But I don’t see that this is true. I can say the same thing about every society to as much effect because all of them have problems that I don’t feel they address properly. the role of the government is never clearly defined. I think Libertaria, Lib’s take or not, seeks to stop having the government be a lord and master of the “house” and I do think that is possible and I do think that is a good thing. There is no real appeal to historicism here because widespread political and social freedom is relatively recent in practice: we don’t know how it is going to play out. Certainly there are forces at work that seek to cripple or remove these freedoms, demonstrate that they are not “really” freedoms, reclassify freedoms as privilige based on citizenship (there’s our lord and master again), and so on.
Take the argument Dewey and I had on “inalienable rights” once. I insisted that inalienable rights weren’t meant to imply some metaphysical constant, but rather that from the view of the government these rights were inalienable. He seemed to disagree quite vehemently with that characterization. The Randista left in me (those last bits are being stomped out but they are hard to kill) still thinks that the only motivation in a political commentary for the abolition of inalienable rights is to alienate them. I must admit I have a very hard time seeing any other reason to remove that concept from politics.
I really don’t think this in any way supports that conclusion. I don’t see anyone that pretends to not acknowledge human error; in fact, I would think the entire justification for democracy or any democratic organization is just that, with some checks and balances thrown in to try and ensure we don’t vote ourselves into a position where we can no longer vote. I do see a society where social groups are the dominant positive force for action rather than a legislature backed by the threat of compulsory behavior, fines, jail, or confiscation and violence. You want people to have a voice, but only so long as it flows through a single channel like representation in some form of a republic or democratic republic? Is direct democracy a pipe dream, too? What about a land where we all have access to health care or food?
At what point exactly did freedom equal impossible, and if so, why would reject characterizations like Lib sometimes makes (or perhaps made) regarding such people as theives or parasitic people?
It isn’t a matter of what I want; it’s a matter of how the world is. Even representative constitutional democracies aren’t pure in form; the US hews pretty close to the vision of the political philosophies driving its basic structure, but it certainly isn’t a perfect reflection of those philosophies.
For the same reason, I humbly suggest that pure libertariansim cannot happen: no system of government will ever be 100% precisely perfect in matching the ideology upon which it is founded, if for no other reason than fallible humans are left to implement that ideology. It thus makes sense that we are talking about an entirely theoretical rather than practical state.
But they do all handle problems in the real world, even if you’re not satisfied with their “propriety”. They all accommodate human nature and real needs. The role of government is variable with societies and with time itself, but it functions in every real-world case. They do, however, all have to use what Lib would call coercion to function, to some extent.
“Libertarianism”, though, is an intellectual construct demanding that human nature be adjusted to fit it. Any discrepancy between reality and ideology is either ignored (and those who inquire repeatedly about it get Pitted for it), or else reality is blamed for its obstinacy. That makes it fantasizing at best, mental masturbation at worst.
You can say the same about ideologuism (by that I mean the characteristic described in the previous paragraph) of almost any brand, though, with the exception that the nature of this ideologuism keeps it from ever attaining real power and real responsibility in the real world. It literally cannot survive there.
Lib will feel a lot better as soon as he realizes that God exists only in the way that my friend Timmy the Tungstan-Coated Frog Dog exists…
My advice? Relax, let go of your supernatural fantasies, accept that the government is your friend and mentor (and a bigger friend’s a better friend, eh?) and then go cry.
I might humbly suggest that Libertaria does the same thing, even if you aren’t satisfied with it.
That they do is not in doubt.
I do not agree to this characterization any more than I would the same said of any government, real-world or theory.
Like problems with the legal system right now? Are you saying this does not happen today as a matter of fact? That you don’t hear these exact same criticisms right now? That there are no problems of ideologies today?
If you did it would be BS, total BS. I hear you talking about them all the time on these boards. How you don’t like this ideology and you have a problem with that action and so on and so forth. Why? What’s your problem? You feel like you’re being a little pressured to conform? To be an unwilling party to behavior you disagree with? Is the real world not conforming to your ideals?
That is a weak criticism IMO, real weak.
Dewey, I guess that all depends on what you mean by “pure”. And I don’t mean that as some kind of semantic quibbling. I mean, we’re talking about governments in theory, and you are attacking them on a matter of implimentation. I can much imagine similar arguments about the implimentation of democracy. I mean, how are laws ever going to be made if we can just overturn them! That’s like anarchy! We can’t just make up laws whenever we want. But it is such “pure” ideologies that drive implimentations. What line can the government cross? What line can’t it? And so on.
I don’t understand what you often expect from Lib in these sort of debates. A working mathematical model of the economy?
I sometimes feel like people say, “What is Libertaria going to do about THIS? Huh? Huh?” Well, what is Ameritopia going to do about slavery? Huh? Huh?
It might have benefited many of the peoples of the world if the architects of the Communist revolution had been forced to answer “what is Commutopia going to do about THIS? Huh? Huh?” If you want to radically restructure the way the world is governed, it isn’t a bad idea to have some of those questions jammed down your throat.
And as far as Ameritopia: read the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers. There was a lot of that “what about THIS?” stuff going back and forth. Good thing, too.
Libertarian: Of the several arguments against various posters in your pit threads, I think only one is a valid reason for skipping a question in GD, namely: Purposely disrupting the debate. You mentioned a panoply of other issues with regards to a variety of posters, which to my eyes, seem petty and critically detract from the respect and appreciation I would otherwise give your arguments.
Despite whatever contrempts we’ve had in the past, please consider this advice: I do not think that DCU is guilty of disrupting your debate – rather, I think you are seriously overreacting to DCU (and other posters’) minor snarky pokes as he poses questions as is common style, for reasons known only to you; Certainly, if you find a poster to be indeed disrupting debate in the future, my honest advice is that warning that poster in-thread is a better option; And in general the pattern and intensity of pit threads is poor enough to indicate a break may be in order.
Turning to Dewey Cheatem Undhow, you’ve made several good and thoughtful points to me of late – let me return the favor: No, you’re not required to be any more respectful of Libertarian and his threads than you are of any of the others in which you participate, which isn’t to say you couldn’t stand to be more respectful of debate across the board. By respectful of debate, I mean appreciating, understanding, and respecting the individual points, effort, and the bandwidth issues in the debate, while refraining from signs of deliberate distortion, misrepresentation, logical fallacy or strawmen. I’ve made similar complaint of you in the past, which says to me that this may, also, be a pattern that needs breaking.
erislover, take a chill pill. Yes, the system we have has problems that need fixing, but the system itself isn’t the problem. The basic framework of a democratic republic, with checks and balances and a mix of private enterprise and public works, with defined and guaranteed rights and responsibilities all around, is the best humanity has come up with in the real world. It’s what most who don’t have it want.
Part of having such a system, though, is the responsibility we all have to cooperate to improve it when and where we can. Don’t mistake the identification of problems and the desire for solutions to be denunciations of the validity of the system itself .
But Libertaria cannot even exist in the real world, offering no way to deal with even the most trivial instance of humans disagreeing and unable or unwilling to “negotiate” a solution. See the difference? Reality vs. fantasy.
What was that you said? Don’t mistake the identification of problems and the desire for solutions to be denunciations of the validity of the system itself.
I would add that to suggest a libertarian improvement to the present system is fine. Delegating services out to private companies through contract to save the government money is an example. Suggesting major reform to the public education system might be another. Vouchers have a libertarian quality, enable the private sector to push the public sector to improve.
But, I think the US Constitution has a very libertarian character. Sometimes it is interpreted in such a way that I find the government is being too intrusive. For example, if California wants to allow marijuana to go to whoever, I think the federal government should stay out of it. I base that on a reserved police powers argument - to me, a very libertarian notion found in the US Constitution. The Tenth Amendment is a libertarian gold standard for what should be in a constitution. Now, if we could just get a little movement on how it is interpreted.
erislover, try a little experiment, then. Declare Libertaria in your own household. Try to negotiate everything with your housemate(s). See what happens the next time nobody wants to cook dinner or do the dishes. Then come back and tell us how well it worked, and how well the principles would translate to the entire world.
You’ve made houselholds into an Ionesco play. You forgot to introduce an economy. The cook and dishwasher housemates are entrepreneurs. The eaters pay the cook and dishwasher or else they don’t eat. It won’t be long before the cook and dishwasher expand out into other households and get rich.
