Essay talk:Libertarianism and Anarchy

So is a Libertarian really just a Republican who wants to smoke dope? Your essay fails to address this important point. --Kels 12:01, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

Yes. Or, one embarrassed to identify with a major party. They get to be gadflies, iconoclasts, while still voting GOP when it matters.

Anyway, I popped in here to add my 0.02, having talked to a quite a few self-described libertarians, and having read up on it a bit. To distill the platform/idea, they argue gov't should do nothing more than defend the borders and "provide a system for adjudicating disputes between free actors". Now, think about the second part. What is the U.S. but a libertarian country with 230 years of history of adjudicating disputes? And codifying those dispute resolutions where appropriate (laws, court decisions). What most libertarians do is ignore that because they don't like the outcomes of some of the adjuciations. Which carries no water with me - of course you'll disagree with some of the outcomes! Right now, dope dealers have lost out to the sense of protecting children (or anyone) from predators. Is that right or wrong? If it's wrong, you work against the dope laws. IE, you become a free actor with a dispute to resolve.

One of my libert. pals said once he'd like to have lived "during the Revolutionary times" - which is funny, because he's into hifi. I wonder how he would be at subsistence farming? What he really wants to live in is a Jeffersonian Agrarian republic, as a rich man (which he isn't) - which only works if the population is low relative to the land available, and the land very high quality. Remember, back in 18th century New World, very few men really lived in such a paradise - most were poorer farmers, slaves, laborers, a few artisans and businessmen - and a small percentage owned estates and could be libertarian farmers. Oh, and fully half were women, with no rights at all.

That's all for now human^{be in} 16:48, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

They certainly had a lot of disputes to adjudicate, though. What characterizes a "Jeffersonian" agrarian democracy, by the way? --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 19:00, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Damn it, you just had to go and ask a good question. Basically, and there's a lot more to it, Thomas Jefferson saw Americans spreading across the continent in a basically rural lifestyle, like in his home state of Virginia, with not only wealthy gentleman such as himself, but small homesteads, etc. This vision of American democracy basically was a model of self reliance, small government, individual rights, etc. There's a ton of writing on it.--PalMD^-Goatspeed! 21:05, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Libertarians misrepresenting themselves.

One facet that always annoys me about self-described Libertarians is how they publicly describe Libertarianism vs. the actual stances of Libertarians. We've all heard Libertarianism described as "Fiscally Conservative" and "Socially Liberal", however in practice the only Civil Liberties they seem to care about is the right to own property. If it were up to Libertarians, we'd still be waiting for the "Invisible Hand of the Free Market" to abolish slavery. Then there's that misleading political chart that shows Libertarianism as being the polar opposite of Authoritarianism. But Libertarians have no problem with your boss, your landlord or your bank owner ruling you like a king, so long as the people limiting your freedoms aren't part of the big-bad government. The whole message of Libertarians seems to be the idea that government is not there help you (see: Ronald Reagan) so that it won't seem to matter as much when we have bad government (also see: Ronald Reagan). Anyway, should there be some mention of Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" and its influence on modern Libertarianims? ^{— Unsigned, by: 66.236.225.26 / talk / contribs}

Hear, hear! human^{be in} 23:15, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

I am a marxist libertarian and am not sure it is accurate to pidgeonhole all libertarians as several of you seem to think. I have always voted liberally, donate time and money to social causes to help the underprivelaged, and have generally met every criteria to be a hippy. I cannot speak for everyone but it has been my experience among libertarians that the outlook of government noninvolvement is just an extension of personal involvement. Essentially, my rights end where yours begin meaning no landlord or boss has the right to rule over your life. It appears many of you have blinders and look at only the worst examples while ignoring positive ones(John Gilmore, for instance). ^{— Unsigned, by: Devils advocate / talk / contribs}

Please, feel free to edit the article to make it better, especially as regards to your views. human^{be in} 23:15, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

govt

While my understanding may be different than most, the obvious difference as I understand anarchism v. libertarianism is that the former supports no government (and by extension no state, etc) while the latter supports limited govt (accepting some sort of state)--MountainTiger 22:55, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

I guess one of my points is that certain strict libertarianism implies no government, whether it means to or not.--PalMD^-Goatspeed! 23:24, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

It has to, really, but it's more complicated than that. The implications of strict big-L libertarianism require the eventual formation of a market-driven shadow government (probably for profit, which you can't tell me is a good thing vis-a-vis corruption, etc.). EVDebs 00:01, 29 July 2007 (CDT)

As I understand it, Libertarianism asks only of govt. to defend the country and "adjudicate differences between free actors" in the world. Which is pretty much what the US has. All those ugly laws? And regulations? Just "adjudicating differences between free actors". Life goes on. Yeah, modern "libertarians" are trippin', as much as modern communists are. Pretending their ideals won't get complicated by real life. human^{be in} 00:07, 29 July 2007 (CDT)

Somehow that reminds me of the (rather more dubious) proposition that software bloat is a direct result of bug fixes. I don't think they're really equivalent. HOWEVER... what if the libertarian ideal is actually a completely ad hoc court system with no actual laws to go on... it probably isn't, but one could be forgiven for thinking so. EVDebs 01:12, 29 July 2007 (CDT)

Perhaps in rural 18th century America that would work, but in "reality", my take is that the same issues would come up over and over again, and common law or legislated law would simplify dealing with them - the "we answered this question already" approach. I like the bugfix analogy - someone writes an elegant piece of code, but someone else has to fix the bugs in it, making it ugly. Of course, law is usually written to be ugly to start with, so no one will understand it. human^{be in} 13:01, 29 July 2007 (CDT)

Terminology

I think you're conflating libertarianism with anarcho-capitalism. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 13:39, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Terminology is definitely an issue here... Circa 1776, this stuff was all called liberalism. That means something quite different now. What I generally associate with libertarianism is the principle that gov't secures Rule of Law and does nothing else. Or at least, as little else as is possible. Yes, I think there should be some discussion of Objectivism. But most of all, this subject begs to have the various types of Libertarianism discussed, because this is not a clearly defined word. BlueSprite 13:40, 1 December 2008 (EST)