Oy!

[Liberal]

Sorry to open two Pit threads in one day, but I had no way to anticipate the following screed suddenly appearing in, of all places, General Questions.

@Oy!

The problem with libertarianism as I see it is that it is based on a far simpler technology than we have today, and includes a hefty dose of what might be called brutal optimism.

Libertarianism is not based on a technology. It is based on an ethical principle — specifically, the principle of noncoercion. Put another way, it is based on the notion that peaceful honest people should be free to pursue their own happiness in their own way. It is a political, not a scientific, philosophy.

Libertarianism is based on the concept that people will purchase (whether it be goods or services) on the basis of enlightened self-interest. This is all very well when the technology we’re talking about is at a level where the average consumer is capable of making enlightened choices. Unfortunately, this is not true of contemporary technology.

Libertarianism is not an economic philosophy. Perhaps you are thinking of anarcho-capitalism. But I am curious about your technology fetish: what exactly does technology have to do with enlightenment? Do you envision people wearing helmets connected to machines that make them capable of choosing enlightenedly?

Company A may be destroying the local environment such that, twenty-five years from now, the area will not be livable. Love Canal, for example. The problem is, very few people have the expertise to judge that for themselves. If none of the few people who do have that expertise live in the area, how will the citizens ever know?

Um, is there some mechanism in your version of libertarianism that prevents people from consulting experts who live outside their area? And has it dawned on you that there is some irony in citing as your example an event that happened without a libertarian government?

Similarly, Company B may have labor practices that seriously endanger the health or safety of its employees. But often this is not in any way obvious. The employees may be inhaling substances that will cause cancer 10 years down the road. How will they know?

How do they know now? If it’s something that nobody can know, then how will a non-libertarian government know? If it’s something that IS known now, and the company is representing itself as safe, then a libertarian government will prosecute it for coercion.

The regulation of business practices to protect the citizens is, in my opinion, a perfectly valid function of government. The libertarian does not agree.

That’s not correct. I too believe that regulating business practices to protect citizens is a perfectly valid function of government. You should not make such statements in General Questions. In fact, this whole rant was out of place there.

As far as brutal optimism goes, the libertarian believes that each person is responsible for their own welfare and performance. As do I. However, the libertarian manages to live in a world in which all people start with a level playing field, and have an equal chance of success based entirely on their own abilities. I think that’s a joke.

I think your post is a joke. I have never in my life heard a libertarian say that all people start with a level playing field.

I’m not even talking the obvious difference between those who inherit large sums and those who do not. I’m talking about the fact that my parents, although financially lower middle class, raised me with a respect and desire for education. I never encountered anyone who thought school was stupid and good students were jerks until I went to school myself, and by then my values were set well enough (and these students were sufficiently in the minority) that I never succumbed to the notion that doing poorly in school was “cool.”

And that is an indictment of libertarianism? Do you realize how much like a libertarian you sound in that paragraph? I’ll see your lower middle class and raise you a deep poverty class. I’m talking no indoor plumbing here. I, too, was raised by parents with emphasis on personal character and a desire for education. I am, in fact, self-educated.

I know people who were “raised” on the streets. They bend over backwards to do the best they can for their kids, but the fact is, their own ignorance prevents them from ever doing well enough to do anything but live from crisis to crisis. Their children attend inner-city schools, and the parents lack the education themselves to help their children realistically aspire to something better.

You just finished saying that aspirations for education are not tied to poverty. Why now the switcheroo? If people are already ignorant, why burden them with an onerous set of laws and regulations that they cannot possible hope to comprehend? Why not guarantee them freedom from the force and deception of others so that they have a chance to compete fairly and escape their poverty? Why not allow success to be a reward rather than a punishement so that those people can have a fighting chance? Why institutionalize their plight by subsidizing their poverty with dispair?

I know libertarians believe that people should take responsibility for their own choices. But how long does someone have to suffer for a poor decision made at the age of 14? How many generations have to suffer because someone was a lousy drunk and left her kids to essentially raise themselves?

Only if unfair advantage is given to people who already have political clout, such as you see around you all day everywhere. The street people you know are searching for food in Boston and New York while people who have the political power and the governmental glory are feasting at banquets. They are spending tens of millions of dollars for nothing more than a self-serving show while people all around them starve.

I believe that the government should help the poor, particularly in ways that help them (and more importantly, their children) break the cycle of poverty and ignorance. And, btw, tax breaks aren’t much use to someone living on the margin, who struggles to make their rent and utilities, and falls completely behind if (as often happens) a child gets sick and requires treatment.

Are you aware that there is an ongoing War on Poverty that has lasted 40 years? Apparently, government is as inept at eradicating poverty as it is at eradicating drug addiction or terrorism. It is hard to conceive a more weeniefied way of dealing with poverty than to turn the problem over to a faceless labyrinthine bureaucracy where the cries of those in need are snuffed out by the sheer size and weight of the system. If you believe you are noble for calling upon a third party to help poor people, you are mistaken.

The optimism I refer to is two-fold - the idea that the playing field starts off level enough that a normal (rather than truly exceptional) child born to a ghetto family can readily achieve a mainstream, middle-class existence by working hard, and the idea that private charity will cover those who have the misfortune to slip. The brutality is the the idea that not only the people who don’t succeed should suffer the consequences of their decisions (even if those decisions were made in childhood), but that their children should automatically suffer too.

Gah, what a bunch of crap. Let’s start with your own brutal optimism. The optimism I refer to is two-fold — the idea that government is going about the business of creating a level playing field while you go merrily along your way, and that children are not slipping through cracks as wide as the Chesapeake Bay from slipshod government services. The brutality is the idea that by pawning off this responsibility onto others (government), you assuage your own feeble conscience so you can wash your hands of the whole nasty business.

It often strikes me that while libertarians talk about individual rights, when push comes to shove they will suffer the curtailment of almost any right they have, as long as they can pay a little less tax. Thus, we see many self-described libertarians who will vote for the current administration this fall, despite John Ashcroft’s apparent mission from God to gut the Bill of Rights.

That is quite simply the stupidest thing among the many stupid things you’ve said.

I don’t think libertarianism is a perfect solution to poverty or education or any of the rest of it. In fact, I don’t think it is a solution at all. There will be plenty of people along shortly to join you in bashing libertarianism, and I don’t have the time to defend against a pile-on. But I think you could take a lesson or two from Dopers who do not necessarily like libertarianism but who at least understand it, and who argue against it honestly, rather than against weak, practically unrecognizable straw men as you have done. And dumping that shit in General Questions was the equivalent of, not just a hit below the belt, but of biting a man in the bare nuts. You, sir or madam, have some pubic hair in your teeth.