A Cracked article libertarians should read

Cain said:
Somalia.
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thaiboxerken said:
Doesn't count because...er...uh... Bad stuff happens there.
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It doesn't count because it's anarchy, not libertarianism. Libertarianism requires government - a limited government, to be sure, but one which still effectively enforces basic laws, like protecting private property and enforcing contracts. Somalia does not have even that.
 
Ziggurat said:
It doesn't count because it's anarchy, not libertarianism. Libertarianism requires government - a limited government..."
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This is incorrect. Which is not a surprise. While it's true that most libertarians fall into the minarchist camp, there are quite a few who are anarchists. In terms of carrying principles of non-consent/non-aggression and free-association to their logical conclusions, the anarchists have the better of the argument.
 
Cain said:
This is incorrect. Which is not a surprise. While it's true that most libertarians fall into the minarchist camp, there are quite a few who are anarchists. In terms of carrying principles of non-consent/non-aggression and free-association to their logical conclusions, the anarchists have the better of the argument.
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You tell me I'm wrong, but then concede the point with the very vocabulary you use. "Anarchist" is not synonymous with "libertarian". There's a reason we have two completely different words for them.
 
Ziggurat said:
You tell me I'm wrong, but then concede the point with the very vocabulary you use. "Anarchist" is not synonymous with "libertarian". There's a reason we have two completely different words for them.
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Well they do overlap but I see your point.

So there is no libertarian government of the non-anarchist type then.
 
Ziggurat said:
It doesn't count because it's anarchy, not libertarianism. Libertarianism requires government - a limited government, to be sure, but one which still effectively enforces basic laws, like protecting private property and enforcing contracts. Somalia does not have even that.
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Any other basics we could perhaps include here? Child labor laws? Anti-slavery laws? Pollution control? Weather forecasting?

I'm not sure where the basic ends and the superfluous begins. I assume there is some principle that defines the libertarian dividing line, but I don't know what it is.
 
Ziggurat said:
You tell me I'm wrong, but then concede the point with the very vocabulary you use. "Anarchist" is not synonymous with "libertarian". There's a reason we have two completely different words for them.
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Here goes Ziggurat, playing his usual semantics when all is lost. According to this "logic" there's no need for libertarians to use the term "minarchist" either. Libertarianism is the apple, and anarchism is a Granny Smith.
 
Cain said:
In a libertarian society it will be legal to make childrens' footie pajamas out of highly flammable materials. The problem with that is when kids fail to stop, drop and roll we're gonna hear a LOT of bellyaching.
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Yeah, right. Next you'll probably be asking me to actually stop the sausage grinders when having children dislodge the bones jamming them up. God, who could possibly make a buck in a world like that?
 
Cylinder said:
You are seriously misreprenting the position of mainstream libertarianism. Beyond that, I don't see your point. In a libertarian paradise, the government would be wholly unable to regulate speech through claims of copyright infringement. It seems your objection is that there isn't a speech police. That's a feature - not a bug.
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A great many Libertarians would disgree with you about the abolition of copyright,and think it is a bad idea.
 
dudalb said:
A great many Libertarians would disgree with you about the abolition of copyright,and think it is a bad idea.
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Huh? I was speaking about the government enforcing speech via copyright, not abolishing copyright altogether. There should be a mechanism for protecting innovation.
 
Travis said:
Um, yeah I was pointing out that when they advocated for abolishing the FDA and relying on nothing but consumer reviews for important things like what cancer drug to use the prevalence of false reviews will sort of muck things up.

I mean when anyone can label themselves a Medical Doctor and offer up their recommendations how do you know what drug is legitimate?
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Wait, what? Citation please. Who wants to rely on nothing but consumer reviews for cancer drugs?
 
hgc said:
I'm not sure where the basic ends and the superfluous begins. I assume there is some principle that defines the libertarian dividing line, but I don't know what it is.
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All of which is relevant if you want to argue that libertarian ideals will or won't work in practice. But we don't need to map out the exact contours to recognize that Somalia isn't libertarian. That's my point.
 
Cain said:
Here goes Ziggurat, playing his usual semantics when all is lost. According to this "logic" there's no need for libertarians to use the term "minarchist" either. Libertarianism is the apple, and anarchism is a Granny Smith.
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Somalia isn't minarchist, and minarchism isn't anarchism. And a demonstration that anarchism fails is not a demonstration that libertarianism categorically (and non-anarchist forms in particular) fail. To use your apple analogy, it's like arguing that all apples are green because Granny Smith's are green and they're an apple.
 
tyr_13 said:
Well they do overlap but I see your point.

So there is no libertarian government of the non-anarchist type then.
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I don't know of one. Nor do I expect to find one in the modern world.

A non-democratic government will always take on roles far greater than what is compatible with libertarianism in order to maintain power. It will never be, and will never even attempt to be, libertarian. And a democratic government will expand beyond strict libertarianism as well, because too many people will simply demand more services from the government if they can, because someone else foots the bill. That's just too much a part of human nature. This makes libertarianism unstable, but at least it will "fail" safely by simply becoming a more familiar democratic government with social services, etc. That, in my mind, sets it apart fundamentally from ideologies like communism which fail catastrophically.
 
thaiboxerken said:
In Libertaria children can work and prostitution is considered a legitimate job......
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Why shouldn't children be allowed to work? You don't have to be a libertarian to see the value of paper routes, babysitting, acting, volunteerism, lemonade stands, selling Girl Scout cookies....
 
ravdin said:
Why shouldn't children be allowed to work? You don't have to be a libertarian to see the value of paper routes, babysitting, acting, volunteerism, lemonade stands, selling Girl Scout cookies....
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...working in mines, operating heavy machinery...
 
ravdin said:
Absolutely not! Kids are horrible at those kinds of jobs.
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Reminds me of a quip I read somewhere: Children should not mix alcoholic drinks. It's unseemly, and besides, they use too much vermouth.
 
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