Brad Sallows said:
What constitutes a "personal attack" to you, other than challenging your nebulous claims?
I called you guys groupies. You've called me vague, universal and nebulous. I think we've both been jerks. How about we stick to the politics, and call a truce on the personal drama?
Brad Sallows said:
Bullsh*t. Violence is when the Nazis and Communists and other big gangs called "governments" kill tens of millions of people
At present, I am advocating for a mixed economy, with some form of social programs and environmental protections. The kind advocated for by Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats.
You say that comparing non-libertarianism and libertarian violence is cow excrement, because non-libertarians are so much more violent than libertarians. You give the example of the Nazis. Godwin's Law aside, non-libertarians aren't restricted to Goering and Goebbels. Rather this category includes many Canadian political parties, none have which have killed tens of millions of people.
the fewer and less invasive the laws, the less the threat of violence.
In a state of nature, there is no ownership. The trees, the fields, the animal herds. None of them come with a name attached.
As intelligent beings, we humans assert control over nature. We have established states with laws over all land, people, and property within those state boundaries. Each state apportions its people and resources according to a particular set of laws.
A libertarian society where most of the land has been privatized is no less invasive than a socialist society where most of the land has been collectivized. Both divide up the natural world completely.
In a libertarian society, a landless disabled man can be sitting at the edge of my family's wheat fields, literally starving to death. And in this privatized libertarian society, if he has no money, and no way to make money, his only freedom is the freedom to die.
Generally they must provide something other people actually want. Otherwise, they gain no power or position.
One can say the same about democratically elected officials.
But you have stumbled across one of the advantages of libertarianism: recognition and useful harnessing of the basic selfishness of people.
I don't agree that people are basically selfish, any more than I agree that people are basically altruistic. I would suggest that human history shows people to be a very rich mix of conflicting motivations.
Some people pollute a town's water, knowing that children will die. Other people throw themselves on a grenade, to save their buddy's life.
By definition, people who impose their moral aesthetics on others are not libertarians.
Then no one is a libertarian. Because any set of laws will involve some element of moral aesthetics. Some sense of what feels right and just.
Libertarianism is aesthetic to its very root. The libertarian emphasis on the individual, on personal freedom, on leaving people alone. These are sensations of right and wrong, fair and unfair, rooted in emotion.
Libertarianism isn't the absence of government; you've confused it with anarchism.
Perhaps. However, the little I've read on the anarchist experience in the Spanish Civil War would suggest that anarchism is not at all the absence of government or collective control. In fact, those anarchist regions of Spain seemed downright socialistic in their approach.
I also doubt that it qualifies as "extreme", because most of the population has several parts of their lives they want government to butt out of completely.
I believe that is the logical fallacy of popularity. You claim that most people have some libertarian views, therefore libertarianism is not extreme. I could equally note that 99% of Canadians voted for parties which actively seek state involvement in society.
It is the liberal (classical) position to challenge whether each increment of law is necessary, and to abandon or rework from scratch a hopelessly complex body of regulation which has become a clusterf*ck of band-aids as each new rule alters the behaviour of millions of people in unforeseen ways. I don't see that in any other "ideology": they are all convinced that with just a little more tinkering, a few more legislative bills, a little more public service oversight, there will be no more unintended consequences and everything will be satisfactorily managed.
You raise some fascinating points here. I will need time to think them over.
In reality, they are like the French high command in 1940 facing the Germans: out-competed by the decision cycles of millions of free people, unless enough freedom is removed so that there are no longer any decisions to be made.
If I may make a suggestion. Endeavor to go easy on the Godwin.