It appears that, since you don’t like libertarianism, you automatically ascribe to it everything that you are against, regardless of any evidence. I don’t know of any self-described libertarians who were anything but against the Iraqi war. The Libertarian party was certainly against it, as was Ron Paul.
This seems obvious to me. It is someone who agrees with much of the libertarian position but not all of it. Is there any other interpretation?
To be fair, there are some hawkish self-described libertarians, just like there are hawkish Democrats. Sam Stone, who self identifies as libertarian was in favor of the Iraq War. But the original statement was still inaccurate in its broad brush and in the motive ascribed to the pro war faction. Some people can’t tell the difference between neoconservatives and libertarians. Hardly the same thing.
As for me, I was 100% against it from the get go, and I think the press release I linked to earlier summarized my opinion quite well.
So a libertarian is a neo-conservative, but groovy?
Far out!
I’d have to give it some thought, but I think this may be a profound truth. The Right to Not Give a Shit is perhaps the deepest one of all.
Those who would claim You Must Give A Shit presume to claim soverignty not merely of the actions of others, nor even their bodies, but their very affections, and to assert that government has the right to claim ownership of feelings – with all the power that ownership entails. I can’t think of anything more abhorrent.
I may disagree with your shit, but I will defend to the death your right not to give it.
We knew Ron Paul was groovy from his appearance in the film “Bruno”. 
Apart from all that hipness, one wonders how Paul’s backers in the medical community (and elsewhere) square that support with his anti-vaccination views.
For the “herding cats” folks who explain that libertarians cannot be pigeonholed with respect to stances on major issues, are there any prominent libertarians who take exception to Libertarian Party positions against mandatory immunization? While the national platform does not explicitly address it, state parties like California’s are open about their views:
“Therefore, we oppose any form of forced or mandated medication such as fluoridation of water, compulsory vaccination, and involuntary
sterilization.”
Measles making a comeback in your state? Thank a libertarian (among other antivax loons).
note to furt: no one can compel you to give a shit, but living in society does impose a few requirements that you behave as though you did.
Weird. I wonder why they think fluoridation is forced medication. Do they think a government official will hold them down while another forces a funnel down their throat in order to deliver this fluoridated water? Aren’t they free to choose to not drink the water?
I’m sure fluoridated water finds its way into lots of products so our prototypical libertarian would have to go out of his way to keep his precious bodily fluids untainted (except by natural fluorides, which are A-OK).
A true libertarian would avoid all municipal water supplies and depend on his own well. And if that wellwater is tainted by dangerous microbes and chemicals spewed from a giant area livestock facility, well the market will take care of that, hopefully before he’s sickened or dead.
Umm, what? Singapore is ranked #1 in the world in the “Ease of Doing Business” ranking by the World Bank. You simply could not be more wrong. China only started to grow quickly after it implemented very significant market-oriented reforms.
Sickness and death are simply additional opportunities to engage in the marketplaces of medical care and funerals.
If too many people are dying, market forces will find an alternative. Like zombification or astral projection.
It would be easier to discuss this issue if the proponents of Libertarianism would provide a definition of the word that they are using. You might as well create a political philosophy of ‘Goodism’ and ask people how they could be opposed to ‘Goodness’. The best argument against Libertarian philosophy are it’s proponents who present absurd one-side arguments about the future hypothetical Libertarian Utopia, or Libertarian Mythology about the past. They will then then change the definition of their belief when their arguments are readily destroyed by all of the facts.
We should all be small-l libertarians who belive liberty is better than the lack of it. The big-L Libertarians don’t ever demonstrate how their philosophy provides more liberty to people. Obviously you will have more liberty if you alone are not subject to participation in the social contract while others are. What’s not obvious is how that increases liberty for anyone else, or how you will maintain that state of freedom while others pay for it.
As long as the nation which today comes closest to exemplifying libertarianism is Somalia, we’re all entitled to just point and laugh.
Vaccination, flouridation, the war in Iraq, these per se have absolutely nothing (and could never even do so in theory) with libertarianism. All big red herrings. But, “the right to participate in vaccination or decline”, "“the right to drink flouride or decline”, and “the right to financially contribute to the war in Iraq or decline” are all very much on point.
Again, I can declare myself a [whatever…say, Democrat or Arab or Podiatrist] and then say a bunch of wrong things, but that has nothing to do with the philosophy of Democrats, the culture/history of Arabs, or the methodologies of Podiatrists. Several here have said “such-and-such individuals have said blah-and-blah about…” which, again, is the only way a person who is a part of a hive can possibly consider the world. In contrast, an individualist does not necessarily need to fall for this ruse. Since s/he is not a hive-automaton, there need be no queen to ascribe all thought and action to. Thus, in the libertarian model, you could have many bees doing their own thing to a large degree. Thus s/he would find it silly to hold the position of one particular bee as authoritative, and thus s/he would not stoop to going around making arguments about any general group based on one bee’s personal position, except maybe in the case of queen-worshiping hives. This is a real intellectual bitch for those in a hive. They are no better equipped to understand this than a fish is likely to understand the idea of water. Take Ron Paul, for example. He definitely has some libertarian ideas, but he has far more non-libertarian ones. In the end, he’s arguably more of a statist. Most libertarians look at a Ron Paul as a “as far as statists go, he’s not even remotely as bad the other statists” candidate–the massively least-most of several evils. Mind you, they love Dennis Kucinich every single bit as much (and as little) and he’s a supposed lefty.
Again, you can’t generalize on specific issues based on specific individuals when it comes to libertarianism. You can’t say “the unabomber was American, so Americans are therefor all terrorist idiots”. This red-herring is what is being desperately hung on to by some of the commenters here.
Some others seem to think that libertarians want to give power to corporations! What a laugh, since corporations are anathema to libertarianism. Corporations, as I clearly stated previously, are not able to exist without the state! Furthermore, they are inextricable from the state. No official state in that jurisdiction == no corporations in that jurisdiction. Period! Very simple. Think about it! Corporatists are statists. Anyone who thinks mega corporations can co-exist with a free market does not understand the basic notion of a free market.
Also, it’s nice to see that still nobody has been able to point out a single instance of Friedman behaving in practice along libertarian lines. You can make sarcastic comments, you can disparage, you can hedge, you can wish like heck that there was a hive-queen about which you could say “ah ha, so what she says they are is what libertarians are!”, but so far that’s about it! That must be very frustrating!
What must be even more frustrating is not being able to point to a single existing prominent libertarian who has Purity Of Essence and well-thought out sensible positions on the issues that go beyond “I don’t wanna.”
@Jacmannii: lol, Ernest Hancock, for one of hundreds! (See, responsive answers don’t hurt!) Now, as for your “I don’t wanna” straw-man, again it’s exceedingly clear and obvious: “I don’t wanna” per se never enters into any definition of libertarianism. Rather, it’s obviously merely “I don’t wanna hafta”. It may be possible for you to reason out that this is fully compatible with “I wanna” whenever “they wannit” to be.
Well, you definitely have a point there! I, for one, had completely forgotten about Ernest Hancock, despite his massive presence and profound impact on the American political scene.
Wow, Ernest Hancock! Ernie has a terrific website* with fabulous brain-melting graphic design and lurid exposes (I especially love the article explaining why Facebook is a CIA data mining scheme, not to mention revelations of the amazing sea slug that is half-plant, half-animal (another Obama conspiracy?!?). The ads are a bit disturbing (do lots of libertarians have need of bail bondsmen?), though “Michelle” is at least a marginal improvement on Ann Coulter.
Well, thanks for clearing that up. :rolleyes:
*I would link to it, but at least for me it has that annoying feature of resisting attempts to navigate away from it.
@Jackmannii: well, now that you got your name, weren’t you going to show us all how Ernest’s libertarian positions on various issues are stupid and all that? Well then, hop to it, big guy. A few comments about graphic art and something vague and about Ann Coulter are likely to further make you look like you’re squirming.
As for clearing up your “I don’t wanna” confusion, you’re very welcome! Now we’re getting somewhere! Soon you might be ready to realize that “right wing” and “left wing” (to whatever extent those dubious terms have usable meanings) are thoroughly meaningless with respect to libertarianism. This is because libertarians measure things on a “yardstick” if you will, which is oriented along the axis of freedom. Since there is no significant difference in the amount of personal freedom offered by “the right and left wing facades of statism that are trotted out for the silly masses in order to give them the illusion of choice”, libertarians don’t find either one of them any more or less attractive than the other. The notion that libertarianism is philosophically “right wing” in any way, is patently false. Once you get over it, we can talk about libertarianism. Or, you can just talk about the right wing, which is irrelevant to libertarianism, and keep pretending they have something to do with one another. At least try to support that notion, though, if you continue with it. You simply take it as an axiom.