# The Practical Libertarian rides again. Ask me. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2005, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451 "2005-02-10T20:08:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/121 "2005-02-14T03:43:17Z")
Not really. You aren’t suing the stockholders as a collective you are suing the corporation. Could each stockholder contest the suit on his own? If not then how is it fair to throw someone in jail without allowing them to defend themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/122 "2005-02-14T03:44:15Z")
> [@Dewey Cheatem Undhow](#): > > So, again, to sue GM you have to sue every individual GM shareholder? Sheesh. Bear in mind that’s Lib there and not me. I don’t see a practical way to put that particular djinni back in the bottle. Corporations exist, they can be sued and the management held criminally liable. The stockholders can lose their investments through little fault of their own (keep an eye on the management!). ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/123 "2005-02-14T03:49:24Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I’m finding little to disagree with. Maybe I should look a little deeper into social libertarianism. 🙂 Couple of follow up comments/questions if you have the time. > > NAFTA- Your position seems eminently practical, not sure how libertarian. heh. Expansion of NAFTA: yay or nay? > > WTO- So restart from ground up or just buff to make more neutral and authoritative? > > EU- I guess I don’t have to ask how you feel about current tariff battles. Could a bilateral NAFTA/EEU agreement be a good idea and largely supplant the doubtful WTO? I see nothing wrong with expanding NAFTA. I think an expansion south of Mexico would be a damn fine idea. I’d like to eventually see a Free Trade Americas concept going. And it may be counter to the orthodoxy to support programs for those displaced by the economic shocks of NAFTA and the like but it promotes social stability and hell, I feel an ethical need to do so. Free trade is a theory and ideology. And hurting people for a theory strikes me as one of the pinnacles of inhumanity. Those people aren’t **human** to people who would do that…they’re numbers and statistics whose misfortunes don’t ‘matter’. WTO - I think, as I said, that this is a dead issue in the long run now. If it makes people happy to have it in place right now I suppose that’s fine. But I don’t expect it to last. EU - I think that a EEU and NAFTA agreement would be a handy thing. But I don’t expect it to happen until the fall out from both agreements LOCALLY finishes running rampant. So give this one some time. And, from a practical perspective, until relations between the US and Europe are less chilly we’re not making any headway here. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/124 "2005-02-14T03:54:06Z")
> [@hildea](#): > > Are you talking legal rights? Those vary according to where you are. Or are you talking moral/inherent rights? If so, is there some overriding principle which makes you decide that those rights you mention are more important than the freedoms they restrict? > > To take one of my examples in more detail \*): You own a piece of land which includes some wilderness. I own a backpack and a tent. You don’t want strangers to walk on your property. If you have to allow people to do so, you’ll feel that as an unpleasant restriction of your freedom. I want to go hiking. If I can’t go where I want in the wilderness, camping where I want, I’ll feel that as an unpleasant restriction of my freedom. > > AFAIK, US laws protect the freedom of the land owner at the cost of the freedom of the hiker. Norwegian laws protect the freedom of the hiker at the cost of the freedom of the land owner. ([Details (PDF)](http://www.ub.uio.no/ujur/ulovdata/lov-19570628-016-eng.pdf), esp. §2.) There are, obviously, advantages and disadvantages with both of those choices. I’d guess that both of them are grounded pretty deeply in local culture. > > So, to rephrase my question: In this situation, the government, when giving laws, has to protect some freedoms at the cost of others. Is there some principle or guideline you’d prefer the goverment to follow when making these choices, when weighing one freedom against another? > > \*_) The “you” and “I” are hypothetical persons in this example. I’ve no idea how you’d feel in this situation, and I’m not all that prone to go hiking in the wildnerness myself 🙂_ How DARE you walk on my lawn! 🙂 Damn kids! I don’t honestly believe in ‘inherent’ or ‘moral’ rights. What I feel to be ‘moral’ is certain not to agree with my neighbor and at that point it’s moot. I do feel, however, that we can define certain legal rights for all to live under, that these rights can vary from tribe to tribe and that these rights can evolve over time. I also think that the right of the property owner are paramount in the case you define. Of course, it would be possible to sell usufruct rights to a larger body (hiking club, government, whatever) for specific purposes. In short, the owner a) owns, and b) is responsible for care and management of the property therefore the owner controls access. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/125 "2005-02-14T15:13:02Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > Bear in mind that’s Lib there and not me. I know. Like I said, I find little to object to regarding your worldview, and most what I do is but a quibble. But if **Lib** ’s still reading: given that shares of GM change hands every single day, I wonder how he plans on apportioning liability. Is a daytrader who only held the stock for a few hours on the day of the tort subject to unlimited liability? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/126 "2005-02-14T19:59:22Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > I also think that the right of the property owner are paramount in the case you define. May I ask why? This is a great example that gets to the heart of one of my objections to Locke’s theory of property rights (which seems to underpin the theories of a lot of Libertarians): one may use an entity without having sole control over the entity. Under (my understanding of) Locke’s theory, if I am to derive use from a piece of property, I must have absolute control. If I want to clearcut this wilderness, so be it; if I want to catch the little squirrellies and set them on fire and laugh as they burn, that’s my prerogative. Property rights entail absolute control. I say that’s hogwash, and that we should focus more on **usage** rights. I can gain the right to use a piece of property in a specific fashion–for example, I may be able to harvest 2% of the wood mass within a forest annually, or I may be able to run camping trips through that forest, or I may be able to teach biology courses in the woods, or I may be able to gather all the chanterelles that grow there. These rights allow multiple people to use the land, and do far more to protect the rights of other people than the “absolute control” theory does. For some types of property, you need more usage rights than others. I’ve got a pretty broad swath of usage rights in my house: as long as I don’t turn it into a danceclub that blasts music at 2 am, or into a meth lab, or into a dog kennel, or so on, I can do what I want within it. In such a case, my usage rights are defined more by the exceptions than by the allowed uses. Back **hildea’s** example. Norway, as I understand it, provides that you’ve got the right to farm your land, but that you do not have the right to prevent hikers from crossing it (as long as they stay a certain distance from houses on it, I think), and that you don’t have the right to prevent them from camping on it, with similar caveats. Anyone has a usage right to cross land; they just don’t have the right to gather crops from it, to build on it, etc. In a crowded world with limited resources, usage rights seem far more reasonable than absolute property rights. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/127 "2005-02-16T14:52:10Z")
Well, I did throw out ‘usufruct’ up there. That’s roughly equivalent to ‘usage rights’. Though let me say I did say it would be possible to sell usage rights to individuals, groups or government if the seller wants. But we’re looking at 300+ years of total ownership. Every sale of real property made contains the expectation of total surface-level usage (air rights of way are an exception). We can’t just suddenly stop that. Nor would it be politically feasible to have congress pass a law that said ‘from this point on usage rights are variable with each sale’. The net effect on property values would be damaging. Also, remember, one can be liable for what happens on ones land. In a litigious society like the United States I sure wouldn’t want people to have access to my land, against my wishes, without some sort of liability protection. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/128 "2005-02-16T14:53:42Z")
Oh, and let me toss out something I think MIGHT be enactable in the next 10 years. Means testing. Means test every federal and state program. My grandparents are worth one hell of a lot of money yet they still get SS and Medicare. Same for my mother in law and my mom. Government may assist the poor and indigent in basic needs and services as currently laid out, fine. But if you can afford it you should be the one paying for it. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451/129 "2005-02-16T16:24:50Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > Oh, and let me toss out something I think MIGHT be enactable in the next 10 years. > > Means testing. > > Means test every federal and state program. My grandparents are worth one hell of a lot of money yet they still get SS and Medicare. Same for my mother in law and my mom. > > Government may assist the poor and indigent in basic needs and services as currently laid out, fine. But if you can afford it you should be the one paying for it. Never going to happen. The problem is and this is in the case of my parents, they’ll say " I paid into the government for 40-50-60 years, I WANT what I paid into." Regardless of whether or not they need it. They don’t see it as taking from the poor, as not allowing the government to rob them. Hell, I’ve already 25 years into the bucket, whether I’m a millionaire or not; I want what’s mine. I may give it all away, that’s my option, but the government doesn’t have the right to penalize me for being successful, AFTER they’ve had their hand in my pocket for 25 years. The only option would be to allow people to opt out of paying their share. The problem is of course people consider SS and Medicare as insurance in case something goes wrong and they end up broke. So you will either have people recieving benefits/ checks that don’t need it or people whose life didn’t good well, but didn’t pay into it and needing help. Who’s going to pay for them? We will. Better a few a millionaries get SS and Medicare, then millions of people going without. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-practical-libertarian-rides-again-ask-me/289451.md?page=6)