# Will Libertarianism ever be more than a fringe movement? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776 "2009-01-11T07:10:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/161 "2009-01-12T18:14:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It’s not an assumption. It is borne out by the safety of drugs in the US, and by the number of drugs rejected. My wife actually worked in a very minor role getting Tagamet accepted, so she’s been on the inside, and she also writes extensively on medical issues. I think I can humbly say that I’m smarter than average, but I yield to her graduate degree in biology when making decisions about medical issues. Not too many families have that kind of resource. > Why do you think they knew it was bad for them? Do you think the containers said “poisoned to save you money?” > Try to get a grip on reality for a second. The adulterators sent out millions of tubes of poisoned product all over the world. The effect was not instant. It was also not trivial to trace the effect of the poison to the cause. After all, we don’t commonly suspect baby formula or toothpaste of poisoning us. Even when it was suspected the companies denied any problem. (And some of the problem came from contaminated ingredients, which made it harder.) Remember, the contaminant was selected to be hard to detect. > Does Libertarianism aways involve blaming the victim? Great. It sounds like from paragraph 1 you would be an enthusiastic and supportive patron of FDA-approved drugs. The people who work for that agency should have long, prosperous careers serving you and the other customers who buy their products - either directly, via consumer reports, or indirectly via drug companies who pay a fee to have the FDA stamp on them. I may join you. Or I may not. Or I may think about buying a drug with a stamp from \ on it. That is, if I ever get the chance. Dude. You are the one who absolutely no grip on reality. Stop with the silly ad hominem attacks. I’m trying to have a debate here. The demagougery and ridiculous debate stances taken by the anti-libertarian posters on here is amazing. OK. I’ll take the other side of the argument. Why did the people think the toothpaste they purchased was safe for use? ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/162 "2009-01-12T18:15:36Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > 1. Trade protection for everything from sugar, to autos, to lumber, to textiles, to steel, to electronic components, to a billion other things that drive up the price of goods for consumers and reduce choice. > > 2. Public-teacher school unions. > > 3. Consumer product safety. > > 4. Insurance regulation that dramatically restricts choice for consumers. > > 5. Clean air restrictions on diesel imports from the EU, which arguably have stricter air quality regulations than the US. > > 6. Licensing requirements for doctors, dentists, lawyers, roofers, general contractors, hairstylists, elevator inspectors, hot dog stand vendors, veteranarians, taxi drivers, fire extinguisher manufacturers, automobile mechanics and a billion other things. > > 7. Amtrak. The Post Office. > > 8. The generic ‘all other’ where the government takes my money and provides absolutely nothing of value in return. Like Social Security. The ATF. The Dept of Education. 1. Agreed trade protection is only delaying the inevitable. Does not require Libertopia to fix however. 2. No idea the problem here. 3. I’d rather the government did this than anyone else, would you replace it with a private body or get rid of it altogether? 4. Again Libertopia not required. 5. See 4) 6. What benefit is there to removing licensing requirements? Saving money is all I can think of and the downside is you’ll end up with unqualified people doing important jobs and risking lives. 7. Here in the UK we have (half arsed) privatised and screwed them up. 8. Social Security and Education add value to your country. > [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > What do you care what I do, or where I will get the time to research whatever it is I’m buying? Maybe I won’t take the time at all. Maybe I’ll roll the dice and take a risk with an ‘unlicensed’ product or service. Maybe I’ll ask a neighbor’s opinion. Maybe I’ll read a Consumer Reports article. Maybe I’ll watch people use the product for a while, and see if any of them drop dead. Maybe I’ll decide the risk isn’t worth it and forgo something altogether, or search for a substitute. What difference does it make? The decision is in my control. I’ll weigh the risks vs. rewards and making my own decision accordingly. > > You seem to be perfectly willing to assume that a G-10 employee sitting in a government-office cubicle somewhere, that you’ve never met, is making a perfectly good and cost-efficient decision for you. That’s your choice. If you want to delegate that responsibility to them, fine. Go for it. Just don’t force me to do the same, and don’t force me to pay for it. > > I have no idea whether that person is doing a good job or not. I have no idea whether someone else could do it better, at lower cost. Or whether the agency in question is beholden to a special interest like a large corporation, or trial lawyer association, or foreign lobbyist, that is trying to tilt it’s decision one way or another to restrict my choice and drive up cost. > > It the current state I have no choice. It’s going to be the way they say it is, backed up by the use of force if necessary. > > And they have a self-enforced monopoly. A drug company can’t say, ‘You know what? This FDA testing thing is prohibitively long and expensive. And by keeping this drug off the market for 2-3 years longer than it needs to be, people will suffer needlessly. I don’t think we’ll go through FDA testing as a result.’ They can’t do that. They will be breaking the law. > > Don’t you want more choice over your life? Why are you so willing to toss the keys to someone you’ve never met, to make decisions for you? I do not find any of these things on your list that important to me. Yes I am happy for others to the dull stuff for me, who wouldn’t be? I pay people to do jobs I don’t want to do (house cleaning, gardening and so on) and I see the government as an extension of that on a grander scale and every four or so years I get the opportunity to hire and fire. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/163 "2009-01-12T18:15:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > What makes you think they knew ? And, in fact, in your libertopia they probably STILL wouldn’t know. Of course they would know. People are dead. It’s all over the newspapers. How did you find out? ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/164 "2009-01-12T18:20:18Z")
> [@martu](#): > > 1. Agreed trade protection is only delaying the inevitable. Does not require Libertopia to fix however. > > 2. No idea the problem here. > > 3. I’d rather the government did this than anyone else, would you replace it with a private body or get rid of it altogether? > > 4. Again Libertopia not required. > > 5. See 4) > > 6. What benefit is there to removing licensing requirements? Saving money is all I can think of and the downside is you’ll end up with unqualified people doing important jobs and risking lives. > > 7. Here in the UK we have (half arsed) privatised and screwed them up. > > 8. Social Security and Education add value to your country. > > I do not find any of these things on your list that important to me. Yes I am happy for others to the dull stuff for me, who wouldn’t be? I pay people to do jobs I don’t want to do (house cleaning, gardening and so on) and I see the government as an extension of that on a grander scale and every four or so years I get the opportunity to hire and fire. So…I think we’re done. Because we’re in violent agreement. You basically said that you have certain priorities in life, certain things that require your attention, and you are willing to delegate/outsource various bits and pieces of knowledge-gathering and decision-making to other experts as you see fit. So am I. Isn’t that great? We’re in agreement. Except wait. We’re not. I don’t have a choice in some of the things that are important to me. I would prefer not to delegate the decision-making in some instances to the agency that has set up a legal monopoly, backed up by use of force, to do make decisions on my behalf. And that takes my money to do so. And neither do you. It doesn’t seem like you care about that. Which is a shame. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/165 "2009-01-12T18:20:49Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > We think it’s insanity, is what we think. Nobody just sat down one day and decided to create the FDA or the FTC or the SEC or the NLRB. They were all created because the abuses had become so bad that they were affecting public health and/or the national financial situation. Government bureaus don’t spring up from the background vacuum like jacks-in-the-box. They’re created for a reason, and usually it was a pretty nasty reason. Right. The various regulations and institutions of government were put in place because someone was abusive or ignorant and caused damage or hardship. People don’t vote for regulation because it’s fun; they vote for it because someone, somewhere is using the lack of it to benefit themselves at the cost of others. (I believe you can find prominent libertarian (or claimed by libertarians) thinkers who, for example, supported child labor as a part of true economic freedom, so to handwave and claim that it is somehow not true libertarianism is nuts. It’s also nuts to handwave off something like chattel slavery as being the result of “bad people,” but that’s par for the course when it comes to this sort of argument.) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/166 "2009-01-12T18:23:35Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Of course they would know. People are dead. It’s all over the newspapers. How did you find out? And do you think the newspapers figured out what was happening on their own ? And what makes you think that the newspapers would report such a thing in libertopia ? ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/167 "2009-01-12T18:24:03Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Right. The various regulations and institutions of government were put in place because someone was abusive or ignorant and caused damage or hardship. People don’t vote for regulation because it’s fun; they vote for it because someone, somewhere is using the lack of it to benefit themselves at the cost of others. > > (I believe you can find prominent libertarian (or claimed by libertarians) thinkers who, for example, supported child labor as a part of true economic freedom, so to handwave and claim that it is somehow not true libertarianism is nuts. > > It’s also nuts to handwave off something like chattel slavery as being the result of “bad people,” but that’s par for the course when it comes to this sort of argument.) Back to slavery and child labor again. Sigh. Let me go after the more intelligent-sounding bit of your post. The part about regulation and abuse. Who was abusing who, and when, via what means, that demanded a regulatory agency get established? You can pick any one you wish. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/168 "2009-01-12T18:26:31Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And do you think the newspapers figured out what was happening on their own ? And what makes you think that the newspapers would report such a thing in libertopia ? Whoops. Didn’t look at the posters and didn’t see I was debating Der Trihs and Voyager. Sorry folks. Won’t happen again. And you’re right, by the way. Obviously libertarians wouldn’t report the news. You’ve got me there. It took a while, but I’m whipped. Congrats. On to the next debate. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/169 "2009-01-12T18:27:03Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > If one follows poverty principles, child labor will follow – it doesn’t matter what the prevailing ideology happens to be… whether it is libertarianism, capitalism, socialism, republicanism, Catholicism, etc. > > Cuba, Russia, Vietnam, Bangladesh all have issues with child labor. Those countries are not “libertarian” so what are the reasons there? You could rack your brain to conjure up unique reasons for child labor for every country that has it. If you do that however, you really haven’t proved any point other than the one I made earlier… _“if you follow \, child labor will follow.”_ That’s just pointless rhetoric fueled by the association fallacy. You left out China. Where did I say that only libertarianism would lead to child labor? Poverty of course will lead to child labor unless there is government regulation against it, a requirement that all children be in schools and not factories, and a social safety net so that families can survive without their children working. Child labor in the late 19th century was indeed caused by poverty, but poverty will always be with us - remember this was after decades of the free market capitalism you love so much. If there were no incentives for people to do things we think are wrong, we wouldn’t need to regulate them, would we? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/170 "2009-01-12T18:30:24Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And do you think the newspapers figured out what was happening on their own ? And what makes you think that the newspapers would report such a thing in libertopia ? The newspapers, with their band of trusty scientists! I wonder if they’ll wear superhero tights. I’m amused at the idea that we’re all supposed to develop expertise in medicine and pharmacy and other things when each of them have people dedicating their whole lives to one tiny aspect of them. The more advanced we get in our technology and knowledge, the more specialized we each become. There is not world enough and time. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/171 "2009-01-12T18:37:29Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > The newspapers, with their band of trusty scientists! I wonder if they’ll wear superhero tights. > > I’m amused at the idea that we’re all supposed to develop expertise in medicine and pharmacy and other things when each of them have people dedicating their whole lives to one tiny aspect of them. The more advanced we get in our technology and knowledge, the more specialized we each become. There is not world enough and time. Like I said, I’m whipped. I had it going for a while there, but Der Trihs finally exposed the critical chink in my otherwise impenetrable armor of logic. The newspapers. Clearly, in a free and unregulated society, newspapers won’t report the news. I was trying to skirt around that unpleasant fact for pages and pages of postings here on the SDMB, but you all eventually sniffed it out with your methodical debating skills, superior intellect, topnotch analytic skills and penetrating insights. Rats. I was so close to pulling the wool over all of your collective eyes. But now I’ve been exposed. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/172 "2009-01-12T18:47:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You left out China. Where did I say that only libertarianism would lead to child labor? Poverty of course will lead to child labor unless there is government regulation against it, a requirement that all children be in schools and not factories, and a social safety net so that families can survive without their children working. Child labor in the late 19th century was indeed caused by poverty, but poverty will always be with us - remember this was after decades of the free market capitalism you love so much. > If there were no incentives for people to do things we think are wrong, we wouldn’t need to regulate them, would we? Right. It isn’t that libertarianism is uniquely supportive of child labor (though I reject any argument that says libertarianism is uniquely opposed, considering luminaries such as von Mises), it’s that libertarianism as well as a few other philosophies do not contain the means to curtail or prevent child labor. If you reject the means to curtail it for ideological reasons, things like child labor will occur. It doesn’t matter if the original system was based on libertarianism, hedonism, hokeypokeyism, or cubism. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/173 "2009-01-12T19:08:23Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Clearly, in a free and unregulated society, newspapers won’t report the news. Nope. They’d just report whatever they are paid to report. And there wouldn’t be a “they” so much as “it”; we already see the result of regulation cutting, with the media being more and more concentrated in fewer hands. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/174 "2009-01-12T19:19:42Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > So…I think we’re done. Because we’re in violent agreement. > > You basically said that you have certain priorities in life, certain things that require your attention, and you are willing to delegate/outsource various bits and pieces of knowledge-gathering and decision-making to other experts as you see fit. > > So am I. Isn’t that great? We’re in agreement. > > Except wait. We’re not. I don’t have a choice in some of the things that are important to me. I would prefer not to delegate the decision-making in some instances to the agency that has set up a legal monopoly, backed up by use of force, to do make decisions on my behalf. And that takes my money to do so. And neither do you. It doesn’t seem like you care about that. Which is a shame. You will have to learn to compromise. Why is it a shame? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/175 "2009-01-12T19:36:17Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Great. It sounds like from paragraph 1 you would be an enthusiastic and supportive patron of FDA-approved drugs. The people who work for that agency should have long, prosperous careers serving you and the other customers who buy their products - either directly, via consumer reports, or indirectly via drug companies who pay a fee to have the FDA stamp on them. > > I may join you. Or I may not. Or I may think about buying a drug with a stamp from \ on it. That is, if I ever get the chance. > > Dude. You are the one who absolutely no grip on reality. Stop with the silly ad hominem attacks. I’m trying to have a debate here. The demagougery and ridiculous debate stances taken by the anti-libertarian posters on here is amazing. > > OK. I’ll take the other side of the argument. > > Why did the people think the toothpaste they purchased was safe for use? What are the social costs of a bunch of people dying from going for the cheap drug with no certification? If you don’t think people will, check out the homeopathic remedies in your local supermarket. The FDA keeps real drugs safe, but if your scenario came to pass, don’t you think the same dopes buying boner pills would also buy homeopathic cancer remedies? Drug testing is so expensive and lengthy a process tat it is a natural monopoly. If the drug companies had to pay for testing, don’t you think they’d have a tendency to go with a low cost supplier that gives them better approval rates? If you doubt me, you might want to look up the sterling performance of the bond rating agencies in the current meltdown. This stuff doesn’t happen because the drug companies are corrupt, but it happens because of time to market and profit pressures. CEOs aren’t saints, and can’t be expected to be saints. Unless someone with no monetary investment is a judge, you are going to get inaccurate and dangerous results. If you were a football coach, would you want to play a game where your opponents hired the refs? The reason why people thought toothpaste was safe was that it traditionally came from companies under regulation. Let me give you a real example. I used to work for Bell Labs. Now, Bell System telephones were incredibly reliable, since they got rented to customers, and it was in the interest of the Bell System, the owners, to keep those phones working forever. After the breakup of the Bell System phones came on the market for the first time, many of them very cheap. The low cost phones immediately got high market share - and then their share plummeted, and Western Electric phones got more. The reason was that consumers just assumed that phones would be of high quality, and bought on price. They retreated to quality again when they found out this wasn’t true. Now all phones are of reasonable quality, but a broken phone is a lot less of an issue than a broken drug. And, btw, I went to a lecture inside Bell Labs about how to take quality out of phones. Do you want drug makers to run similar lectures? Remember, the Ford Pinto went to market with a defective gas tank because of a purely financial decision. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/176 "2009-01-12T19:37:22Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If there were no incentives for people to do things we think are wrong, we wouldn’t need to regulate them, would we? You can regulate them if you wish out of the goodness of your heart…but…I’ll say it again, poverty trumps both regulations and ideologies (libertarian or socialist). When I was 12, I worked as a bus boy at the same restaurant where my mother worked as a waitress. Obviously, it was illegal for me to work there so how did that happen? We were poor, that’s why. My mother convinced the owner of the restaurant to “hire” me as extra help. The owners had no need for my labor and they were nervous (obviously) to let me work in a such a public place (restaurant patrons might wonder what a young child was doing there and report them to authorities.) Well, the owners felt sorry for my mom so they hired me. During the dinner hours, I worked in the back kitchen to load the dishwasher but after closing time, I was let loose in the dining room to bus all the tables. Obviously, I was paid “under the table.” All of this happened in the United States of America (Florida) – not some 3rd world country. The point is that neither the restaurant owner nor my mother thought in terms of “libertarian vs socialism” philosophical nonsense. They didn’t even know what those fancy terms even meant. Neither of them thought, _“hmmm… what would a Libertarian do? What would a Socialist do?”_ Those ideologies do not drive decisions; _poverty_ drives these decisions. We sit here on SDMB debating from ivory towers about how people should prohibit this or regulate that. The real world doesn’t care about that; in fact they’ll ignore it if the situation warrants it. I’m glad I was able to work illegally in opposition of child-labor regulation to help my mother out – no regrets at all. Regulations (such as child labor laws) are wonderful luxuries when you (or the entire country) can afford them. My mother was desperate and she did what she thought was best. I don’t feel my mother exploited me. I don’t feel the restaurant owners exploited me. I also don’t feel that whatever political ideology that was in the air at the time exploited me. You’d think with a childhood experience like that, I’d be 110% Socialist champion. I don’t know why I’m not. Maybe it had the opposite effect of hardening me to finding my own economic solutions. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/177 "2009-01-12T19:45:05Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > And you’re right, by the way. Obviously libertarians wouldn’t report the news. You’ve got me there. It took a while, but I’m whipped. Congrats. On to the next debate. Nothing to do with them not reporting the news. I’m sure they would be all over the deaths from unregulated drugs, after they happen. Already the newspapers are cutting back on reporting staffs, and are never going to cover something requiring an expensive investigation which might not yield anything. We have the Times and the Post, for now, but that is pretty limited. My local rag is now outsourcing its layout to India, with the expected results - such as a headline about the blizzards in Washington State - Midwest covered with snow. :eek: More seriously, they ran a picture of a mushroom on the front page of the living section, calling it a morel. A few days later they said, whoops, it is actually the picture of a poisonous one - I think an amanita, which is a shroom which causes lots of deaths because it looks just like an edible one often picked in Eastern Europe. As the profit motive erodes newspaper staffs, they get less and less useful as a countermeasure to corrupt business (and corrupt government for that matter.) ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/178 "2009-01-12T19:45:09Z")
I don’t get libertarians maniacal obsession with “coercion” by the government due to its “monopoly on the legitimate use of force.” Libertarians fail to comprehend that lack of choice can be just as coercive as someone holding a gun to the back of your head. If I eat poised meat supplied from the meatpacking monopoly who have conveniently bought off the company that was supposedly testing the meat’s safety, have I not been coerced into eating poisoned meat? I certainly didn’t want to eat poisoned meat. I certainly wouldn’t have if I’d know better, but see I had no choice because there is only one meat producer and it was cheaper for them to buy off the tester than to make safe meat. Sounds like coercion to me. And the thing is, Libertarians will wave this away and say, “yeah but if enough people get poisoned then another meat packing company will spring up who will supply non-poisoned meat. Or that if I survive I can sue the meat packer.” Unfortunately, those things provide me with little solace if I’m dead. [sarcasm] If only we could come up with some agency, which uses the police power that we all thought was such a good idea that we granted it to the government that we the people created, and have it step in and test meat to stop the problem before it happens. Sure it might cost a little bit to fund and might marginally increase the cost of doing business, but surely we can all agree that that is better than being unknowingly poisoned by tainted meat. [/sarcasm] ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/179 "2009-01-12T20:03:14Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > You can regulate them if you wish out of the goodness of your heart…but…I’ll say it again, poverty trumps both regulations and ideologies (libertarian or socialist). > > When I was 12, I worked as a bus boy at the same restaurant where my mother worked as a waitress. Obviously, it was illegal for me to work there so how did that happen? We were poor, that’s why. My mother convinced the owner of the restaurant to “hire” me as extra help. The owners had no need for my labor and they were nervous (obviously) to let me work in a such a public place (restaurant patrons might wonder what a young child was doing there and report them to authorities.) Well, the owners felt sorry for my mom so they hired me. During the dinner hours, I worked in the back kitchen to load the dishwasher but after closing time, I was let loose in the dining room to bus all the tables. Obviously, I was paid “under the table.” All of this happened in the United States of America (Florida) – not some 3rd world country. So? No regulation is 100% efficient. The number of illegal aliens working proves that well enough. And I’m sure the parents of the child laborers in the end of the 19th century didn’t think in terms of socialism or libertarianism either, and that they were equally happy to get extra money. But, without child labor laws and required school attendance, maybe you would have wound up busing tables all day and not just after school. Would that be an improvement? Back before the laws there were factories full of kids. My father grew up very poor, but thanks to the laws he finished high school, and, after the war, was able to get a bunch of increasingly better jobs, which I doubt would have happened if he was in a factory all day. I’m all for kids having some limited work experience. I delivered papers. My daughter acted professionally at 10 years old, and having people depend on you is an excellent aid to maturing. But let’s not allow short term financial rewards get in the way of the real job of a child, which is to grow up and learn. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776/180 "2009-01-12T20:09:48Z")
And right on cue comes this piece of libertarian lunacy from the WSJ editorial page: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-libertarianism-ever-be-more-than-a-fringe-movement/480776.md?page=10)