Before anyone flips out over my inflammatory headline, let me explain. I have read and been told by several people throughout the years that people dislike libertarians for one main reason: because libertarians see their philosophy as the only "right" one; that we are unable to think that other views may be just as valid. Do we think our position is the "revealed truth"? Yes, we do.
Try as I might, I can not see any view that condones aggression against innocent people as a morally acceptable one. The same goes for any political position that depends on taking money away from its rightful owners to give to others. We acknowledge that the rules must apply equally to everyone, or they are not good. There can be no "elite" class of rulers that make the rules, yet who are allowed (or expected) to flout them. The people who promote the other philosophies call these depraved acts by other names, trying to reframe the debate. Yet, if you look clearly, you can see what they are really advocating.
If they are offended by this obvious "revelation", then maybe they need to examine their beliefs more closely.
Now.... before you leave angry comments, stayed tuned for tomorrow's post which may punch holes in, or completely deflate, this whole idea.... The "but".
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Most critics of libertarianism are simply not rational. One is, in their shamanic epistemology, either totally ignorant, or part of some secret elect. The idea that ideas, themselves, are products of, and subject to, rational thought, even rational thought itself, are notions as alien to them as the beauty of Mozart is to a tree frog*...
ReplyDelete*Two points to the person who sources this reference.
Kent - You should ( yes, I hate that comment too) volunteer to host FT's Market Anarchist Carnival in April.
ReplyDeleteThe largest philosophic defense of creating a more 'equal' ( I know loaded concept there) world I've come across is Jon Rawls. He seems to be the educational fall line for most modern 'liberals', if you will. Unfortunately it can be like trying to read Heidegger in German or something equally daunting.
There is one thing and one thing only that punches a big hole in the arguments against Libertarianism(well, there are more of course, but this point would be undeniable to most except maybe totalitarian fanatics but they dont count anyway).
ReplyDeleteIt is the fact that we are fundamentalistic about one thing: Liberty. And that includes the liberty to be a communist or a nazist or whatever you might come up with AS LONG AS YOU DONT FORCE ANYONE OR HARM ANYONE. If a person wants to live under nasty totalitarian rule on their own property and practice a non-existent right of private ownership there with other like-minded people, they are free to do so, as long as they are all there VOLUNTARILY, not trying to enforce this on anyone else.
Isn´t that as genius as it is simple? And this is the only system where this is a cornerstone, whether it be some form of democracy or some form of dictatorship (slight, but genuine difference) this is never the case and with Libertarian society IT IS.
This should be a major selling point (and is, but should be emphesized more in my opinion) and is a key argument against most forms of critique against Libertarianism. No one can really argue against it as far as I am concerned.
And Kent, yes, we ARE right. Just as you Im not gonna lie about it. :)
Jakob Dlouhý