Libertarianism (1 Viewer)

[pleasureman]

The error at the heart of all libertarian thought is that the individual is the smallest and primary unit of society. The libertarian consistently frames social and moral imperatives in terms of individual needs and desires and freedoms. He posits that society is the sum total of individuals pursuing self-interest.

This is not true. The smallest unit of society is the relationship between two individuals. One, two, or a thousand individuals do not comprise a society until there are relationships connecting them to each other--agreements, customs, laws, values. The connecting relationship, not the individual, is the atom of human society. It is impossible to have a society of one man.

 

[BowieMercs]

In before Politician Spock blames it on religion. :IBTL:

 

[EYLive]

Gaaaaaaay

 

[MaxThreshold]

In before Todd Andrews jumps in and claims he's an Independent :IBTL:

 

[pleasureman]

Libertarians get more wrong than right. My assessment of their failings is as follows:

• their faith in unguided economic processes is naive
• their skepticism of organized human behavior is dogmatic
• their understanding of social behavior is almost nil
• their understanding of social hierarchies is nil
• their attention to risk and to second order effects is severely deficient
• their understanding of political behavior is grossly deficient
• their conception of morality is limited and inflexible
• their understanding of entropy, decay, and fragility is severely deficient
• they do not appear to understand non-economic drives

In addition to this, libertarians seem affected by innate mental problems:

• their psychological development is stunted
• they exhibit no loyalty outside immediate personal relationships
• they are glib and argumentative
• their personal tastes are crass and childish
• they are hedonists
• they appear to be completely lacking in genuine altruism

Everything libertarians say is distorted through this prism of shortcomings and defects, so that when a libertarian opens his mouth about regulations, what comes out is usually seriously wrong. Even the basic assumption that the primary obstacle to economic well-being is overregulation or other "inefficient" side effects of governance is based on erroneous thinking. I have never once seen a libertarian address the reality that as human activity scales up it requires more and more effort to put into order (hence regulation)--this absurdly obvious fact goes unmentioned, or if it is mentioned is immediately dismissed.

The libertarian usually assumes that without regulation (or most of it) we'd be living in the best of all possible worlds--he is a stupid modern day Candide. Libertarians love to cherry pick regulations or ignore context--I remember John Stossel pulling a stunt where he setup a lemonade stand in a city and then wouldn't let anyone buy lemonade because regulations forbade it. This was supposed to show the silliness of overregulation, but it only showed the silliness of Stossel.

Libertarians are mostly wrong, and proof of their failure is that despite overrepresentation in the media they are politically ineffective. They are incapable of advertising their ideology in ways that do not ultimately repulse most serious people. (More galling is that despite being anti-conservative, they are used to speak on behalf of conservatives.) They aren't even noble failures, they're just fools.

 

[Steve Tasker]

http://www.gifwave.com/media/75105_disgusted-tv-no-colin-farrell-do-not-want.gif

 

[Peyton Marino]

ok

 

[pleasureman]

The whole point of a conservative government is to preserve order by regulating behavior--regulating through social custom, law, and restraint on commerce. This is not socializing or spreading the cost.

Privatization itself is the bizarre idea that it all works out for the best when corporations and privately held businesses run everything, a delusion that is usually cured by working for one of these organizations, or just watching the race to the bottom over the last 100 years. Milton Friedman pimped privatization for decades, and it's completely nutty and pollyannish. Without restraint, man is not to be trusted--but these psuedo-conservatives think that as long as man isn't a civil servant it will all work out for the best. These are people who don't realize that Candide was a satire.

What astonishes me is that after seeing business swamp America with immigrants both legal and illegal, dismantle standards of journalism and decency in the media, and routinely corrupt politics at the municipal, state, and national levels, there is anyone left who still fawns over the "free market" or rather the state of nature that libertarians like Friedman want to return to.

We were all nursed on this rhetoric, so maybe it's a matter of people getting older and catching on that it's all a scam. Conservative government is not small when society is big. Order is not preserved by embracing hedonism and deviance--the role of conservatism is to place a stern check on liberal fantasies, not to indulge in fantasies of its own. I think this is the lesson that conservatives need to learn, and ditch their slogans.

 

[DaVinci]

Somebody hates freedom.

 

[pleasureman]

Somebody hates freedom.

You should probably look around you at the way businesses operate, the causes they endorse, and the morality they promote. Do the virtues of your culture come from the scramble for personal gain? This is the "greed is good" philosophy that many conservatives are programmed with.

It takes a long time for conservatives to break through the programming, even as the free market they revere seeks to send their jobs overseas and flood them with aliens at home, even as it mistreats employees and fires them for complaining, even as it breaks the law and then uses the courts to safeguard its profits, even as it privatizes profits and socializes losses, even as it predates on those with little money and then lectures them about "individual responsibility". If you can look at the morass of business ethics today, the steady procession of abuses and degradations, the nihilistic grasping for wealth at nearly any cost, and see a system that needs more freedom to work as it does, then you have yet to wake up.

 

[Steve Tasker]

BGP alias?

 

[Doctor Detroit]

JBK and Gekko had a baby I see.

Neat.

 

[msommer]

JBK and Gekko had a baby I see.

Neat.

The science to do that is quite advanced, and settled, I guess

 

[Short Corner]

BGP alias?

Pretty obvious Tim alias

 

[Short Corner]

Somebody hates freedom.

You should probably look around you at the way businesses operate, the causes they endorse, and the morality they promote. Do the virtues of your culture come from the scramble for personal gain? This is the "greed is good" philosophy that many conservatives are programmed with.

It takes a long time for conservatives to break through the programming, even as the free market they revere seeks to send their jobs overseas and flood them with aliens at home, even as it mistreats employees and fires them for complaining, even as it breaks the law and then uses the courts to safeguard its profits, even as it privatizes profits and socializes losses, even as it predates on those with little money and then lectures them about "individual responsibility". If you can look at the morass of business ethics today, the steady procession of abuses and degradations, the nihilistic grasping for wealth at nearly any cost, and see a system that needs more freedom to work as it does, then you have yet to wake up.

http://mpcdot.com/forums/topic/6431-libertarianism/page__st__20#entry122122

 

[Short Corner]

Libertarians get more wrong than right. My assessment of their failings is as follows:

• their faith in unguided economic processes is naive
• their skepticism of organized human behavior is dogmatic
• their understanding of social behavior is almost nil
• their understanding of social hierarchies is nil
• their attention to risk and to second order effects is severely deficient
• their understanding of political behavior is grossly deficient
• their conception of morality is limited and inflexible
• their understanding of entropy, decay, and fragility is severely deficient
• they do not appear to understand non-economic drives

In addition to this, libertarians seem affected by innate mental problems:

• their psychological development is stunted
• they exhibit no loyalty outside immediate personal relationships
• they are glib and argumentative
• their personal tastes are crass and childish
• they are hedonists
• they appear to be completely lacking in genuine altruism

Everything libertarians say is distorted through this prism of shortcomings and defects, so that when a libertarian opens his mouth about regulations, what comes out is usually seriously wrong. Even the basic assumption that the primary obstacle to economic well-being is overregulation or other "inefficient" side effects of governance is based on erroneous thinking. I have never once seen a libertarian address the reality that as human activity scales up it requires more and more effort to put into order (hence regulation)--this absurdly obvious fact goes unmentioned, or if it is mentioned is immediately dismissed.

The libertarian usually assumes that without regulation (or most of it) we'd be living in the best of all possible worlds--he is a stupid modern day Candide. Libertarians love to cherry pick regulations or ignore context--I remember John Stossel pulling a stunt where he setup a lemonade stand in a city and then wouldn't let anyone buy lemonade because regulations forbade it. This was supposed to show the silliness of overregulation, but it only showed the silliness of Stossel.

Libertarians are mostly wrong, and proof of their failure is that despite overrepresentation in the media they are politically ineffective. They are incapable of advertising their ideology in ways that do not ultimately repulse most serious people. (More galling is that despite being anti-conservative, they are used to speak on behalf of conservatives.) They aren't even noble failures, they're just fools.

http://mpcdot.com/forums/topic/6431-libertarianism/#entry122004

 

[Short Corner]

The error at the heart of all libertarian thought is that the individual is the smallest and primary unit of society. The libertarian consistently frames social and moral imperatives in terms of individual needs and desires and freedoms. He posits that society is the sum total of individuals pursuing self-interest.

This is not true. The smallest unit of society is the relationship between two individuals. One, two, or a thousand individuals do not comprise a society until there are relationships connecting them to each other--agreements, customs, laws, values. The connecting relationship, not the individual, is the atom of human society. It is impossible to have a society of one man.

http://mpcdot.com/forums/topic/6431-libertarianism/#entry121518

 

[matuski]

ouch.

 

[matuski]

shortest lived alias ever?

 

[timschochet]

BGP alias?

Pretty obvious Tim alias

No I don't write like that.

 

[Juxtatarot]

In addition to this, libertarians seem affected by innate mental problems:

• their psychological development is stunted
• they exhibit no loyalty outside immediate personal relationships
• they are glib and argumentative
• their personal tastes are crass and childish
• they are hedonists
• they appear to be completely lacking in genuine altruism

<snip>

They aren't even noble failures, they're just fools.

So how do you feel about liberals?

 

[Rove!]

BGP alias?

Pretty obvious Tim alias

I was guessing Rockaction

 

[Mario Kart]

I wonder why we haven't had a Conservative bashing from this new, awesome poster?

I want to embrace hedonism and deviancy!!!!! Who is with me?????