Exploring libertarianism

The BBQ Pit
1

This is a continuation of a thread with a distasteful title.

You may have noticed that subtlety is not one of my strong points. I’m honestly trying to get an understanding of what you mean, and rephrasing in my own words is an effective way for me to do that. I certainly meant no disrespect. However misguided I may be, my notion is that anarchy means I can do whatever I want to: there are no rules at all. It seems to me from what you have said that libertarianism I can do whatever I want, as long as I abstain from initial force or fraud. If something in there pushes your buttons, I hope that you can explain to me why it pushes your buttons, in the process of pointing out where I’ve misunderstood you.

I’ve not engaged in any kind of debate on this topic before, and if it seems I’m making assumptions or shooting for a ‘standard’ trap, I assure you this is not the case.

That’s helpful, thanks. That’s consistent with my notion of fraud. I think what threw me off is the ‘initial’ qualifier. Based on the analogy to force, I assume this means I may engage in ‘defensive’ fraud. Meaning that in the example above, once I find out the watch is a fake, I can go to you and say, “hey, can I borrow that tenner? I’ll pay you back.” When I have no intention of giving it back. Is that right?

I have to say that I find the preceding somewhat contradictory: you suggest leaving behind preconceptions, but you make a pretty big assumption about how I see a government. I replicate it here only to ask if there’s something important about liberarianism in there that I missed. It helpful to have the negative definition (i.e. what government doesn’t have to be) but there’s nothing special to libertarianism about that. Is that correct, or am I missing something?

I’d rather have a conversation with a live human being who cares than read a dry white paper by people who may or may not have political motives in the current environment.

Absolutely not. And if I refuse to move at any price, which surely must be my right?

Then the road goes around my property, right?

Which leads to a new question: Suppose you build a road just on the other side of my property line. It appears to me that I have no right to prevent it. But I also didn’t consent to the noise and exhaust fumes. I’m not saying the current system does a great job here, but do you see this as a conflict? If so, how will it get resolved?

This is reasonable. It does lead to another question, though. Since someone might own the highway, it could be sold. Suppose the only road out of my house (or all the land surrounding it, equivalently) is sold. Does trespassing constitute force, or may I leave my property by crossing another’s without their consent?
What if the water, gas, and electric supply companies decide they won’t sell to me anymore. In the middle of winter. And I can’t leave my house without trespassing? Must I freeze or starve to death to avoid coercion?

Or is one of the owners of the land or utilities coercing me by withholding and I am therefore justified in the defensive use of force?

My point about not all agreeing about the threat was to get at who makes the decision. I gather from this response that defense from external enemies is not handled by entrepreneurs. Is that right?

How do the citizens decide, then, who will make that swift and decisive decision to nuke someone?

I can see that with respect to the internal relations of its citizens, there need be no dissent, though (pending your reactions to the above questions) there may be disagreement about whose consent takes precedence. However, there is bound to be dissent as to external relationships. How can these be resolved?

I just want to make sure I have this correct: If I want a free ride, then I don’t have to pay for the upkeep of the army?

Am I a citizen if I don’t consent to be governed?

If all my neighbors consent, and I don’t, can my neighbors get the army to kill me if I seem a threat to (at least one of) them, and I haven’t consented to be governed?

I get the sense that this is crucial to you, and it’s a little elliptical to me. Can you elaborate?

2

Nogginhead wrote:

Thank you. I will try to be less touchy and cut you some slack.

Yes. The underlying theory is that when a man coerces (i.e., initiates force or fraud), he has forfeited his own rights (property) by virtue of usurping yours.

Just being preemptively cautious. You will understand that I have heard the I’m-just-asking-out-of-curiosity line before only to see it devolve quickly into the your-philosophy-is-shallow-and-you-are-dishonest ranting. I hate when that happens.

Politics can be a very hot-button issue for many people. For every Xeno out there who studies for the sake of learning, there are a hundred Elvises who haven’t read the first treatise but charge in anyway with declarations that I live in a fanatasy world where my philosophy is not practical.

It seems to me that what is practical depends entirely on what you are practicing. What is workable depends on what you are working toward. If you are practicing tyranny and working toward usurpation of rights (property), then libertarianism is indeed impractical and unworkable. But if you are practicing voluntary human relations and working toward a context of peace and honesty, then libertarianism is the only practical way.

That’s all well and good, and I understand. But please consider that I don’t have enough time to type out whole essays in answer to every particular. Besides, it has already been done.

If I am asking you about how authoritarianism will build roads, then I am satisfied when you answer that government will build them and refer me elsewhere for details. I don’t expect you to write a book on road building and the intricacies of bureaucratic administration. So if I say that entrepreneurs will build roads if roads are demanded and refer you to Cato for details, I expect that to be good enough.

Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends, in part, on who owns the property (rights) adjacent to yours and what they will or will not do and your relationship with them.

Since rights and property are synonyms, conflicts are not possible. It is the owner of property who has rights with respect to that property. That’s why I’ve been typing “rights” in parentheses after “property”, and vice-versa until now, so you would get a sense of that until it came up. It has now come up, so I will now cease the practice. But just be mindful that whenever we speak of either rights or property, we are speaking of two interchangeable things.

Pollution is trespass and vandalism — a coercion. People may not pollute your property without consequences. See whether you can apply that information to your question about pollution from the road. (Remember that whatever you demand of others might be demanded of you.)

Yes, it does, and no, you may not.

However, understand that if your road is sold, then the new owner likely was attracted to it because it was a profit-making enterprise. Cutting off his customer base would be a fundamental commercial mistake. The only way you can reasonably assure that you will be put into a fairly hopeless situation is to introduce a Giant Squid, such as a mean old man with almost unlimited wealth who delights in torturing his neighbors in an area that is free of entrepreneurs and people who can think for themselves.

Yes. But if you get to suppose, then so do I. Suppose there is free and open competition among suppliers of water, gas, and electricity. And suppose that your business is very valuable to the company that serves you and would be equally valuable to another.

I mean, you know that if your grandmother had balls, she’d be your grandfather. But certain extreme suppositions are necessary to effect that.

Certainly not. You are not entitled to their property.

It is handled by government. That is what government is for.

Now you are moving back into particulars. There are countless ways that libertarianism enforcement might be implemented. My personal preference is for a system of arbitration whereby the arbiter orders the enforcer to act.

Since every individual is free to give or withhold his consent, there is no possibility of one consent taking precedence over another. As to external relationships, remember that government does not maintain these. It does not conduct diplomacy. There is nothing for government to resolve but coercion against any of its citizens.

Free ride? I have no idea where that comes from. If you don’t hire a government to defend your rights, then you must defend them yourself. Government without consent is tyranny.

No.

If they bring charges of coercion to their government, and it determines that you have coerced them, then it is contractually obligated to use whatever force is necessary to seize back their rights. But it may not use more force than is necessary, since excessive force is by definition coercive.

Neither God (if you are a theist) nor nature (if you are an atheist) gave any other man moral authority over you. If he has it without your consent, then he has usurped it.

It is not a new idea. You might recognize this:

— The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies In Congress, July 4, 1776

3

Although Libertarian is prone to self-righteous posturing about Libertarianism as he sees it, ranting on and on about how evil any other system of ‘governance’ is and about how they violate people’s rights, you should be aware that he hasn’t been able to put forth a description of how Libertarianism as he describes it works without contradicting himself. This is pretty damning; although he can spend huge amounts of time whining that any governmental system that functions in the real world is terrible, he can’t spend the short amount of time to explain how his ideal government would really work. Sure, he can treat us to one of his usual word games where he goes on about ‘peacful, honest people’ or starts making really flawed analogies, but as far as explaining basic facets of how Libertarian’s Libertarianism* would work, that’s just too much bother.

The simplest flaw is to ask whether the government of Libertaria, to which Lib belongs, would object if I responded to Lib’s child trespassing on my lawn by shooting him. According to the One Law Of Libertaria, “Every citizen shall be guaranteed freedom from coercion,” there’s no protection for a citizen of Libertaria who initiations force against someone, yet Lib has said that Libertaria would treat my shooting of his kid as murder. Quite simply, Libertaria does not govern me only by consent if initiation of force by a citizen of Libertaria subjects a person to Libertaria’s laws, and government only by consent is the fundamental principle which Libertarian uses to justify his self-righteous whining in a variety of threads.

You can look at this old thread for an example of where Lib, as usual, neglected to provide basic answers about this amazing form of Libertarianism of his.

*I always make sure to mention that I’m talking about Libertarian’s version of How Things Should Be, since his vision of Libertarianism is not the same as that held by most people who self-identify as Libertarians, the Libertarian party, or by various Libertarian websites he’s used as sources himself. He tends to get really snippy when this is pointed out, at one point he accused me of wanting to murder him (six up from the bottom) after I pointed it out.

4

Nogginhead

Now, do you see why I’m a mite touchy?

Consider Ribo’s rhetorical romp. Though I have evaded none of your questions, he has seen fit to assuse me of “self-righteous posturing” and evasion. I consider that to be vindication for my suspicious nature in these matters.

With respect to his comment on the trespassing child, naturally he is speaking only for himself and not for me despite his presumption to the contrary.

With respect to the first thread he linked, you can review it and see that I responded in excruciating detail to a barrage of opposition until I could no longer afford the time to do so.

And finally, with respect to the jejune murder reference, you can see from the context, if you investigate, what I was saying.

This is precisely what Xeno was referencing in the thread you linked from when he promised that he would close his new thread if it degenerated. There are certain people who are not content merely to disagree — they want to intimidate, ridicule, and bully their way into the discussion. They have determined that if they are not satisfied, then everyone who enters the thread must be shocked into leaving.

You can understand that I will not participate in Ribo’s game. This is my last response to that sort of baiting, and it is for your benefit so that you will know why I’m ignoring people like him who crash your thread, and what I am up against when I offer to assist those who are genuinely interested.

5

What sort of damning questions, Ribo… like “How is Libertaria going to reallocate wealth?” 'Cause I’ve come across that one before. I’m interested in hearing these contradictions.

6

Noggin, for your edification:

“My Foray into the Nuances of Libertarianism”

A play in three acts starring me, Lib, and several other Dopers.

Act I

Act II

Act III

There is an epilogue in Ribo’s second link.

7

I didn’t say you were evading anything in this thread, I was talking about your general behavior. Can you scan past a thread about ‘should the law do X’ without lecturing all of us on how evil any government is that wouldn’t live up to your standards? Oh no, you just have to come in and give us another little catechism from your book to show how wonderful you are for believing in Libertarian’s Libertarianism, though you don’t have time to stay and explain how Libertarian’s Libertarianism actually works.

Just follow that link to the thread in question, I haven’t ‘presumed’ anything - Lib refused to actually answer the basic question I posed, or to even tell us how one gets from “No coercion allowed” to “excessive force is coercion, and this is excessive force but this isn’t”.

No, you dodged around and struck your self-righteous pose until it became obvious to everyone that you weren’t going to offer real answers to basic questions.

Yes, we can see what you were saying - that allegedly I would murder you if you implemented your perfect system. That’s pretty typical of what someone can expect from you; rather than address the arguments put to you, you resort to accusing the person arguing with you of something horrible, like wanting to kill you.

There are certain people who are not content to offer arguments, but who want to offer self-righteous whining ad nauseum without having their pet theory subjected to basic questions, much less real debate. They have determined that if people ask them the difficult questions that expose flaws in what they advocate, then they must act affronted and refuse to answer.

Yes, that terrible, terrible “game” of answering basic questions about what you advocate. Oh woe is Lib, someone actually pointed out the contradictions in his concept instead of just saying ‘yeah, it’s great’ or ‘yeah, I’m a statist oppressor and I like being bad to people’.

Yes, you’re “up against” people who dare to ask you basic questions about Libertarian’s Libertarianism instead of just saying ‘Whoah, that’s great, peacful honest people and noncoercion, those people who have a government that funtions in the real world really are evil’.

8

Note to anyone who cares (hopefully Lib and nogginhead): I’m going to delay the thread I promised in the DTT* until this latest one has blown out, both to give myself more time to formulate my thesis, and because I don’t think it’s fair to ask Lib to promote the theory on one front while he defends his presentation of that theory on this front.

*Distastefully Titled Thread

9

Thanks, Xeno. God bless you for your kindness and empathy.

But I don’t intend to defend myself here. I don’t even intend to read the attacks. None of it is anything new, and it is from closed and made-up minds. I’ll just scroll past it all looking for Noggin or someone else with a question. So feel free to procede if you wish. I found your idea intriguing, and have given it some thought already.

I’m interested in your formulation of it.

10

I’ll post this weekend, then.

11

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by erislover *
What sort of damning questions, Ribo… like “How is Libertaria going to reallocate wealth?” 'Cause I’ve come across that one before. I’m interested in hearing these contradictions.

[QUOTE]

In the post you’re responding to:

Do I get to murder the kid for stepping on my lawn and remain free from coercion, or does Libertaria engage in coercion and punish me for murder (or whatever you call the crime) thereby violating it’s principles? Note that I’m talking about the system that Lib talks about here, not just any system that someone might call Libertarian. While Libertarian may say “Bullshit. You just want to pick a fight, and you don’t mind trampling on the language to do it,” when I point out that what he calls Libertarianism isn’t neccesarily what everyone else means by the term, I have to point it out here to make it clear that I don’t want an ‘answer’ to the problem that requires using a different definition of Libertarianism than Libertarian’s. “Libertaria is not concerned with borders and is not a regime with any legitimacy beyond your consent,” and all of that.

There are other problems too; for example, Lib has stated before that polluting someone else’s property would be coercion, but only if it exceeds some threshold. He has not, however, explained how one determines that threshold from the One Law of Libertaria, or how it gets determined if two people don’t agree on what is an acceptable level of pollution and don’t have the same arbitrator.

One can also look at how Libertarianism Lib-style handles arbitration companies (or countries, or whatever you want to call them) that have different standards for contracts. For example, most states in the US today consider some verbal contracts valid, but not verbal contracts for real estate transactions. How does Lib’s Libertarian setup handle that without coercing one party into either accepting a contract he considers invalid or rejecting a contract he considers valid? You also have similar problems with rules of evidence and the like.

12

Yeah, all of us with those terrible closed and made up minds who think that self-righteous posturing on the basis of a self-contradictory belief system is bad.

13

Good! I look forward to it. :slight_smile:

14

I have a question. In a libertarian society, are people permitted to form groups on their own, with a hierarchy and governing system of their own design, and even a system of value, ownership, taxation and compensation?

15

Yes. It is possible, for example, to form a libertarian collective with a communist economy — so long as all are volunteers.

16

What if their own design turns out to be something that is not a libertarian collective with a communist economy…what if they form a [insert whatever you call our current system], where everyone involved agrees to the terms. Would this be permitted? If not, how would it be prevented?

17

If everyone agrees and there is no coercion, then it is libertarian by definition. But if a system allows even one person to be coerced, then it is definitively not libertarian.

18

I am an old poster with a new name. But, here I am again, and it seems nothing has changed.

I am truly upset by the amount of anger and hate directed towards Lib by these posters. And, what upsets me most is that it is coming from people whom seem intelligent enough to understand the difference between a form of government, like a constututional democracy, and the philosophy driving it, like Republican Conservatism or Democrat Liberalism.

It seems that these sheep just freak the fuck out as soon as the model is changed slightly. It is sad. They need to go back to school, pay attention this time, and come back when they have the emotional constitution to deal with being flat wrong and the knowledge to understand when it is time to listen.

And, then you get people like Rib who seems to be almost violent in his sophmoric leaden moronic flap-trap about inconsistencies that only his infant mind can see the patterns of in Lib’s posts.

I feel for Lib’s attempt at educating these closed-minded people.

Keep on trying Lib. you do have a crowd cheering for you.

19

Wow. Thank you! :slight_smile:

20

On what scale do you believe libertarian philosophy can be implemented? Would you have to first convince every single person to accept it? How would you deal with people incapable of understanding the terms?

Forgive me if these are ridiculous questions…I haven’t studied libertarian philosophy at all.