at work is just wrong.
No, I’d be interested in seeing how well it holds up to scrutiny. I would rather that you include the next sentence too though? It is the flip side of the coin after all.
So all it would take to refute this claim would be for a self professed libertarian to support some form of universal health care and/or other social safety net, right?
I see the cost of health care on society to be a valid externality that government has a role in. Obviously the details matter, but on principle there is nothing inherently objectionable about universal health care. Health care in this country is so fucked up I’m open to lots of different ways to try out.
On the topic of starting new threads: would it be more appropriate to start one to discuss this list, or talk about it here? Because I think that’d be a good topic to jump off on.
Sure. But you have to point it out! It isn’t enough to say, “The question is wrong and I refuse to answer it.” To be of any use here, you have to go further and note why and how the question is wrong. We weren’t always getting that here.
I’m thinking that the best way to discuss libertarianism to to do a series of threads on individual topics. I’m planning to do that today. Will try and make that topic relevant to some current events.
Working on my first OP as we speak (or write).
I can see that Czarcasm’s new thread devolved into SOMALIA! on the very first reply.