I really can’t be arsed to go back through the previous thread to try to “getcha”, so —if you weren’t a part of the argument over aid to orphans that argued governments do it poorly, then I apologize for the error. That said, I think we can agree that libertarians do often argue that the government is bad at providing for the public interest; for such people, at least, my argument is valid.
(IOW, I’m not trying to blow you off.)
And then there’s the certainty as to the nature of government, a characteristic they share with classical Marxists. Whereas a Marxist believes that history and progress are a force with definable nature and inevitable progression, the Libertarian believes that government, by its very nature, by its essence, is incapable of competence, it must fail. This is a similar sort of secular metaphysics that makes fundamentalist Marxism rather quaint.
All government is like this, all government, regardless of its structure and intent, whether monarchist, feudal, capitalist or socialist, in this one regard they are doomed to be the same. Even a government of intelligent, dedicated and selfless public servants, devoted to the public good, must fail, they are government, and government is damned.
If you took an enterprise of business, producing organic widgets, one that is marvelously well run, lean and efficient, and the next day you substituted government paychecks for paychecks from the WeSaySo Corp…the workers would instantly become more prone to sloth and apathy, even if they continued in precisely the same jobs, for the same pay and same social status…badda boom, badda bing, they are government, they fall apart.
Now perhaps there is such a force of nature, as inevitable as physics and as definite, and such a force is somehow evoked in clusters of people engaged in governance. Perhaps. But how would you go about proving it? And if there is to be no proving, how is it any less a leap of faith than Christian Science?
Almost all of us, Libertarians included, believe that that the government is good at some things and bad at others. It just boils down to which things we put in the 2 different categories. I do think some Libertarians get off track when they argue too much about efficiency, because Libertarianism isn’t about efficiency-- it’s about liberty. The ends never justify the means, so even if you can think of some great “good” that the government could do, it doesn’t justify the means, if those means include violating the liberty of the people.
Got a cite for that? Because I’ve never encountered that except among Anarchists.
Nonsense. But at least you’re posting in the right thread-- myths about Libertarianism.
And that brings us to the next problem: who is libertarian, who is the true libertarian Scotsman who will not put government sugar on his porridge. Even you won’t fling yourself headlong into such a commitment, you are a small “l”, sorta kinda libertarian. But I’ve seen ** Sam** invoke a very similar belief, with the calm confidence of a Methodist with four aces, because government can and will use force to its ends, it is not encumbered by the need for efficiency that drives the clean, bright engines of commerce.
But you never heard of such a thing? I’m making it up? Well OK, who do we look to for the definitive libertarian position?
That’s a pretty convenient way to dodge a request for a cite. If you know something to be true, then cite it.
I am not a Libertarian, but I understand the philosophy pretty well. And yes, most Libertarians would say that the government is generally less efficient at doing most things, but it is certainly not mainstream Libertarian thought to say that Governments must fail.. The vast majority of Libertarians are not Anarchists, and support what they see as legitimate government functions: Police, Defense, and courts. The purpose of those functions are to preserve personal liberty.
As for the government taking over a private enterprise, it’s not so much that the workers would become lazy, but the management would, assuming that the purpose of the government takeover was to eliminate the profit motive. Now, you haven’t said what the motive was, so if it was something different, then state it, and we can analyze it wrt Libertarian principles.
Missed the edit window…
Like I said earlier, though, I think Libertarians would do themselves a favor if they stayed away from the whole efficiency argument most of the time. While support for a centrally planned economy is pretty much dead across the entire political spectrum these days, there are certainly mainstream political thinkers who are going to assert that government needs to take over or play a strong role in certain aspects of the economy.
But any efficiencies gained through Libertarian principles are secondary. The primary purpose is to preserve individual liberty. I think we can all think of things the government might be more “efficient” at doing, but we still don’t want the government doing those things because they infringe on individual liberties. China, for instance, has been pretty “efficient” at keeping it’s population growth in check as compared to, say, India. Few of us, though, would support the Chinese position over the Indian’s because of the gross infringement on personal liberty.
Libertarians take that position to the extreme. And that’s why it’s not a viable political philosophy because humans simply aren’t, by nature, concerned solely with individual liberty. We all put ourselves on a sliding scale of wanting individual liberty and a measure of security. It’s all a matter of where on that scale we find ourselves.
Why is it, John, that you can demand a cite from me about what libertarians believe, but are free to expound upon what libertarians believe with no more citation than
You are certainly free to ask for a cite for anything in those posts. Do you really want one? But, you first, since I asked you first.
However, you may not demand that I disprove something you said without a cite, or that I prove that something doesn’t exist.
I love the way these guys deny something is even libertarianism at all whenever its inconsistency with reality is demonstrated to them beyond their powers of handwaving.
Just a bit o’ fun.
I hope you didn’t “buy the shirt”. 
You kidding? Walk around and have everybody asking me “What the fuck is a libertarian?”.
When someone claims they are libertarian, I wonder why they never grew up. It belongs in the Ministry of Silly Walks. It is childish, unworkable and can not tolerate the slightest scrutiny.
A Libertarian is someone who claims to espouse the Libertarian ideology.
The Libertarian ideology is one that allows for the ultimate exploitation, use and abuse of human beings by others that are in a social or financial position to exert such exploitation, use and abuse.
For example: Libertarian ideology eagerly allows for the exploitation of 10 year olds working in a factory 12 hours a day, because Liberarian ideology says the factory owner should be the one to dictate the value of a 10 year old’s labor, and not anyone else, like a community, a city, a local or a federal government.
The ultimate Libertarians, of course, are Anarchists, as in, no authority over the individual, but they don’t talk about this much in the US because the PR related to Anarchy is not very palpable for the conservative white middle class they mainly focus their message to.
Libertarians also like to show off as ultra-conservative Republicans. This angle is pathetic because they don’t have the guts to openly acknowledge that they want to exploit, abuse or kill anyone they like for their individual profit, and instead they’re hiding behind the tripe of the Republican Party, that other than spewing hatred against minorities and trying to round up the racist vote in the US in the past 50 years, doesn’t seem to be doing anything about re-establishing the legality of slavery.
That’s the f**k that a Libertarian is.
After the Enron fiasco, you would think Libertarians would rethink their anti regulation stance. But, no, they pretended it was an aberration. But while the world was shocked, some bankers admired the large scale theft and wanted those huge salaries. Greed won and they spent a lot of money convincing politicians to dereg banking.
One function of the government is to protect the consumers and the nation from the damaging actions of the greedy thieves. It failed . It was bought.
We have all suffered for the politicians caving to the financial"experts’. Now they are doing it again. The bankers are fighting to keep regulation away.
Will we ever learn? Stop dereg. It is wrong and dangerous.
Gee, Naxos, I don’t know. Would it be ok with you if I confine my efforts to snark and derision, I don’t need to see them hunted down, or anything.
Damn, the secret is out! You’ve ruined a perfectly diabolical plan!!
Oh, and the word you were groping for was “palatable”. You could probably make a case for “palpable” but you’d have to hire Bricker.
Yeah, I hope so too. The panels are too small there to really make for a good T-shirt. You want something that folks can read while they’re walking past you for that, not something they have to stop and stare at you for a couple of minutes for.
Yeah, something more like: “Libertarians like to fuck you in the ass”.