As I laid awake in bed this morning at 3AM listening to the thump, thump, thump (again) of music from my neighbour next-door-but-one, I was pondering: how is the issue of noise disturbance from party wall neighbours dealt with in Libertaria? (assuming that, like me, the victim has taken all reasonable and polite steps to request peace and quiet).
lay, not laid
Um, call the police?
Well, if it was me, I’d call the cops.
Friedo, Libertarian Extroardinaire.
The true Libertarian answer is that you’d buy all the houses surrounding your own so that there were no neighbors around to annoy you. It’s silly solutions to real world problems like that that prevent me from being a Libertarian.
Little Nemo, no offense dude, but it’s clear from your comment that you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about. I think you should familiarize yourself with Libertarian philosophy before commenting on it.
Yep. Basically, we’d do pretty much the same thing we do now. Libertarians believe that things like noise pollution constitute an initiation of force (i.e. they are forcing you to listen to it), and therefore the state has a valid interest in controlling it.
Same with fraud, tort law, extortion, bribery, etc.
My basic philosohpy is “Do anything you want, as long is it doesn’t affect anyone else. You do not have the right to a good time at another’s expense.”
I assumed that makes me a libertarian, but I could always be wrong. What do you say, friedo?
By the way, if I were in mangetout’s situation, after exhausting all polite avenues, I would then to proceed to deal with the problem more agressively, or call the cops.
There are no apartment buildings in my part of Libertaria.
FTR; the police here in the UK have no power to act against this kind of disturbance, the good news is that the Environmental Health Authority do have the power to act - once sufficient evidence is gathered, they have the power to confiscate and destroy the offender’s sound system, plus impose fines and injunctions.
Thanks for answering my question folks; I just wanted to know is whether this was one of those situations where a central authority wouold still have power.
Sounds to me like it makes you a Wiccan. 
That’s basically it. Libertarians believe the only valid purpose of government (i.e. the cops, in this case) is to protect people’s rights, usually by exercising coercion upon the offender.
I had thought that in Libertaria, there is no government.
This has been my beef w/ smokers. I don’t give a rats @$$ if you smoke but keep it to yourself.
I think in Libentaria the noisemaker/smoker would be the one who would have to have enought land (or noise cancelation tech) to play it as loud / create as much smoke as he wants.
If your rights are infringed on (property) you have the right to defend it.
You sure that isn’t Anarchia?
Also I want to point out you could sell/rent your rights to quite over your property.
I generally consider myself a Libertarian, and I think you’re well within the boundaries of Libertarianism to invoke the authorities here. My guess is that the purer Libertarians would prefer you to use the landlord before the cops, but either way they are infringing on your rights. They can party silently all night if they want to.
I also appreciate and admire that you corrected the laid/lay issue; very typically English (or Butterian) of you. I am from New Jersey, where, unlike Old Jersey, the correct sentence starts “As I lied awake…”.
I should probably have mentioned that the residence in question is a terrace of town houses; mine is the end-terrace and the noisy household is the middle one; despite being two doors away, the noise still wakes me up.
My poor neighbours, for whom the moise must be completely unbearable, report that items on their shelves are actually shaken about by the thumping bass, but my neighbours are rather timid and don’t speak a great deal of English (apart from the kids) - I think they are afraid to complain.
I have lost count of the number of times that I have asked the noisy people to turn it down (they always comply, but of course, by that time I am awake and dressed in the middle of the night).
My next move, I think, will be to explicitly propose that the noisemakers suggest a solution that doesn’t involve me invoking the authorities.
You’re right, friedo, and I apologize. It’s unfair of me to condemn all Libertarians because of the opinions of one Libertarian. It’s also unfair of me to start an argument in this forum, especially when the other party isn’t present to defend himself. My only excuse is that following several extended debates on this subject in the past, I still tend to be reactively twitchy.
You’re confusing libertarianism with anarchism. Libertarians believe in a minimalist government whose sole purpose is to protect fundamental rights, and that that is the only legitimate justification for coercian.
The central point of contention among Libertarians is what constitutes a fundamental right, and from where those rights derive.