I admit we aren’t perfect and aren’t likely to be, but simply because wrong has been done in the past is not justification for doing it in the present. If you believe that something should not be done, it simply should not be done, no matter how many people have done it and will continue to do it.
Another example of libertarian-absolutist fantasy thinking: trying to shrug off fundamental aspects of the evolved social behavior of human beings as mere “tradition”.
By that logic, since human reproduction by sexual intercourse is just “tradition”, we could have a society which eschewed sexual intercourse altogether and reproduced by artificial fertilization. Is it theoretically possible? Sure. Is it realistic? Not in the least. Same goes for the “coercion-free” societies dreamed of by libertarian absolutists.
In other words, you’re against the death penalty for tax evasion. Hey, so am I! Maybe there’s some common ground here after all!
No it doesn’t. Social Darwinism is also perpetrated by neglect by the strong. It is morally wrong to allow children to starve in a land of fat people.
Behavior can change. It is gradual, but it can happen.
It wouldn’t be tax evasion if the person had opted out of the government.
Children are a special circumstance in that they can not care for themselves and did not consent to life. Responsibility for their life falls to the parents, and if they cannot care for the child, then I am mixed on who should care for them. In all cases I have laid out, I am describing mentally competent adults capable of giving consent and caring for themselves.
And what about their education? Are you willing to leave that up to their parents as well? Are you mixed on that question, or do children consent to be ignorant? What about what about their health care? How can a child who has been denied adequate food, education and healthcare be expected to make informed consent when they are adults? Perhaps when you are less mixed on these points, you will realize your politics have aspects that are not morally justifiable.
You’re the one arguing that it’s better to let over a hundred thousand people die of a horrible disease, than for you to have to pay higher taxes, and he’s the monster?
I am willing to admit to aspects that I have not fully reconciled. Maybe you are correct, but I suspect not.
Actively harming someone and refusing to support them are different things. Are you personally responsible for every homeless man you don’t give money to? Of course not. Obligations arise only out consent, not circumstance.
Yes. That is why my taxes attempt to provide services that will get them off the street, or at least alleviate suffering. I am personally responsible, and I do not bedrudge them my taxes; or yours.
Obligations arise out of moral duty to your fellow human beings. To do anything less is brutish.
Except I don’t agree with the premise that requiring people to pay taxes is equivalent to killing them. You are certainly free to avoid taxes in this country, move to an isolated area and never use government issued currency and you’ll probably never be bother by the IRS again.
See, the thing is, as a person living in the United States you’ve inherited vast wealth that you had no part in creating. You didn’t create the judicial system, you didn’t create the roads, you didn’t create the constitution, you didn’t create the medical schools, you didn’t create the physics textbooks, you didn’t create Beethoven’s 9th symphony. And yet, you reap the benefits of those things every day. Opting out is fine…you are free to do that NOW. Just head out to the wilderness. What’s that you say? That would require living like an animal, and would be essentially equivalent to a death sentence?
Sure, except that’s what our ancient ancestors faced, and they didn’t die. Why didn’t your parents teach you to hunt and gather? How is it my responsibility that you’re not proficient at making your own clothing, or knapping your own flint arrowheads?
People don’t “opt out” of society because the advantages of being a member of society are so great that only a literally crazy person would choose to opt out. You are free to live in the woods, you are free to move to another country, if one will have you. What’s that you say, there are no free countries on earth to move to? Why can’t you create one yourself?
You are like all the other communists and utopians who believed that human nature was incompatible with morality, and then set about to remake human nature. Except no one listens to you, so you’re reduced to complaining about how your taxes are used to pay for medical treatments for sick people, and how unfair it all is. Except I don’t see how letting people die from treatable or potentially treatable illnesses is fair either.
Doesn’t change my question to you: you’re politics will result in the deaths of over a hundred thousand people. Fear Itself’s politics will result in a slight tax increase across the board. There is no reasonable way you can call him a monster in this situation, without owning a far, far greater misanthropy for yourself.
But then, you’re a libertarian, and that’s a political philosophy long since divorced from reason.
Right: the former is violating a negative responsibility (the responsibility to leave other people alone) while the latter is violating a positive responsibility (the responsibility to help other people).
But it is perfectly possible to view both negative and positive responsibilities as being valid moral obligations for humans, and to think that human societies should mandate both by law.
Libertarian absolutists think that societies are entitled to enforce only negative responsibilities (leave other people alone, don’t hurt them, don’t take their property, etc.). Non-libertarians (and non-absolutist libertarians), on the other hand, think that societies should enforce both negative responsibilities and positive responsibilities (help care for others, share with others, protect others, etc.).
In theory, both of these moral positions are possible as a basis for a society. Each of them is frequently described as ethically impoverished by adherents of the opposite position. However, the libertarian-absolutist viewpoint is much less realistic than the other in terms of the actual behavior that social animals have evolved to follow.
Most non-libertarians would agree that you aren’t personally responsible for the total care and support of every homeless individual you encounter. However, most non-libertarians would agree that you are obligated to provide some resources (generally through taxes) to help support some homeless people who can’t take care of themselves, because sharing with others is an intrinsic part of being a member of a human society.
Lemur, you have provided the best arguments I have heard yet in this thread. I have answers to many of your questions, but I am not as certain of them as I am of the other things I have stated, so I will hold off on answering for now, but I promise I will think on them.
Property taxes. Avoid those and they come after you.
Because all the land is spoken for and government’s aren’t keen to give up their control of it.
I don’t see how theft is fair. As I have said, value is subjective and I believe to value human life above all else is an ideological claim. And since I don’t believe ideological beliefs should be law, it is fair to me.
Yes, I am a rights-based libertarian and I don’t believe the ends justify the means. To me, taxes equal theft, so what I am hearing from you is “a slight increase in theft.” I am not a utilitarian, so claims of greater good prevailing fall on deaf ears.
You’re quite mistaken. In fact, if anything, the opposite is true: libertarians tend to be too focused on abstract reason and ideals. For instance, a large percentage of libertarians refuse to vote because to do so would be logically inconsistent with their political philosophy, even though that refusal reduces the amount of influence they would otherwise have.
I draw a distinction between obligations and duties. I view an obligation to be the result of an agreement in which one party has consented to act in a certain manner. Duties, however, are things that simply should be done, but should not be enforced coercively. Helping others is a duty, not an obligation.
I think it is fair to say libertarians are a bit short on what a lot of folks here would think is common sense. I’m OK with that.
Yeah, I figured. You said earlier that you’re not a utilitarian. Well, I am, and I think we’d all be better off if more libertarians and anarchists decided to compromise their ethics on election day – our government would be a lot more tolerable if the people who hated it didn’t opt out of the process.
You’re inhuman, is what you are.
And what do you call valuing private property over all else? Is that not an ideology?
After being told that I support pedophiles, that’s practically a compliment.