Smaller overall, but not necessarily in areas of policing. The vast majority of Libertarians consider policing to be a legitimate government function. The policing function (and courts) in Libertaria might be larger than in the US today. The military, OTOH, would be much smaller, as would much of the rest of government.
Yes, we assume that a Libertarian government would recognize all members of our species, as currently defined scientifically, to be persons. That is the current position of the USA’s Libertarian party, so I think it’s safe assumption.
Here’s what I said:* I do not think the return of sundown towns are likely or even remotely possible but I do acknowledge that should they happen, they would not be prevented by force of law.* The country is big, I don’t rule out the possibility.
It’s still unclear why you think it would be better served. What is the metric you would use to judge whether things were actually better? If you admit that 100 years ago libertarianism would’ve been suboptimal, obviously you’re basing this on some kind of results-based criteria. So what do you think you could do in Libertaria that you can’t do now which would significantly raise your quality of life?
Right, but you’re not explaining why deregulating commerce will result in goodness overall. All I’m seeing with this is major risks to society, with little in the way of positive returns.
Your condescending smugness is not supported by anything you’ve said in this thread or any others. What I’ve pointed out are real flaws in libertarianism.
So let me return the feeling. You strike me as a typical libertarian who learned everything he knows about politics and economics from a book he read. And I’ll give you the same advice I give every other libertarian like you: you should read a second book.
As relieved as I am to learn that this is the current position of the party, we would have to take it purely on faith this would’ve been the party’s position during the heyday of American cotton and westward expansion.
Surely you can see how convenient it is to use 21st century values (which again, have been largely shaped by government-facilitated social changes over the course of many years) as a proxy for hypothetical views during the 1800’s!
That is simply not true. In the early years it was considered mainly a state issue, and most of the northern states abolished slavery long before the Civil War. That could not have happened if there were “relatively few” opposed to it.
Again, simply not true. You are assuming that blacks and only blacks would support boycotts and such of discriminatory businesses. I can even envision that in a Libertarian state, the government would not contract with companies that discriminated against certain classes of people. Now, the government would have be much smaller, but it would still be a big costumer to just toss aside. Companies that did not discriminate would have had a competitive advantage.
You could say that about any political party that did not exist at that time. How could we know that the Green Party would not support slavery? I have never heard anyone express that concern, and so it seems odd to single out the Libertarian Party on that issue. But I’m sure if you go back far enough, you’d find virtually no political party opposed to slavery.
Here’s an excellent candidate for a future sundown town: Marionville, MO, whose mayor, Dan Clavenger, says he “kind of agreed with” Frazier Glenn Miller, the Kansas Jewish community center shooter.
That’s certainly possible, but I think that would be rare. I’m sure you don’t think it would be anywhere near as rare as I do.
Is there a test case anywhere that a developed country had a policy similar to the Libertarian position: Not legal to discriminate at the government level, but no laws covering private businesses?
I just realize that I should have picked “Taxes” this week. US posters here will know why (income tax forms due yesterday). I think I’ll chose that one for our next thread, especially since it’s an issue where I part company with pure Libertarianism, unlike the issue of this thread.
Indeed. If a Green Partier asserted that slavery would’ve been forbidden under their system and supported this by citing ideals in their current charter, I hope you would challenge them just like I’m challenging you. It’s an assertion that is unpersuasive because it requires faith in things unseen.
To be honest, I think slavery would have gone untouched by a libertarian government, precisely because the protection of “freedom” seems to be the overriding value. Not compassion or concerns about human dignity or any of that fluffy abolitionist stuff. Write the law so that freedom is only protected for white citizens, and viola, you can have a libertarian government that allows slavery.
I think towns like Marionville, MO (mentioned a couple of posts earlier) are disturbingly common. I’m not sure how common, but in some states perhaps as many as 20-30% of small towns. This is an estimate/guess based on my own experiences, of course – I’m not sure how it could be measured.
I think it is, perhaps, of academic interest to consider what a the Green Party would have been like 150 years ago. In a discussion about the state of affairs today, and going forward, I find it of little interest.
Like I said, go back far enough and virtually everyone free person was OK with slavery. I see no reason to believe that a Libertarian Party would not have been at least middle of the pack in terms of recognition that slavery is incompatible with its values as time progressed.
It’s a town so white, even the squirrels are white! But in a small town like that, where (seriously) 97% of the population is white, and if it has a culture of racism, you’re probably right-- but Title II probably doesn’ mean much there anyway. Not sure about the 20-30%, though.
But I don’t need to support a libertarian form of government to get that. Indeed, it looks like I’m already getting that, under a strong federal government system. Plus, that same system could be used to expand the protections I already enjoy in California to the entire nation.
Well, if you’re talking strictly about libertarians I’ve met… all of them. Virtually every person I’ve met, in person, who has expressed strong libertarian views, has also expressed either homophobic or racist attitudes. This very small sample of loudmouth assholes who can’t shut up about their politics in inappropriate contexts probably does not represent libertarians as a whole, I grant. But there is a strain of bigot who, haven given up hope of the government supporting their prejudice, has embraced Libertarianism in the hopes of at least keeping the government neutral. I won’t speculate on how big a demographic they are in the current libertarian movement, but I don’t take for granted that a society that’s mostly libertarian can’t also be a society that’s mostly bigoted. Libertarianism and strong prejudice are by no means mutually exclusive.
Sure, if they had the best prices, or offered the best pay check. So long as they’re not actively trying to harm me, I don’t care what they think about me. I don’t want to go around being the morality police. I just want to get through my day. If I want to buy a cucumber, I want to be able to go to the nearest cucumber vendor and engage in an exchange of cash-for-vegetables. I don’t want to have to drive an extra five miles out of my way because the nearest store is run by a bigot who doesn’t let gays in his shop. I don’t want to have to run a risk analysis about getting kicked out of a store every time I want to hold my boyfriend’s hand in public. I absolutely do not want to know exactly how many people in my community hate me for no reason. God, can you imagine how awful that would be? The only thing worse would be knowing exactly how many people hate you for *good *reasons.
Compared to other philosophies, libertarianism is the most hands-off when it comes to business. Second only to anarchism. That by itself is plenty reason to doubt they’d be trying to stamp out slavery.
Values have a funny way of being corrupted by economic self-interest. The U.S. was founded on some high-minded goals about liberty and equality, but for the longest time there was a mismatch between these values and what was actually practiced. Crazy, huh?
This doesn’t exactly assuage any of my concerns. There are lots of mostly-white towns, and it’s very likely that non-white people will want to drive through them, eat there, or stop for the night in many of them quite frequently.