# Hyper-Libertarians Say the Darndest Things **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 20, 2013, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032 "2013-07-20T13:45:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/1 "2013-07-20T13:45:11Z")
My intent here is not to Pit, but to _show appreciation_ for hyper-libertarians. I do enjoy Stephen Colbert’s brand of right-wing thought and I’ll bet many of the hyper-libertarians at SDMB are whooshing deliberately, hoping eventually to audition for Comedy Network. (I post in BBQ Pit just so any Dopers who think Farnaby etc. are sincere can feel free to comment on their intelligence.) The remainder of this post isn’t my thinking – it’s a paraphrasing of hyper-libertarian thought. Example 1) **WillFarnaby** : Smallpox is better than fiber optic cables. In the 1990’s, the Federal Reserve Bank put its printing presses into overdrive, forcing money down the throats of businessmen who had no real use for it, so spent it building telecommunications infrastructure nobody really needed. This misallocation was a disaster comparable to a major war, certainly far worse than any smallpox epidemic. Yes, yes, some of that Internet infrastructure got used eventually (and more new fiber optics were manufactured in 2012 than in 2000!) but that was through the Power of the Market. Between Al Gore bragging about inventing the Internet and the FRB forcing hyper-inflated money down the throats of entrepreneurs, they ended up employing Americans who should have been out of work. And by out of work, I’m not talking about suckling at the Socialist trough; I’m talking [del]Constructive Starvation[/del] Creative Destruction. Mandatory Vaccines are an intrusion on liberty. How do you know the Democrats won’t use them to sterilize people who don’t share their confused Marxist ideals? Yes, yes, I’ve heard – vaguely – that smallpox was eradicated. So what? Wouldn’t a world with smallpox still rampant, but without those excess fibers from the 1990’s be a better place? Hunh? And by the way, I do vaccinate my kids. Fuck yours if you don’t. Example 2) **IdahoMauleMan** ’s views on flood control The [whole thread discussing Libertarian’s views on rice farming and flood control](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14354635) is amusing, but the brilliance prize goes to IdahoMauleMan. He [ul][li] questions why rice farmers build their farms in fertile areas;[/li][li] wonders why they don’t call up Chicago commodity brokers to discuss hedging strategies if worried about rainfall;[/li][li] thinks individual farmers building levees here and there would have saved the country from the horrific floods of 2011.[/li][/ul] (In that thread, many libertarians literally didn’t seem to understand that _averting a disaster altogether_ is better than compensation via insurance. Trying to educate such people reminds one of a calculus teacher who finds he has to start with reviews of “2+2=? 2+3=?”) Example 3) **jayarod7** ’s Conflict Resolution Agencies I’m sorry jayarod7 got banned. I was hoping for an explanation of his privatised Conflict Resolution. Since he’s not here, I’ll try to fill in for him: [QUOTE=Jason Rodd VII, hypothetical hyperlibertarian] Stopped at Bernie’s Hamburger Stand for brunch. – “Eating here implies acceptance of _Salmonella ‘R’ Us_ for conflict resolution.” Oops, let me check my HMO contract. OK, they accept _Salmonella ‘R’ Us_. The breakfast joint I ate at uses _Jones, Jones, Botulist and Jones_ for conflict resolution. Let me check on the Internet what arrangement they have with _Salmonella ‘R’ Us_ in case the source of my food poisoning is not clear. I’ll remember to type absolute IP number when I access Internet since Bernie’s has the “liberty” to use his own domain-name server with his own wifi, ha ha! Oh … another sign. Bernie’s insists I check my guns with his cloakroom girl. Can I keep my blow darts and grenade launcher? I’ll have to ask the cloakroom girl what Terminology Conflict Resolver Bernie uses for dictionary definitions … Oooh. Cloakroom girl’s a hottie. What’s the right way to ask her which Conflict Resolution Protocol she uses to mark the boundary between friendly flirtation and unwanted advances? [/QUOTE] The two-years old flood control thread might be worth review as a refutation of hyper-libertarianism. I’ll close this OP with my closing remark from that thread. > [@In a libertarian society...](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-a-libertarian-society/599458/112): > > A very large percentage of the misconceptions about economic policy would go away if people could close their eyes and momentarily forget about pieces of paper like banknotes and insurance contracts. Economic policy is about maximizing useful goods and services, not manipulating pieces of paper. (I’m not deprecating such paper, just espousing certain thought experiments.) > > Flood control presents a good example. The goal of farmers (and society) should be to prevent the floods (quite doable with properly managed dams and reservoirs); yet attention in this thread is focused on the pieces of paper that move flood losses from one entity to another. :smack: > > It is easy to understand why libertarians are unwilling to consider flood control seriously. If they reasoned the problem out step-by-step they’d gradually reinvent a representative democracy with taxation powers that would hire experts. > > Instead their dogma will lead them to a silly system with private companies competing to build little dams, and in their “perfect free market” farmers will “vote with their feet” by moving away from the paths of the dams built by the companies whose dam broke a decade ago, killing thousands. > > The extreme libertarian model is so silly, I’ve got to wonder if you guys are just trolls testing Poe’s Law. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/2 "2013-07-20T14:38:05Z")
I neglected to provide proper links in OP. Idaho’s views on flood control are in the thread I linked to; Jayarod7’s thread on private Conflict Resolution agencies has disappeared. :eek: Following is the post where Farnaby laments “malinvestment” caused by FRB while calling the goodness of mandatory vaccination “irrelevant”: > [@A Challenge to Modern Liberals Regarding their Fealty to the Principles they Espouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/242): > > The resources diverted to these “malinvestments” are essentially wasted as evidenced by the subsequent bust, when they must be redirected into more productive channels… > > … I blame the federal reserve for fueling speculative boom after speculative boom under Greenspan and Bernanke. The casino-ization of the stock market has led to nothing but growth in the financial sector. > … > The fact that mandatory vaccinations would be good for society, and has been good so far, is irrelevent… BTW, I agree with Farnaby that the “casino-ization” of the stock market has little public value, but am surprised he sees it that way. Many libertarians, whether they give a hoot for public value or not, think that “casino-ization” is the best thing since buttered bread! ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/3 "2013-07-20T14:47:42Z")
Wait, Libertarians are completely divorced from reality? Shocker. Never saw it coming. Next you’ll tell me Communism is unrealistic or Capitalism is corrupt. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/4 "2013-07-20T15:45:41Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Wait, Libertarians are completely divorced from reality? > > Shocker. No. Only “Hyper-Libertarians”. Unlike “Hyper-Other-Types-of-People” who have both feet firmly planted on the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/5 "2013-07-20T15:57:03Z")
Personally I liked **jayarod7** ’s assertion that monarchy is superior to democracy in libertarian terms. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/6 "2013-07-20T17:55:46Z")
Sorry if the term “Hyper-Libertarian” causes confusion. Only one of my three examples seemed actually “hyper” in the ordinary sense of “needs his dosages adjusted.” Anyway, a better taxonomy is needed for the various strains of libertarian. Farnaby certainly seems _extreme_ (see note 1), but by failing to embrace Wall St’s “casino-ization” (by which I think he means excessive derivative trading, etc.) I think many relatively moderate Libertarians would want to kick him out of their Party. One longs for the good old days before YouTube made every High School Sophomore an economics expert. In those days “I am a libertarian” just meant “I like to smoke dope and I don’t like taxes.” Note 1. If you draw a line connecting the trough of the Bush-41 recession to the trough of the Bush-43 recession, you’ll find the Clinton boom was huge _even with the bust in the early Bush-43 years factored in_. Or, to paraphrase Alan Greenspan, “It is better to have boomed and busted than never to have boomed at all.” For this reason, I think Farnaby’s contention that the slight over-investment in 1999 is reason to abolish the FRB and let money creation and bank regulation be completely privatised _while condemning the practice of mandatory vaccinations which give only trivial “irrelevant” benefits like the eradication of smallpox_ certainly qualifies Farnaby as Hyper-_Something_, even if the Pro-Casino Libertarians disown him. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/7 "2013-07-22T04:03:50Z")
The various strains of libertarianism: gun-toting, tax-dodging, and dope-smoking. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/8 "2013-07-22T12:11:18Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The various strains of libertarianism: gun-toting, tax-dodging, and dope-smoking. All on the moderate end of the scale (for the US), surely? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/9 "2013-07-22T15:11:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Personally I liked **jayarod7** ’s assertion that monarchy is superior to democracy in libertarian terms. Why? Because one guy can’t get around to doing as much? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyper-libertarians-say-the-darndest-things/664032/10 "2013-07-22T15:12:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The various strains of libertarianism: gun-toting, tax-dodging, and dope-smoking. [Oh, more than that!](http://leftycartoons.com/the-24-types-of-libertarian/)