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I mean, apart from the fringe people who identify as libertarians (and there exist people like that for ALL political affiliations), what is wrong with it? Why not let people live their lives as they'd like to, as long as they don't interfere with other people's lives? Why not let states decide for themselves what's best for them? I'm not an incredibly strict libertarian (for instance I support net neutrality and things like the FDA) but I agree with most libertarian principles. I mean a lot of people paint Ron Paul as just another right wing fringe guy yet he is opposed to the death penalty, the GWOT and all the awful things that have come along with it. To me it just makes sense.
So really, what is so bad about it that some people describe it as an ideology for the loons? Again, remember that the fringe people are usually the loudest and do not represent the whole. By that logic, I could say that all liberals pray every night to wake up in the USSR and that conservatives have shrines in honor of Atilla the Hun.
Libertarianism starts on a sound foundation, but the problem is that at many points it pushes the boundaries of social and economic though to a childish cartoonish extreme. Government regulations aren't there for fun, they are their to correct a problem.
Take food, without labeling laws you wouldn't even know what is in your food...and the first part of being able to freely choose is knowing the truth (and not have an allergic reaction). Getting rid of that just allows people to lie, but many Libertarian's hate labeling. Without regulations of what cannot be in food, we could be competing with China for horrible food supply abuses. "The market will correct" doesn't give much comfort to the people who have been sickened and killed attempting to find the supplier with the least nasty food.
Medicine is another venue. ..such as enforcing credentialing for physicians so they are not some nut in a lab coat pretending, making sure pharmaceuticals have the ingredients they say they do, and work, and are relatively safe, ER's being required to treat people regardless of their ability to pay. The words quack and snake oil were used by the victims of many before regulations went into play. If you didn't have your wallet and needed ED treatment, opps. If you are willing to gamble you and your families health on experimenting with different things, you can do it.
To many strict Libertarians, environmental damage is just a cost of doing business. Regulations to stop or correct for negative externalities by private companies are seen as "anti-business". Even very disastrous scenarios where the company has not cleaned up for itself and/or is no longer in business. Such as many stating that government regulation and enforcement to clean up the millions of gallons of oil spilled into the gulf of Mexico as an un-American boot heal on the throat of British Petroleum.
Libertarians like to ignore certain periods of history such as the Gilded Age, where libertarian ideas were widespread and in effect. Where if you got old, or couldn't work due to injury, you had to mooch off family or wait to die. Where there were no laws against working some one (and their children) a hundred of hours a week, with no safety protections (phossy jaw was common). If you protested, they just hired the pinkertons to beat people.
Libertarians want to push the government away from the banking and finance industries, often recently stating depositors/investors should not have been bailed out by the government in the credit crunch of 2008. So if you had money in a bank and it went under, even if you did everything right, the bank could have folded and taken all of your money with it.
It also brings into the fray that there are about as many different types of libertarianism as there are people since it is very ill defined. The unfortunate part is that many of the politicians who run on the platforms support many (or in the case of Rand Paul, all of them) problems above. So you pretty much have the choice of the loony wanker libertarian if you want to vote for them, because I don't think I can find a moderate person who has run on the platform.
The problem with Libertarians is that they are really nothing more than closet anarchists. They allude to this in their party platform:
Quote:
As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.
...
The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.
What is anarchy, after all, if not the absence of government, where the individual is sovereign? This is the primary reason why Libertarians are viewed as being several bricks short of a full load. Normal, rational, people understand the need for government, we just differ as to its size and authority. Only the loony Libertarians think the absence of government is a good thing.
The problem with Libertarians is that they are really nothing more than closet anarchists. They allude to this in their party platform:
What is anarchy, after all, if not the absence of government, where the individual is sovereign? This is the primary reason why Libertarians are viewed as being several bricks short of a full load. Normal, rational, people understand the need for government, we just differ as to its size and authority. Only the loony Libertarians think the absence of government is a good thing.
The LP doesn't represent all Libertarians... but I guess I see what you're sayin'.
What is anarchy, after all, if not the absence of government, where the individual is sovereign?
Where do libertarians say "absence of government"? You're actually trying to twist "government interference" into meaning "government"? lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glitch
This is the primary reason why Libertarians are viewed as being several bricks short of a full load. Normal, rational, people understand the need for government, we just differ as to its size and authority. Only the loony Libertarians think the absence of government is a good thing.
Your beef sounds like it's with anarchists. Libertarians are for small, efficient, and minimum government. Firemen? Yes. Fire truck? Yes. 6 figure fireman's pension? Probably not.
Wonder how many of our founders had Libertarian views. Guess they too were "several bricks short of a full load"?
Your beef sounds like it's with anarchists. Libertarians are for small, efficient, and minimum government.
I find that libertarians are like their anarchist brethren because if put 10 libertarians in a room and ask them to explain what libertarianism stands for you will get 20 different answers. Of course the problem is inherent to any political philosophy that disdains form and structure. If you believe that every person is a sovereign entity then their can be no authoritative principle.
Let us say a neighbor build an addition to your house, using without permits or inspection being required. Them an un-experienced carpenter three scenarios come readily to mind.
*A windstorm picks up and an unsecured roof flies off and crushes your house
*The water heater is vented incorrectly and burns their house and your house down.
*You buy that guys house and due to an unsecured load bearing wall finally gives in and squishes you.
Is it okay if you neighbor does what they want and cooks up Meth? With the dangerous fumes and chance for explosion?
How about diseases? Would you like it if Andrew Speaker decided he didn't want treatment for his multiple resistant TB, and he was sitting next to you and your children at the movies?
How about roads? How would roads function without an entity to provide it? How many tolls are okay on private roads to get to and from where you want to go?
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