So it seems many libertarians just hate the government because it takes away their freedom. It sounds like they want to go back to the 1920s or 30s with a laissez faire method of governing. But, my issue with that is fairly obvious. If it’s not the government taking away your freedom, then it’s going to be the robber baron who owns the factory you work and live in. So is this what libertarians want? Would they rather have their freedom trampled on by those more powerful than them with 0 influence, and no checks and balances on them? In a libertarian society, I would just trample all over my neighbors because I have more money, and firepower than them. Maybe I’m just naive and humans actually aren’t greedy. It’s probably all just a fabrication or over exaggeration right? No way someone is going to take away my freedom if theres no government, right?
How about we start with the basics. Don’t steal. Don’t deny other’s freedom.
Theft by tax vastly outweighs private theft.
Imprisonment by government vastly outweighs private imprisonments.
The 1930s was not a period for the laissez-faire method of governing. Your history needs revision. Now that you know the Great Depression occured under the unprecedentedly interventionist Hoover and Roosevelt administrations, have you changed your mind?
But you don’t believe in those basics. You’ve said previously that you would have preferred if slavery in the US had just taken its own course and hope it petered out on its own. ie you don’t even think it’s the government’s place to enforce freedom.
“Enforce freedom” by total war, conscription, occupation, cronyism, and increased taxation? No. Slavery ended elsewhere peacefully.
I bet you believe the invasion of Iraq was simple enforcement of freedom.
The way you describe the Civil War, it’s like Lincoln invaded the South to start the war; as opposed to the South firing the first shots because it got afraid that its racism may someday be not as welcome.
OP, you see what you’re dealing with? The type of libertarians you’re talking about care about facts as much as young earth creationists. The total commitment to the cause is what’s important, not reality.
Of course it does. We have a functioning government that acts against crimes like private theft and private imprisonment. Eliminate that government oversight and there will be plenty of individuals willing to step into the void and start stealing and enslaving.
No, it didn’t. Slavery was never given up voluntarily by the slave owners. It was always ended by some authority telling the slave owners they had to give up slavery. And if it was peaceful it was only because the slave owners backed down in the face of threatened force.
That’s a bad bet, you lose. But you’ve shown your hand by including “increased taxation” in your list of unacceptable costs of enforcing freedom.
And a history lesson: the invasion of Iraq was not total war, didn’t rely on conscription nor increased taxes. Sounds like your kind of war.
Of course Libertarians know that oppression by individuals is about the same as oppression by individuals…but they assume/hope that in a Libertarian society they have a decent chance of being the individuals that oppress.
Assuming you don’t work for Microsoft and don’t use their products, Bill Gates has almost no power over you. Compare this to power potentially exercised by the lowest GS-5 employee of the IRS if they choose to do so.
Individuals can certainly oppress - but they have less opportunity to do so.
If libertarians had their way and government regulation was abolished, that opportunity for individuals to oppress would increase greatly.
Indeed.
Without federal regulations, Microsoft would own the entire operating system market now. Lest we forget, MSFT bailed out Apple back in the 90s as part of a defense against the anti-trust suit they were facing.
Without regulation, either Apple would have failed or MSFT would have simply absorbed it. Then, with 100% (effectively) of the PC operating system and application system they would have been in the position to enforce their will on every computer user in the world.
In Jared Diamond’s “the World Before Yesterday” he makes a cogent case (based on interviews with tribesmen in Papua New Guinea, mainly), that the earliest and most basic need for government is to stop males from killing each other and raping women. Which is accomplished by establishing “justice” aka the rule of law maintained by threat of force. When this level of government is achieved, it is an enormous and deeply appreciated improvement in the life of every community touched by it.
Another example would be medieval Iceland.
The trouble with libertarians is that they imagine civilization exists independent of threat of force from above. Apparently it really doesn’t.
Hmm. Two power centers in society broadly speaking, capital and government. You believe the one who currently imprisons and steals the most protects us from the other. You know the one who clothes and feeds billions for less and less inputs every year, while government does less and less with more and more.
Yes it takes some ideological gymnastics to pull off something like that.
Oh you misread. I said it was ended peacefully. It was. Especially compared to the carnage you think was necessary for some deeply ideological or psychological reason.
Yes a lot of fact-free tech-geek pablum. The same type of nonsense was believed when they took down Standard Oil years after it reached its peak. I think it had like a 6% market share.
No deeply ideological or psychological reasons behind slavery then?
“Enforcing freedom”. Lol sounds like a jailer’s term. If the shoe fits.
Awesome non sequiter. Let’s see if it will be topped.