Talk:Libertarianism

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[edit] Complaints of libertarianism

Ok, I'm cutting to the chase. Let's do this. This is why libertarians are deluded and their policies evil.

1- Some externalities do not have public property that can be privitized. Examples: vaccines (unless we privitize human bodies), the ocean (barring a world government). Also for vaccines, there's no possible civil suit - can you imagine suing someone for personal harm because they didn't get a vaccine? Good luck.

2- Libertarians believe that regulations of safety, quality, truthful advertisement, certification, etc., are better handled in the private space. The idea is that either the individual engaging in the contract will check it out thoroughly themselves, or take part in a voluntary private group (think Consumer Reports) which does the verification. This fails for the following reasons. It doesn't happen - look at the history. Consider "The Jungle" as prime evidence of how this simply doesn't happen. The libertarian approach depends on human psychology which simply isn't true. Why doesn't this happen? First, time is not free. Even if you can google the information in 5 seconds online, that's 5 seconds. It's unreasonable and inefficient and cumbersome for every person to check out the quality, safety, truthful advertisement, and so on, of every product they buy. Can you imagine doing this every time you went to the grocery store? Second, the information may not be available with 5 seconds of google. At that point, you would need to do serious research, which is well beyond the means of most people. So, why not form a voluntary association (like Consumer Reports) to deal with the problem? Freerider problem. That is all.

3- Libertarians also believe that negative externalities, such as harmful chemical runoff, is better solved with private litigation than with government regulation. This is flawed for reasoning similar to above. Basically, it takes time, money, and effort to even know you've been harmed. It's entirely unreasonable for every person to do it individually, and the freerider problem prevents voluntary associations from springing up. Finally, the courts are a horrible way of doing it, simply from an efficiency standpoint. It's a violation of specialization of labor for everyone to be responsible for litigating every possible negative externality. Hence why it's "farmed out" to the government.

4- Charities and wealth redistribution. This isn't an externality, nor a commons, nor a freerider problem. I don't know how libertarians feel about this, but my stereotype says that they would be strongly opposed to wealth redistribution plans, estate taxes, and so on, whereas I feel these are required. A free population requires the people to be approximately equal in power, and massive wealth differences result in massive power differences. Also, I want these simply as a moral concern to make people's lives happier, more materially wealthy, give them greater freedom of choice, etc.

LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 05:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Libertarians forget that almost all real property is stolen (from Australian Aborigines, from native Americans — even England, the Normans stole it from the Anglo-Saxons who stole it from the Romans who stole it from the Celts who stole it from its pre-Celtic inhabitants), and that all freehold is really leasehold with the government as a landlord — the distinction between "public" and "private" is arbitrary and artificial — real property is a creation of government, so the notion of "private property" is a misnomer — all property is public. Zack Martin HolyMaratreanSigil.png 11:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
While interesting, I think that's a side show. The simple fact is that libertarian ideas don't work. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:01, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
No, they work perfectly fine for what they're designed to do, which is to transfer as much wealth and power to our Galtian overlords as possible. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:14, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
"The simple fact is that libertarian ideas don't work." is simply a sequence of words with no meaning.Fdof (talk) 04:31, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
No, you did not go there. You did not claim that my claim is untestable, unfalsifiable, and meaningless. Under the presumably shared premise that we want a materially wealthy, happy, free society, we can test that claim. You could falsify my claim by having a society function according to libertarian principles and compare to a "standard" society. You could support my claim by finding instances of failed libertarian policies. I again suggest "The Jungle" and the associated culture and problems as a prime example of supporting evidence. tl;dr fuck you Fdof. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 05:03, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Uh... Relax man. --Revolverman (talk) 05:08, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Er, you do know The Jungle is a work of fiction, right? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:46, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but I mention it because it's accessible to the average person, it's iconic, and it's largely responsible for reform in the way food is processed and packaged in the modern age. While a fiction story, it details accurately real world meat packing plants. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 05:51, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
"You did not claim that my claim is untestable, unfalsifiable..." no, he didn't. He said it had no meaning, which is entirely ridiculous, because your sentence does have meaning. A very clear meaning. It is not word salad. I don't know what fdof is smoking, but I want it as far from me as possible... --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 08:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
I think I went off a little bit too hard because I just wrote a little treatise on exactly how claims that lack "meaning" piss the crap out of me on my user page. And then he has the gumption to to claim that the efficacy of libertarian policies at achieving our desired ends cannot be measured. Afterwards, I realized this is just another symptom of what I wrote else-talk-page: The common libertarian has a hard time distinguishing between whether his desired goals are a happy, materially wealthy, free people, or whether the rules themselves are the moral end. I'm really big on Hume's Is-Ought distinction, and I think it's critical in policy discussions like these. You have to identify your desired ends, then evaluate plans to see how well they achieve your desired ends. The common libertarian acts if the policy itself is the ends, the actual effects of making us worse off be damned. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 09:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
It sure speaks to your lack of self-awareness that you post a putative claim that is premised on a failure to distinguish between moral and factual claims, and then you accuse me of failing to distinguish between them when I criticize your putative claim. Your posts are simply replete with straw men: that I claimed that "the efficacy of libertarian policies at achieving our desired ends cannot be measured" (and just who is the we of "our" desired ends?), that standing on principle is the same as acting as if "the policy itself is the ends, the actual effects of making us worse off be damned", that libertarianism opposes responses to the tragedy of the commons, etc. And I'm sure that if I point out that the anti-libertarian War on Drugs is a massive failure, and that shows that anti-libertarianism "doesn't work", you'll have some special pleading as to why your putative claim "doesn't mean" that. When you have to resort to contortion after contortion to qualify that a statement "doesn't mean that", that's a big clue that it doesn't mean anything.Fdof (talk) 18:48, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Defining "anti-libertarian" as a thing is like defining "not apples" as a coherent category of phenomena. But I bet you really do think of everything that isn't libertarianism as a coherent group of things - David Gerard (talk) 19:32, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
"if I point out that the anti-libertarian War on Drugs is a massive failure, and that shows that anti-libertarianism "doesn't work"" wha? Ok, based on the criteria that we have set forth for rational evaluation of policy, the purpose of the War on Drugs is intended to reduce the number of people dependent upon drugs. In terms of efficacy, we can see that this is patently not working. You don't have to be libertarian to think that social liberties should not be infringed unless absolutely necessary. In fact, the socialists and libertarians fully agree on most social issues... they only disagree on how the economy should be regulated.

So, "libertarian ideas don't work" really means "all the libertarian ideas that are left over once we ignore the ones I agree with don't work". Which is exactly my point: the actual sequence of words aren't meaningful, they're merely a vacuous expression of antipathy towards libertarianism. When someone says "If I present this argument, you'll just respond with special pleading", and then you quote that argument and respond with special pleading, you're just proving their point. And one doesn't have to consider "anti-libertarian" to be a "coherent category" to identify policies that conflict with libertarianism.Fdof (talk) 00:37, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it means that using civil courts and privatization to handle all commons problems, externalities, and free rider problems fail horribly compared to more rational government policies. As soon as you abandon that position, you are no longer a libertarian. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:30, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I did not know Libertarianism had only one form, and one form only. --142.179.61.66 (talk) 01:35, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Cut the bull. The heart of libertarianism is to deny government intervention for merely preventing future likely harm, and to wait until the harm is done, and then handle it through mostly through civil suits and sometimes with criminal trials. If you don't buy into that, then you're not a libertarian. You're just a liberal who thinks the current government is too big. (I'm probably one such person.) LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
What bull? It's special pleading to claim that there is one, and ONLY one form of a political/philosophical school of thought, and claim when someone doesn't fit into your defined rules, it doesn't count. --Revolverman (talk) 01:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I can see a No True Scotsman, but special pleading does not appear to be applicable; I didn't make a universal claim then try to slide in an exemption. Pedantics aside, this is what the word "libertarianism" means. If you start allowing in the general case the imposition of force on others which preempts harm (or independent of harm), then you're not a libertarian. Apparently, you disagree, so I must ask, what do you think the word means? LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 02:16, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
For me? I believe Libertarianism is the school of thought that the government should not be allowed to restrict your rights in anyway as long as no others are harmed in the actions of those rights being used. --Revolverman (talk) 02:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like (classicial) liberalism to me. See JS Mill which I just touched up. You need that little extra bit about no imposition of force preemptively to be a libertarian. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 02:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps, but I've never heard it ever called classical liberalism in my life. --Revolverman (talk) 02:31, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Have you even read "On Liberty"? As I note on the JS Mill page too, Jefferson beat him to that formulation by 100 years. I think you would be hard pressed to call The Harm Principle the core of libertarian belief. Before my edits on the main page (and after because I kept this bit), it described the libertarian core belief as the non-aggression principle, which is something entirely different. The Harm Principle - a classification scheme for legitimate reasons to impose force on others. The non-aggression principle - the same thing, except with the additional proviso of don't go first. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 02:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
See, to me, that doesn't mean they are completely different schools, rather then different ideas in the same philosophical/political thought school. Different forms of Libertarianism rather then one being not. --Revolverman (talk) 02:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
This is now (and has been) an argument over definitions. Those are always the least interesting and least useful arguments to have. If the consensus wants to overrule me and reach consensus that libertarianism means what you think instead of what I think, then please go ahead, and someone will have to fix the main page to reflect that. I believe the modern usage of the term, especially amongst people who self-identify as it, is much closer to my position than yours. I think that's about all I have to say on this topic. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 02:43, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Here, let me put it to you like this. I am a huge fan of The Harm Principle. It's one of my basic moral axioms. I also consider myself a liberal, and definitely not a libertarian. Let me ask you, can you name a policy that's a hallmark of liberals, socialists, or even communists, which violates Mill's Harm Principle? That is, can you think of a single policy which is commonly supported by liberals, socialists, communists, etc., which attempts to impose force (including the use of taxes) independently of remedying some harm to an unwilling person? I can't. Usually such asshatery is indicative of the religious conservative right. So, do you think socialists and communists are just different kinds of libertarian? Hopefully you see how silly your position is. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 02:48, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm, perhaps. Something to think on at the very least. --Revolverman (talk) 02:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Or, instead of having a long, drawn-out argument, you could actually read the article. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
That was hardly and argument, especially on this site. --Revolverman (talk) 03:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
But they're so fun! How are we/I wrong btw Nebuchadnezzar, IMHO? You're usually pretty good about such things, and I respect your opinion. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 03:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
The big difference between liberals and libertarians (in the US sense) is the distinction between positive and negative liberties. Libertarians generally view the former as not "true" liberty or at least liberty that should not be state-enforced. Plus, there is always the split between the deontological types (e.g., Randroids, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalists) and the utilitarian types (Friedman-ite Chicago schoolers, Reasonoids). The two are totally different approaches that require a different set of counter-arguments. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:08, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
The most obvious interpretation of "Libertarian ideas don't work" is "No libertarian ideas work", not "Implementing the entirety of libertarian thought won't work". And I tried to put what the core of libertarianism is in the article, but it was deleted. The central idea behind libertarianism is that it's immoral to use force against another except to protect your own rights. It contrasts with the idea that government can do whatever it wants (or that government can do whatever it wants as long as there's nothing in the constitution to say otherwise... and since the government writes the constitution, that amounts to the same thing). Trying to find something in the constitution that prohibits laws against same-sex intercourse is a liberal position; simply saying that it's none of the government's business, there is no moral basis for such a law to begin with, and it's completely illegitimate for a group of people to get together and simply vote themselves that power, is a libertarian position. Also, it's just mind-boggling that Eira is calling libertarianism "fucking wrong" and suggesting that we should instead go with socialism. Republicans, Democrats, and socialists all accept the idea that the government has the right to ban behavior that hurts no one. Fdof (talk) 03:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I am a realist. I realize that the second we disbanded government, someone would attempt to establish a new government over their neighbors. The first thing that would happen is that they would say, "hey, you can't have sex with another man, because I say it's wrong." And you say "hey! you can't do that! It's none of your business!" and then the person says "fuck you, I'm MAKING it my business!" and then you say, "But that violates my natural rights!" and then they hit you with a club, reinforcing the fundamental natural law: Might makes right.
Someone is always going to seek out the ability to tell you what you can and cannot do. Socialism is about controlling that force and power, and keeping the government subservient to the people, rather than the people subservient to the government. Libertarianism as far as I can see only wants a government just big enough to keep people from stealing their shit. Guess what? In order for the government to enforce law, it has to be larger, and more powerful than any usurping entity. If the government were smaller than a posse of people abusing others, then there is never a way that the government could STOP that abuse, even if they wanted to. Thus, by definition, in order to ensure that government can enforce law, it must always be more powerful than any individual or group collective within their jurisdiction. Otherwise, that individual or group could just rid into your house, and take your shit, and rape your wife, and "what are you going to do about it?" ... libertarianism is founded on the idiot notion that if we just didn't have government in the way, everyone would play happy with everyone else. Except that people DON'T. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 07:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

To Reolverman: Meh, you have to be pretty loose with the definition of "harm" to include opportunity costs. It's been a while since I've read Mill, but I think that's a fair reading of On Liberty. I mean, Mill was a huge utilitarian. Meh, now I'm feeling bad about making that claim, after I reviewed the main page material about the distinction of positive vs negative rights that some people like to make, such as libertarians. The crucial distinction really is the "don't go first" rule, the one that prohibits the application of force until after harm is done, whereas the correct reading of Mill IMHO allows for preemptive use of force as long as it's aimed at lessening future harm against unwilling people and/or promoting "well being". Otherwise, Mill's entire utilitarian argument for free speech makes no sense IIRC. Meh, I might need to apologize to you and admit you were right about some of the particulars. I need more time to think. Damnit! Now you have me doubting The Harm Principle as an appropriate description of my philosophy. (I mean thank you oh so much!) LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 03:17, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

To Fdof: Name me a single policy that Democrats or Socialists commonly support which uses force (or taxes) and its aims are independent of preventing harm to unwilling people and/or advancing well being of people. -- To be completely fair and honest, I fully recognize I might have moved the goalposts. If your interpretations are different, please call me on it, and we can go from there. I think a similar statement might be more accurate: "a law is immoral if it is targeted at disincentivizing behavior amongst willing participants which harms no one outside the group". That liberals and libertarians can agree on. Where they disagree is whether it's moral to have a law which restricts some freedom "now" to prevent likely harm "in the future", and in such a way as to raise the efficiency of the entire economy. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 03:17, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and can we give examples to be clear, please? I want regulations to control air and water pollution. I want an FDA. I want incentives for kids to take vaccines. I believe you Fdof want none of that (except vaccine incentives AFAIK), and instead to have it handled via civil suits and voluntary associations (like Consumer Reports). I believe my counter-arguments are on the main page. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 03:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
"Name me a single policy that Democrats or Socialists commonly support which uses force (or taxes) and its aims are independent of preventing harm to unwilling people and/or advancing well being of people." You could start with the effective silencing of the anti-war contingent of the Democratic Party after the collapse of the McGovern campaign. Unless you see warmongering and other covert escapades abroad as a good thing. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
The supporters of those policies will invariably frame it in terms of making us safer, aka preventing future harm. Whether or not it works is a separate question. I'm not going to say they're running afoul of the principle simply because they have mistaken factual beliefs. To run afoul of the principle you really need things like the war on drugs, laws against contraception, and so on. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 03:29, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, if you want to put it in terms of how the policy is framed, you're going to have a hard time finding something that's not packaged as "advancing the well being of the people." Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Meh, war on drugs, anti-contraceptives, anti-sodomy, etc., are never phrased in (verifiable) harm, always religious language or moral outrage. I agree most policies don't violate the harm principle. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
So the standard is "verifiable" harm now? Goalposts on wheels, my friend. The policies you list have cottage industries of pseudoscience to prop them up (e.g., the quackery put out by Family Research Council-style propaganda fronts). If most policies don't actually violate the harm principle, what good is it? I mean, the most heinous acts are often justified as "self-defense." Better to take out the Jews now, before they take over the entire world! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Hey hey now! I never claimed this is the end-all be-all rule. I admit to some goalpost moving. I do not admit to claiming it to the only rule of note, and that it is incomplete is not a negative. It's a very useful measuring stick to see if someone's policies are faulty. If they're talking about using force against someone to prevent willing behavior that harms no one else (or more generally harms only willing participants), then there's a problem. Of course that's insufficient on its own to judge policy. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 05:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
While communism is considered to be "left", communist countries actually quite often adopt quite conservative policies: censorship, anti-semitism, homophobia, etc. Furthermore, communism has a very extensive view on "harm": since the present government is the most perfect defender of the people, anything that harms the regime harms the people, so criticizing the government harms people. Also, unless "person" includes nonhuman animals, liberals' support of animal "rights" violates the harm principle. And at the risk of you making a "no true Scotsman" claim, liberals are quite supportive of the War on Drugs. Obama has shut down several medical marijuana dispensaries. Liberals are rather split on prostitution; some see laws against it as violating women's right to choose, but the predominant position is to prohibit it. A Canadian printer faced fines after refusing to print pro-homosexual materials. The Utne Reader published an article referring to the burning of the Koran as a "hate crime". And while they aren't as bad as conservatives, liberals are contemptuous of atheists. The idea that this can be defended on the basis of being for the "greater good" or "factual error" is an incredibly slippery slope. If we're handing out dispensations for simply having some rationalization for one's behavior, pretty much anything can be justified. Gay people cause God to send more hurricanes. Jews are plotting to destroy Western civilization. The concept of "pre-emptive" can also get fuzzy. If a group of people wearing ski masks and carrying guns approach your house, at what point is opening fire no longer "pre-emptive"? When they cross the property line? When they open fire? When one of their bullets hits you?
And I do not categorically oppose pollution regulation or the FDA.Fdof (talk) 04:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Touché. Reasonable points all around. I think you're pulling in corner cases and many points which are contentious, instead of hallmark policies, but you make some good points. For example, I agree that the very idea of hate crime is "offensive" and immoral. Thought police? No thank you. Judge them on how likely they're to commit a crime again, how heinous the crime was, etc., but not on some arbitrary classification of motivations. Worse- don't deem speech illegal just because you don't like it. So, you're a libertarian who is for government incentives in cases of free-riding and positive externalities. So, exactly what are you against of our current government, besides the above listed examples? I think you could get many liberal on board to get rid of the war on drugs, to legalize prostitution (under proper regulation for health and safety), to get rid of the abomination of hate speech laws, and so on. Or maybe I'm being too optimistic and naive, and there's fascists everywhere. I can hope. So, you think libertarianism is "you can't use preemptive force, unless it's justified?". I'm having a hard time to actually narrow down the tenants of what you think libertarianism is. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I mean, you've really backed off your initial statement in this recent conversation, namely The solution to the tragedy of the commons and externalities is private property, which libertarians support. I don't want to beat a dead horse - I am honestly clueless as to what you think libertarianism even means besides "don't pass laws unless you have a good reason for them". I don't know what you really think anymore. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:35, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and we're not allowing "gays cause hurricanes". The principle I'm advocating, Harm Principle 2.0, has several prongs. First, can we agree that the thing is a "harm" or the thing will advance "well being"? Ex: speech is not a harm, undemonstrable harms like hell are not harms, etc. Next, do we have good reason (such as scientific evidence) to believe that the policy will actually solve for those harms / well being? Simply because they attempt to use the language of harm or well being does not let them fiat whatever they want as a harm. Going to hell is not a harm because there is no hell. Jews are not plotting to destroy Western civilization. Etc. Throw on something about other consequences, whether we believe this is the best plan to achieve those desired consequences while minimizing other harms (i.e. taxes), some simple cost-based utilitarian analysis, etc. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:41, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Mill's Harm Principle

Revolverman I think is right. I was wrong. I believe a simple reading of Mill's Harm Principle is a lot closer to libertarianism than I before gave credit. I believe I was understanding it with the nuance of the whole of "On Liberty", which has a huge utilitarian bias. Thus, I always interpreted the Harm Principle as allowing for government intervention and societal pressure to fix for positive externalities and free rider problems. Hell - Mill spends a large portion of his book doing exactly that - justifying speech via positive externalities in spite of it violating the harm principle. Thanks again Revolverman. You did an amazingly useful thing for me. I'll have to abandon quoting the Harm Principle as I think a simple reading is not what Mill meant, and more importantly nor what I want. The intent is to disallow government prohibitions (and societal prohibitions) for merely "moral outrage", religious outrage, and a kind of parental "I know better than you". It still would allow for incentives of vaccines, the FDA, social security, and so on. Again, thanks people. Sorry for being an asshat - if I was. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 19:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Upon re-reading On Liberty (or at least the first chapter), I confirmed my earlier suspicions. Mill never intended to restrict the reading of The Harm Principle to only negative (or is it positive?) liberty. I think that libertarianism has so colored our thoughts that we imposed that interesting dichotomy of positive vs negative liberties on Mill's work, when it was never there to begin with, thereby getting false results. (I fixed up the main page on JS Mill with this information.) I now affirm that I stand completely by Mill on his central thesis, though I will have to abandon quoting verbatim that wonderful thesis paragraph. So annoying. It has a certain artistic beauty that I really like. -- Again, I do thank you Revolverman for pointing out this unfortunate fact of this specific instance of drift of modern language. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 02:14, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and no one ever intended it to be a complete moral philosophy. Not sure where Nebuchadnezzar got that silly straw man from. It's just a simple rule which was never intended to apply to most regular government actions. It's just there to prevent unjustified tyrannies of the moral majority. In short, in Mill's own words, "every person is their own sovereign", aka I know what I'm doing, and unless you're acting to make other people's lives better, you can't tell me what to do. It's not the libertarian idea which tries to distinguish between positive and negative liberties, and it's not the libertarian idea of prior restraint. It is the idea that you can't impose your values on me just because you feel like it - you need a better reason. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 19:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a straw man of your own making, LOAUV, since you never coherently defined your interpretation of the harm principle. You're correct in saying, though, that Mill and other "classical liberals" have been re-interpreted by today's libertarians propertarian corporate apologists as "free" market ideologues. (See also Adam Smith for a prime example.) I don't think that Mill's utilitarianism necessarily leads to allowing for more than minimal government intervention (perhaps any more than a Nozick-ian "night watchman" state). Again, see, e.g., the Friedman-ites and other "Beltway libertarians" that use utilitarian arguments against state intervention. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, that utilitarian question sounds like a scientific question to me, so at least we've moved the discussion from values to facts, and I'm usually pretty happy when that happens, because then there are objective right and wrong answers. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 20:42, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Tsk tsk

"You are reading this page using something originally created by the big, bad gummint."

CERN called. They said you were slightly biased in your representation of their work. 95.14.215.211 (talk)

The predecessor to the internet, ARPANET, was developed by and for the DOD and was released to the public by state colleges.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 16:07, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm sure the work of all those scientists from all over the world are nothing when the state funded and used their research. 95.14.215.211 (talk)
DARPA paid for the Internet as we know it. This is both widely accepted and actually true - David Gerard (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
They paid for it? I didn't know that, even though I stated it above! I'm sure you have more of a claim for it than the actual creators when you pay for it! Also, if you can't understand, sarcasm. 95.14.215.211 (talk)
The BoN is making the common mistake of assuming that The Internet = The World Wide Web. WWW is basically an application that runs on the Internet, like FTP, NNTP and so on. The original specs for the HTTP protocol, the underlying language of the WWW, were indeed designed at CERN, but a long time after the net itself started. rpeh •TCE 15:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
CERN is also funded by government, IIRC. Many governments, but especially France and Switzerland on whose soil it resides. Nobody else can afford to build particle accelerators and other Big Science projects on that scale. EVDebs (talk) 00:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
ARPANET (the generally accepted predecessor to the internet) was developed with funds from DARPA (a branch of the DOD), partly by DOD officials, and for the express purpose of use by the DOD. It was first publicly used by state colleges. As EVDebs and Rpeh point out, HTTP and WWW were developed by CERN, which is a project funded partly by private donations, but mostly by various governments, especially those in Europe, and their locations are mostly on government land (as far as I know). Many common programming languages, such as the HTML used on this many other boards, were developed by governments, their branches, or organizations funded almost exclusively by governments. --Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 00:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Might be worth noting that particle physics research is nearly nonexistent in the private sector. Would Tim Berners-Lee even have been allowed to deploy WWW if he was working for a private company, given how many of them are so touchy about sharing their research? EVDebs (talk) 17:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, because free meerkat fairy farts rainbows. Didn't you get your daily dose of Mises? --Llegar a las estrellas¿Dígame? 18:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

[edit] New complaints

The libertarianism page is ridiculous -- obviously written by hater(s) of the philosophy who made no attempt to be unbiased. Hope that's not the case with "RationalWiki" as a whole, but based on what I've seen so far...— Unsigned, by: Starchild / talk / contribs

This is not the wiki for neutral point of view. This wiki has a snarky point of view. If you feel if there are any factual inaccuracies, you are welcome to talk about them on the talk page, but unless you bring some hard evidence that libertarianism isn't just ensuring that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, you're probably not going to change the main page. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 09:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh look, another special snowflake. WAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! RW isn't rational because it disagrees with my ideology!!! WAAAAAAAH. The name says it all. Fuck off, Starchild. --Llegar a las estrellas¿Dígame? 20:58, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's nice to see constructive dialogue is alive and well. €₳$£ΘĪÐWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 21:03, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
I really don't see the point. Every month some bloody randroid crawls out of the woodwork with exactly the same arguments, and tries to turn the Libertarianism article into a puff piece. --Llegar a las estrellas¿Dígame? 21:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Andrewstewart1's edits

I've been trying to add real scholarship and have been rooled-back because it is deemed too obscure by a particular user who seems to be trolling me, so can you tell Captain Swing to cut the shit, it's creeping me out. My sources and my topic are both relevant and realistic, I've sourced all my references, but I get treated like crap by this nut who doesn't even know the arguments he is getting into. --Andrewstewart1 (talk) 21:50, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The edit in question is shit and makes the article worse. Anything else we can help you with? She said her name was Billie Jean and she was fresh in town/I didn't know her stage-line ran from hell. 21:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
The edit is relevant, if you think you can write it better, do it, but don't cut a clear case of calling libertarianism bullshit and proving academic dishonesty, you are cyber-stalking me for no reason and I think you need to chill, you talk a fake wiki way too seriously.--Andrewstewart1 (talk) 21:53, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
You have no fucking clue what academic scholarship is or you wouldn't be defending these horse shit edits. Real academic writing has sources, refrains from making bullshit generalizations like "Libertarian scholarship begins with Ayn Rand and ends with Murray Rothbard," and has some fucking nuance to it. Try again. Captain Swing (bringer of nachos) 21:56, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Pretty much. The edit in question focuses on an obscure bit of history, reads like a blog post, and detracts from the general thrust of the article.She said her name was Billie Jean and she was fresh in town/I didn't know her stage-line ran from hell. 22:01, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Detracting from the general thrust of the article is fine. References would help a whole lot - David Gerard (talk) 22:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Cut paragraph (utilitarian vs. deontological libertarians)

Cut this:

"However, the average lay libertarian is often ambiguous - and confused - whether these policies should be adopted because they result in a happy, materially wealthy, free society, or that they should be adopted because they are in themselves moral and good. For most libertarians, it is a faith position that these policies work, and consequently it can be hard to pin a libertarian down whether they support these policies because the policies are in and of themselves moral, or because they achieved desirable ends such as a happy, materially wealthy, free society."

There is a pretty clear division between the utilitarian (think the Friedmans) and deontological (think Murray Rothbard) traditions. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:07, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Are we talking about the leaders, their followers, or the under-30s who are quick to call themselves libertarians after reading a few books blogs? :) I think that the author of that paragraph had in mind the latter group (them and the disgruntled Republicans).--ZooGuard (talk) 07:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Any argument with an Internet libertarian veers randomly between consequences and deontology, with sloganeering coming out when both those fail to convince. Pinning an Internet libertarian down on a claim is possibly worse than pinning a Christian down on one - David Gerard (talk) 16:49, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
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