then how would a libertarian society care for its elderly?
JohnLarrigan
You know, John, I had already written out a long smartass answer, only to keep coming back to the simplicity of your question, its sincerity, and its meekness. I’m glad I deleted all of it.
More and more, we have abbrogated our responsiblities to that faceless superset entity, society, until it has become a perfunctory exercise to assign to that entity the cleaning up of whatever mess we worry might dirty our hands. It is certainly convenient, if nothing else. And politicians absolutely love it. Why? Because it means there will be a steady stream of money coming through their offices. The People acclimate easily to it. Why? Because they’re busy with other things, like getting on with their lives. They don’t think about it much, secure in the reassurances they are given that the bureaucrats are handling it.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
In the libertarian society, the elderly are not considered to be some sort of “class” suddenly dropped in its lap, that is forgotten to the whims of bureaucrats. The elderly are people who once were young, who understood full well the law of Libertaria (having seen it consistently aplied), who knew that they must plan for their future (lest they have none).
Given a society wherein you are not responsible for your own future versus one wherein you are fully responsible for it, it stands to reason that in the former you will give your future no concern, and in the latter you will see things quite differently.
If you are concerned for the elderly, and you believe that most of those in your society are equally concerned (else, it would not be a politically expedient issue, and the politicians would never have implemented state elderly care), then why would you believe that a bureaucrat would be more concerned than you and your neighbors are?
The greatest enemies of the elderly are politicians who would rob you of your resources to help your own elderly family members, posing as altruists who keep a cut of your taxes for themselves before doling out the pennies that remain.
You are an Irishman. Irishmen are no fools. Don’t be fooled by the ruse of politicians. Take care of your own family. Take care that you produce only the children for whom you have the means to give support. And take care that your government forces its citizens to honor their responsibilities (breach is a coercion), and forces its bureaucrats to get real jobs (fraud is a coercion).
For those remaining few who have no family, neighbors, friends, house of worship, or community charity, whether by natural tragedy or tyranny, there are those of us who will, with glad hearts, assist in caring for them. Heck, even atheists now are opening charitable organizations to help care for others. Or so I’m told.
Libertarian (paraphrased, but by a lot less than he will think):
OK, so you lied. You did think I was trolling. Consider yourself relieved of the horrible burden of my giving a shit about your personal happiness, an insidious evil with which I was clearly trying to oppress you. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life” - Thoreau
Lib, thanks for your answer.
given my meek understanding of Libertairanism, would I be safer is saying that Libertarianism would function more effectively as a Philosophy, rather than a viable political theisis?
In as much as this. I am starting to understand your politics, but cannot see how they would ever successfully be implemented into an existing system like in the US, but would work ideally in a brand new country.
am I making sense?
Manny
No, I didn’t lie. It never crossed my mind.
I know you meant well.
Gilligan
I am printing that one out. Thank you.
John
Very much so. Your sentiments mirror my own.
It’s from the first chapter of Walden, Lib.
produce only the children whom you have the means to support.
I’ve always wondered why the people with the most money have less children than those who have considerably less.
Vanilla
Stellar observation.
I suppose money isn’t necessarily the means. My parents were quite poor, but of good character. That makes all the difference in the world. There were four of us kids total. We had the bare essentials. Love, most of all.
If no one minds, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ed Zotti, TechChick, and the Reader for the warmth of their hearts in providing the stunning and beautiful banner that honors Wally.
Go always with God, good people.
Libertarian,
Delightful thread. I enjoyed your posts here, as well as a few other threads along these lines.
I have a great deal of respect for the libertarian philosophy; my summary version is “Live, and let live”. I always avoid the use of force, but will stand in defense of me and mine any day. What I find a bit difficult to reconcile is exactly how one would determine when it is proper to use (defensive) force in a society where all individuals expect all their rights to be respected at all times, and yet the interactions of man are so very likely to cause conflicts in rights. Is the answer not to interact?
Sili
Libertarian,
You are invited to join a panel of experts assembling here in Great Debates.
TradeSilicon
Most kind. Thank you.
Nice summary version.
A very sweet old lady, who didn’t mind admitting a mental block in philosophical discussions, once asked me whether I could explain libertarianism to a five-year-old. I thought then (and still do) that it was the best question I was ever asked.
To the (hypothetical) five-year-old, I said, “You must never start a fight, but you may always defend yourself. You must never take anything that doesn’t belong to you, but you may always take back what was stolen from you. You must never make someone give you anything of theirs or do anything for you, but you may always ask.”
No, the answer is to define rights rightly.
Libertarianly, rights are an attribute of property. You have all rights with respect to your property, but no rights whatsoever with respect to someone else’s property. Likewise, everyone else has all rights with respect to their property, but no rights whatsoever with respect to yours.
That’s why so-called public property is so antithetical to libertarianism. Its ownership is nebulous. It is owned, de facto, by whichever block of people has the most political clout.
Libertarianly, ownership is defined as decision making authority. Whoever calls the shots with respect to any particular thing, that person is the owner of that thing.
In such a context, rights are clearly understood and do not conflict. When you come to my home, I call the shots. When I come to your home, I acquiesce to your ownership of it. But if we declare a home to be a “public home”, we will immediately begin to see many conflicts of “rights”.
A person can, if he chooses, be a hermit in a libertarian society, but a libertarian society is primarily composed of people who want to interact with each other, particularly for the sake of commerce and fellowship. What makes the libertarian society different, however, is that they must interact with respect for one another’s rights (i.e. property).
Note how the libertarian view of rights implies your unalienable right to life. God or nature gave you your life. Life is your original property. No other man has moral or natural authority over it. No one but you.
Libertarianly, because of this view of rights, crime is defined as the abridgement of rights, which crime can be accomplished only by means of coercion (initiated force or fraud). If a man freely gives up his rights, that’s his business. But if a man is forced against his will, or tricked by lies, to give up his rights, then he is the victim of a crime.
Okay, Tymp. Thanks.
Hello Libertarian,
I am sorry if you were misled. I can not become a Liberal, as I already am a Liberal. This is why I objected to having the term “Libertarian” applied to me. I do oppose the initiation of force and fraud, I simply define “initiation” in a different manner.
From other on-line conversations about Libertarianism, I have the idea that if your real estate was polluted by a nearby factory then your rights would have been abridged. Is this correct? If so, how would a person go about solving this problem libertarianly?
If everything is His property, then under libertarianism shouldn’t He be allowed to dispose of it as He wishes? If so, even if He initiated violence often, wouldn’t this be justified under Libertarianism?
Reading and trying to understand your answers here has stretched my imagination and ( I hope ) deepend my understanding. For this, I thank you.
2Sense
I’m glad you brought that up. We haven’t had much opportunity to talk about the history and development of libertarian thought or politics in general. Let’s take this chance to catch up just a little. Feel free to skip whatever part of this you already know.
Long ago, libertarians were called “liberals”, and are still called “classical liberals” by some. The 20th century notion of the “left liberal” (i.e., strong government control over the economy with weak government control over personal affairs) and “right conservative” (i.e., weak government control over the economy with strong government control over personal affairs) was born sometime around the Wilson administration.
Until then, a liberal was a person who, at least by and large, supported individual rights and liberty. Thomas Jefferson, for example, said, “It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all,” and “No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.” A conservative, on the other hand, was a person who, at least by and large, supported government intervention for the perceived needs of society. Edmund Burke, for example, said, “Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
Nowadays, the fundamental terms seem to be undergoing another metamorphosis right now in our time. Liberalism is coming to mean Centrism, that is, what was classically called Authoritarianism. Conservativism is coming to mean Feudalism. It is my prediction that Conservatism will fade out entirely from weak support, and Libertarianism will rise up as the rival to Centrism.
I once was an extreme left liberal. Specifically, I was a Marxist Existentialist Atheist, pretty much the total opposite of what I am now. At that time, I would not have wanted to call myself a Libertarian, not because I defined “initiate force” different from the common understanding, but because I thought it was okay to initiate force when necessary for good cause, like feeding the poor and such.
Yes, pollution is vandalism (a form of trespass).
Libertarianly, a person would go about solving his problem of pollution in whatever way he say fit. It is his right, given him by God or nature, to defend his life and property (or rights) by whatever necessary means. If he were an anarchist, he might personally neutralize the pollution source. If he were a citizen of Libertaria, he would call upon the government he will have hired to do that job for him. If he were the citizen of a traditional nation-state, what he might do would likely depend greatly on the extent of his political clout.
Yes, He should be allowed to make all decisions (or call the shots) with respect to everything He owns. But — and here’s where you and I are two ships passing in the night — coercion is an ethical wrong no matter by whom, no matter for what purpose or to what end, and no matter in what context. Ethically, no one may initiate force. Not people. Not governments. Not God. But then, you would hardly expect God to commit unethical acts, born from a cold and violent heart.
(Lest you waste much of your time and mine with citations of what you perceive as Old Testament acts of violence, I should let you know that I do not worship Thor, and I view those accounts as allegorical for the most part.)
I hope so, too. That’s what this is all about. Frankly, I always learn as much as anyone in the course of this sort of exercise. I once hosted a thread at another board called, “The Court of Libertaria”, where people brought hypothetical cases before the Libertarian Chief Arbiter, played by yours truly. That was fun.
I believe it was Socrates who said that the best way to learn is to teach.
Dear Libertian Objectivist Christian
Do other animals have the same rights as human beings?
If not, do they have any rights?
If so, what rights do they have?
Sofis
Rights come from God or nature; and in my opinion, they come from God. Therefore, I presume you are asking about whether animals have rights from my Christian perspective, rather than from my Libertarian perspective. Libertarianism, of course, is a political philosophy, and as such, is applicable only to people, though, in theory, any entity capable of transferring ownership (i.e., authority over property) has rights. Libertarian governments may govern only those who freely and willfully have given their consent to be governed. People with the capacity to give meaningful consent are called “adults” in libertarian ethics.
I believe that nature itself is morally neutral, a context matrix in which man acts out his morality. Man is given dominion over the animals, in my opinion, uniquely created, as he is, in the image of God; that is, finding himself imbued with God’s Spirit. Animals can provide man food, shelter, companionship, and defense. But man, a free moral agent, is held to account for what is in his heart, whether that manifests in his dealings with people or animals. The animal kingdom can be quite cruel, or so it might seem. Nevertheless, a man with a good heart will be as merciful in his dealings with animals as he is in dealings with his neighbor.
What I’m wondering is this:
Let’s say you own a piece of woodland. You want to cut down some trees for lumber. Do you have to consider what effect your actions will have on the birds and squirrels and whatnot living in these trees?