Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Rejected for not being magic



So many times I hear a version of this objection which was posted on Eric Peters' blog:

My conclusion on Libertarianism is that it's a wonderful theory but fails to address the depravity of man. No Libertarian politician has demonstrated (Ventura comes to mind here) that the cherished ideas transfer to governance, nor do they result in the promised personal freedoms.
"Libertarian politician"? So, a human fungus?

What the commenter gets wrong is that he apparently wants to see libertarianism imposed by politics-- and politics is "the depravity of man" put into action. He's saying he likes the idea of X, but he wants to see it implemented as anti-X, but that path always fails, so he's disappointed in X.

He seems to want to address "the depravity of man" by using depravity (the political means) against humans.

That's a bizarre position to take.

Libertarianism addresses "the depravity of man" perfectly by acknowledging that no one has the right to archate, and you have the right to defend yourself from anyone who does. There is no better way to address "the depravity of man".

You can't govern others without being depraved, just as you can't refuse to govern yourself without the same depravity. They are opposite sides of the same coin.

Unfortunately, your "personal freedoms" (I prefer liberty) will always depend to some extent on how depraved the people around you are. If they are violating you, your liberty and freedom are going to be diminished. How are YOU going to address that?

Then he goes on to say:

I love the theory but after trying hard to see it's [sic] acolytes implement any of it I come to the same conclusion: Most Libertarians are really interested in legal pot. All that esoteric stuff gets abandoned almost instantly when one gets near power.
You don't implement it; you live it.

"Most Libertarians"? Making a plant "illegal" is archation, so, yes, that issue is part of the whole. It isn't more important than any other part, but it also can't be ignored just because it doesn't personally matter to you. If "legal pot" is your main criticism then you've shown yourself to be nothing more than a Right-Statist control freak who's no better than the Left-Statist control freaks.

Yes, if your goal was to get power, you're going to show your true colors and abandon principles ("esoteric stuff") once you get power since that only served to get you the power you craved.

So, all this guy did was to expose himself for what he is: a statist. He likes "freedom" as long as it is imposed the way he wants, to the extent he wants, and leaves out the stuff he doesn't want.

I realize it is pointless to point this out to him. I'm going to try to post a link to this post in a comment anyway.

-

Writing to promote liberty is my job.
YOU get to decide if I get paid.
I hope I add something you find valuable enough to support.