Because we've figured out how to make sure the people in power are superior specimens:
Posted on 06/26/2008 12:59:03 PM PDT by BenLurkin
began teaching an undergraduate economics course this week.
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Blast from the Past
I always appreciate the input from such students for three reasons. First, it's healthy for discussion. The essence of public policy is deciding what government should and should not do. The libertarian point of view, which basically argues for minimal government authority, helps to anchor that debate. Government has certainly caused plenty of problems, and the "law of unintended consequences" -- the notion that implementing a policy to fix one problem often creates another -- is one of the most important concepts for any policymaker to understand.
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Last, and perhaps most significant, I used to be that libertarian student at the back of the room. When I was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago, home of Milton Friedman and his intellectual peers, I was smitten with the wonders of the market. Like Alan Greenspan, I was enamored with the powerful and provocative writings of Ayn Rand.
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Stop Me if You've Heard This
I've discovered just one problem with my elegant libertarian philosophy after spending two decades in public policy: It's terribly impractical for actually governing society. My whole quibble with libertarians can be boiled down to one banal question: What's the libertarian point of view on stoplights?
I like stoplights. More to the point, they're a simple and tangible example of how government can make us better off: They enable complete strangers to interact more safely and efficiently. Given a choice between the freedom to speed through an intersection at any time and the coercive red light, I'll tolerate the red light.
That's kind of silly, so consider a more significant example, like counterterrorism. In a world of libertarians, who finds Osama bin Laden?
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Haven’t gone into the whole article, but what he says here is very similar to the faults of Libertarians that Ayn Rand pointed out and why Libertarians and Conservatives aren’t the same animal.
As is the entire essay, really. Since he concedes that basic police and defense functions fall within the scope of libertarian limited government (thus disposing of his stoplight and terrorism examples), what point (other than on top of his head) does he present?
The scary part - he teaches.
What an idiot. “Libertarians don’t like stoplights”? WTF?
“If somebody is carrying a gun in public, it’s my business?” WTF? I carry a knife, is that you business too? What about my cellphone? Is that your business, too, or just thinkgs I can kill you with, like my bare hands? Are they your business you academia, latte-sipping, nanny-state-loving busy-body?
Anyone who says they cannot see what damage gay marriage will do is faking it.
liberal-tarians = sideways democrats without the nerve to call themselves democrats.
If you read the whole article, you find that the author has some stereotypically liberal views, such as that global warming is a serious problem calling for international governmental action, and that the U.S. has been torturing people in Guantanamo. Barf.
It is an extreme point, but it is common for Libertarians to complain about things like traffic cameras or what they consider overly oppressive traffic laws. The difference between libertarians and Conservatives (ok, one of the differences) is that libertarians don't seem to want the 10th Amendment of the Constitution applied, where citizens on the local or State level can make laws they disagree with. It is one of the reasons I drifted from the Libertarians many years ago (that, and the extreme paranoid kookiness many have).
There's a town in the Netherlands that did away with all sighs and lights. Accidents decreased because drivers became more concerned and didn't have false security in that the signs would protect them, umba goomb like, from other motorists. Drivers began to REALLY drive defensively.
This is similar to people that think they are safe because there is a Police Department that ‘stops crime’, therefore they themselves don't have to be wary. Stop lights are for good drivers. There is not enough warning signs, bump strips, lights for bad drivers. People that can drive across the county, up and down mountains, in rain, snow don't need a special colored light to get through an intersection. Like, how well do the flashing lights, ringing bells, dropping crossbars do at train tracks with idiots? Idiots like water, will find a way.
..getting in that now and I see what you mean. The excerpt here doesn't do the story justice, he isn't leaning away from Libertarian to be Conservative, instead, he is moving the liberal direction.
Please check out the Libertarian Party website.
Libertarians who fully support the Constitution as written, minimal government, and free markets, are the antithesis of the Democommunist Party!
..here is the rub.. it seems a while back Constitutional Libertarians were buried by the conspiracy minded Bircher types who love to pick and choose from the Constitution or read into it the way snake handlers read into the Bible. The disconnect really is with the Libertarian party which is awash with "hippies of the right" (as Rand called them) versus libertarians, individuals with libertarian values, who do hold to purist Constitutional values but don't subscribe to the Libertarian party.
Same thing can be said about the Constitution Party which holds some very freaky, unconstitutional principles.
Libertarians used to be on the Right. They’ve moved to the Left in the past 20 years or so.
I’m sure I can safely state that none of us believe in absolute freedom.
You would have no trouble, though, getting most if not all agree to the proposition that “You’re free to do as you please AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T INFRINGE ON SOMEONE ELSES DOING THE SAME.”
As true and simple and straightward as that sounds, It is exactly that last capitalized phrase that we all fight over and that wars, politics and government is all about.
There is no pure theoretical political system that solves that problem - it isn’t democracy, capitalism, libertarianism, marxism, socialism, authoritarianism.
Democracy comes the closest, but it’s still a case where 49% of the people will be forcefully kept from doing what they want to do in specific cases (when a law is passed 51 to 49).
Some amount of government is needed to set broad cultural rules, but I would err on the side of “too little” than “too much”, and to let the various interest groups resolve their differences privately, but within the context of the “broad cultural rules” (e.g, no physical violence).
I truly believe that our framers were geniuses in devising the system they did. But even so, due to our human frailties, we are slowly eroding that great edifice that they built.
I hope before it’s totally delapidated we’ll have the wisdom to restore it to it’s original beauty.
But there's the rub. Who decides whether there are or aren't "negative spillover effects on the rest of society?"
Maybe he hasn't changed all that much: it's not enough to have a principle, your reasoning from the principle is important and has to be right.
I believe that's why we have the Tenth Amendment (something the Libertarians hate or ignore). The founders decided that the citizens could come together and decide this for their local community or on a State level.
Your post is retarded, but out of respect of the memory for my departed freeper friend SSheLion, I'm going to refrain from getting in FR arguments today. I'lll rip you a new one in the morning though, rest assured.
That's an easy one. In a libertarian world, the roads -- like everything else -- are privately owned, in which case road safety rules are the responsibility of the road owner. Sensible road owners would install stoplights so that their roads could compete -- safety-wise -- with competing modes of transportation.
That's another dumb argument, Matt. No libertarian I know of wants a federal ban on traffic light cameras. On the contrary, it is the Republicans who bribe the states into doing what they want with the threat of withholding federal highway funds.
As I mentioned above, I'm too sad to concentrate on arguing today, so I'm going to step away. I hope this thread is still going tomorrow.
...And the pro-federal-drug war "conservative" morons are great on that one. OK, I'm out, I mean it this time.
I'll do some digging tonight, but a while back I read a JBS article on just this thing. Once you got past all the conspiracy stuff, they argued it was an invasion of privacy and wanted them banned on Constitutional issues (the way they read it of course).
“It is an extreme point, but it is common for Libertarians to complain about things like traffic cameras or what they consider overly oppressive traffic laws. The difference between libertarians and Conservatives (ok, one of the differences) is that libertarians don’t seem to want the 10th Amendment of the Constitution applied, where citizens on the local or State level can make laws they disagree with. It is one of the reasons I drifted from the Libertarians many years ago (that, and the extreme paranoid kookiness many have).”
Weird, I would have thought they would be more inclined to support localized governments with a weaker federal government. I get called libertarian sometimes when I espouse that belief. Never felt particularly libertarian.
Undoubtedly there are *some* L/libertarians who feel that way. But in my experience, I wouldn't say your description applies to most "small-l" libertarians.
A lot of us believe State and local governments shouldn't regulate a lot of things they are involved with today. But to echo the comments of jmc813, we don't believe the Federal government is generally an appropriate tool for "fixing" State and local governments gone awry.
For example, a lot of communities now broadly prohibit smoking in public places, even if it's on privately-owned property or if it's outdoors and no one is around. Those communities have decided that smoking is something they don't like and don't want in public. I don't think this kind of regulation is appropriate for governments at any level.
But I also don't think a Federal agency needs to step in and set these anti-smoking communities straight. The anti-smoking laws need to be fought in the communities where they are voted on, not in D.C.
Maybe it just comes down to different views of the 10th Amendment. I see it as more about what the Feds *can't* do, instead of being about what the States *can* do.
Even if the 10th is read as making almost any State action Constitutional, that still does not make the State action "right," IMO. Recognizing this doesn't mean throwing out the 10th Amednment, it just means we should look to more than simply questions of Constitutionality when evaluating government actions.
Indeed
I find it hard to beleive that guy was ever really a libertarian.
Well, then they're not libertarian. Being traditionally the largest third-party, a lot of people like to claim to be libertarian just to be contrarian and trendy. But they're not libertarians. I can sit here and claim to be black till the cows come home. That doesn't make it true (though I'm sure my girlfriend wishes it were).
Will some liberal tarian please point to an important election where the liberal tarian vote went to the Republican and the Republican won? In the mean time please refrain from denigrating mentally challenged people by calling my comments “retarded.” That is a cruel and evil thing to say. Say anything you want about me. I have no fear of being “ripped a new on” by anyone who is self delusional and thinks the efforts of the Right are helped by liberals, regardless of what they want to be called, who want to legalize drugs and surrender in the WoT.
2004. If you remember, myself and the majority of the libertarian contingent here on FR voted for your boy Bush, not because Bush was any good, but because Kerry was absolutely horrendous and there was no major third-party challenger.
In the mean time please refrain from denigrating mentally challenged people by calling my comments “retarded.” That is a cruel and evil thing to say.
I'm not denigrating retarded people, I'm denigrating your stupid comments. Here's a hint, if you're sensitive to names being thrown around, think about refraining from the whole "liberaltarian" thing. You do know that Ronald Reagan called libertarianism "the heart and soul of conservatism", right?
I have no fear of being “ripped a new on” by anyone who is self delusional and thinks the efforts of the Right are helped by liberals, regardless of what they want to be called, who want to legalize drugs and surrender in the WoT.
Ummm, I don't want to "legalize drugs". I want the federal government to get out of the drug war business per the Constitution and have each state decide for themselves. Of course any state that would criminalize pot while keeping alcohol legal would be stupid, but that's besides the point. I also support what we're doing in Iraq, so I have no idea where you get the impression that I want to "surrender in the WoT".
A doctor with a little flashlight can show you, if you're curious.
The person claiming that such effects exist is required to present ironclad proof. If not, the law must assume that such effects do not exist.
Actually, that's the point. If humans can't be trusted to govern themselves, then why are you giving OTHER humans more power over them?
Seem like compounding the problem, especially considering history.
Because we've figured out how to make sure the people in power are superior specimens:
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