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Gangs, religions, terrorist organizations, etc. would still start wars. The Crusades were started by the church. The Bloods vs. Crips and the Pagans vs. the Hell's Angels weren't started by government. The war in Afghanistan was started by terrorists attacking America as has many wars between the Arabs in the Middle East and Israel.
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Who would devalue the currency, spend everyone into massive debt, and stifle trade?
Well wouldn't currency have no value should there be no central bank system. This was a problem with the initial US before the Constitution was written up and ratified.
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If the state didn't exist, who would replace all the police killings? You're more likely to be killed by a police officer than an ordinary criminal, even by the government's own statistics.
How would we get locked in cages or killed for possessing a plant?
We wouldn't end up in jail, perhaps killed over gang violence over possessing drugs that hurt their trade on "their turf."
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If governments are something we should want, and governments have been proven to do these things repeatedly throughout history, how will getting rid of it make things even worse for society?
The issue with Libertarianism is that is a very open spectrum. There's left libertarians who think government SHOULD get involved socially while right libertarians want private business to get involved. Both do not want government involvement in citizens rights.
That's no different than any other party. there are huge differences between the leaders and their followers of each major party.
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To learn more, I suggest watching this video.
Entertaining, but it has some problems. First, Gary Johnson was governor of NM, not AZ. Second, the Libertarian view of marriage is not that the government should legalize gay marriage because all that does is reinforce government's control of marriage. It's that the government should not tell us who or how many we can marry.
It isn't that libertarianism can't work, its that libertarianism wouldn't work as libertarians actually imagine it.
It is certainly true that people can cooperate and trade without government. But that trade could never be much more than the most basic level of trade. You could never have a megacorporation with tens of thousands of employees without a state.
You couldn't even have a city without some form of wealth redistribution. New York City cannot function on libertarian principles, the people there would riot, kill each other, and burn the city to the ground.
For that matter, world trade necessitates some kind of central bank, and especially the ability to manipulate your currency. Libertarian economic policies basically only work if you either didn't trade at all, or if you only traded with people who didn't manipulate their currency. Since every country does(and since they have no reason to stop, we are all Keynesians now), then libertarianism could only possibly work in a form of economic isolationism. Which goes against one of its central tenets of "free trade".
Trust me, all the countries of the world are fighting for economic dominance. If libertarianism was as good economically as they imagine, other countries would have adopted it. Or if the gold standard was good, someone would be using it.
Free-market Libertarianism would theoretically maximize efficiency(if people were all good), but the Achilles heel of libertarianism, is that it would not foster cooperation of large numbers of people, especially in densely-populated areas. For that, you need a state, a public-education system, wealth redistribution, a national Army, a national bank, among many other things.
I wish it wasn't so, because I HATE government with a fiery passion. But the truth is, libertarianism would devolve into localism, and then into tribalism.
I would actually prefer that honestly. But a weak libertarian state which didn't trade, would be bullied by more powerful countries. It wouldn't be allowed to be independent.
"Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those, who not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." - Thomas Jefferson
You are confusing Libertarianism with Anarchy (No Government.) Those are two unrelated ideas.
How Many Libertarians does it take to change a Light Bulb?
It is impossible for true libertarians to change a light bulb, because a libertarian would never impose by force their worldview of what a light bulb should do upon a light bulb that is contrary to their world view
Gangs, religions, terrorist organizations, etc. would still start wars. The Crusades were started by the church. The Bloods vs. Crips and the Pagans vs. the Hell's Angels weren't started by government. The war in Afghanistan was started by terrorists attacking America as has many wars between the Arabs in the Middle East and Israel.
I probably should have said that there won't be wars the way we have them now. There may be small-scale "wars", but nothing like the big wars we know from history. The first crusade wasn't really funded by the king, so you're mostly right on that one, but the following crusades were government funded. Gang wars are small scale and are two groups of criminals fighting. It isn't quite the same (although I consider government military as criminals unless they're defending themselves..they just don't realize they're criminals). With terrorism, it's characterized by violent actions for political goals, so that doesn't really work either. Plus, the reason they attacked in the first place was because of our government meddling in their society.
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Well wouldn't currency have no value should there be no central bank system. This was a problem with the initial US before the Constitution was written up and ratified.
Nope. Currency is whatever people decide to use. You don't need a government issued and regulated currency. That's one reason libertarians tend to love Bitcoin. It can't be regulated and monitored by the government because it's just one person sending their bitcoins directly to another person. It's free trade between people who decide they want to trade goods for bitcoins. Plus it's a lot faster because you don't have to wait for a bank to process the transaction. I'm not a bitcoin expert but I like the idea of it a lot.
It could happen sometimes, definitely. The problem is when there are a ton of laws in a society and it starts becoming a police state, which I'd argue is what we have now to some degree. Police see themselves as having special rights that regular citizens don't have, because they're backed by "the law". They'll use violence against non-violent people and ignore their rights as humans because they're told that it's ok when you're wearing the badge. You're "more" than just an average citizen.
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We wouldn't end up in jail, perhaps killed over gang violence over possessing drugs that hurt their trade on "their turf."
That only happens with the black market. If it's illegal to sell something, that's when all the violence and gang territory stuff comes in. If you're allowed to trade whatever you want to trade, it would be like any other business. A joke I heard is that Breaking Bad would have been a really boring show if the "war on drugs" didn't exist. He would just make his meth in plain sight and sell it online around the world with no worries.
It wouldn't really happen as I've seen more right leaning libertarians than left for one. This means that more libertarians I've seen look for charity to the answer for people who do not have the resources to pull themselves up their bootstraps upon hardtimes, rather than the government. Another thing is there needs to be compromise between the right and left like there needs to be in Washington. This is unlikely in today's political climate. Perhaps all we need is more pragmatic right leaning libertarians.
Libertarianism isn't the only ideology that's dying or already dead, Democratism & Republicanism seem to be on their last legs & for much of the same reasons.
Apparently our earliest designers were the last of the creative pragmatic anarchists. Who would've guessed?
How would slavery have ended, Libertarian fashioned?
The cotton gin. Or in other words, technology. That's not to say another 20 years of slavery would have been a good thing but it would have ended with the advancing technology.
Rand Paul is a Republican is why. He like his Father just jumps on the bandwagon to look cool. Libertarians are middle of the road. Socially liberal and more economically conservative. If he was one he would caucus equally with both parties. The fact that he sticks to one tells you something.
Ron & Rand Paul may be Republicans, in any case, they've decided to associate more closely with the Republican Party & I'm sure they have their reasons. They're not the only ones to caucus with one Party. I agree with you, I think more folks should caucus with both Parties.
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