Monday, March 23, 2015

Libertarian girlfriends

I thought this was cute, and true: 7 Reasons Libertarian Women Make Amazing Girlfriends*

Or, I imagine it would be true- not having any personal experience to see for myself.

Anyway, I shared the link after reading it.

It was fluff. I wasn't prepared for a negative response.

A woman commented with "Hopefully, nobody believes in this. Expecting any person as an individual to apply world at large political principles to personal relationships is naive and almost leans in the direction of collectivism."

Wait... what

She believes you can treat "society" in a civilized manner, but treat the person you love like crap? And, behaving in a non-libertarian way is treating someone like crap. It is violating their person or property. Or both.

Being civil isn't something you can switch on and off. Not consistently. If you think you can consistently treat outsiders with civility, but then have control over the people you have personal relationships with, you are fooling yourself. You might be able to pull it off to some degree, but you'll forget which mode you are in sometimes.

Anyway, I responded with "The ZAP applies at all levels. If it doesn't apply in your personal relationships, you are not libertarian. Because ALL relationships are personal."

She immediately corrected me, saying "I think that you meant NAP, which can still be intact without adherence to some of the items on this list.".

As I say, and have said for years, the ZAP is essential, but not sufficient. I doubt she would have understood the difference.
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*And, of course, I think every one of those points in that "article" apply equally as well to libertarian boyfriends. Isn't that the kind of significant other you'd want, whichever gender you prefer?

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