Why Aren't you a Libertarian?

[Curious George]

Here is a link to the Libertarian platform.

https://www.lp.org/platform/

Sorry to those who don't like to go to links but it's a bit much to post the entire platform here.

I'm just curious what specifically folks dislike about the libertarian platform that would cause people to vote against a Libertarian.

I suppose the main concern would be a lack of political power of the party but wouldn't that mean you are more concerned about political power than principle?

I am not a libertarian because I favor regulation.

Lack of regulation in work standards brings us unfair labor practice and unsafe working environments. We have seen this film before.

Lack of regulation in environmental standards brings us pollution, endangered species, and loss of common space for fishing, hunting and outdoor recreation. We have seen this film before.

Lack of regulation in the financial sector brings us monopolies, market crashes, and wealth disparity. We have seen this film before.

Lack of regulation with foods and drugs brings us poison and snake oil.

I am not a libertarian because I favor social welfare. I believe that reducing poverty, increasing education, providing basic living standards and increasing the well being of all actually benefits our society more. Doing these things is what decreases crime rates, improves technology, helps economy.

In short, I want to better our system and increase the pie. Libertarians want to dismantle our system and grab whatever bits of pie they can.

 

[sayak83]

Here is a link to the Libertarian platform.

https://www.lp.org/platform/

Sorry to those who don't like to go to links but it's a bit much to post the entire platform here.

I'm just curious what specifically folks dislike about the libertarian platform that would cause people to vote against a Libertarian.

I suppose the main concern would be a lack of political power of the party but wouldn't that mean you are more concerned about political power than principle?

Simple. For me its duty and responsibility over rights. One gets rights by being responsible and answerable to one's social and ethical obligations and performing their duties in this cooperative endevour of a civilized society. These duties of care and cooperation are what makes having rights a possibility and hence stand above individual rights in the hierarchy of values.
Basically I disagree with the idea of inalienable rights. Rights are goods that one seeks to acheive, and responsibility and dutiful action is how we acquire those goods.

 

[Curious George]

Basically I disagree with the idea of inalienable rights.

That is an extreme point of view. I wonder how this idea holds up to scrutiny?

 

[sayak83]

That is an extreme point of view. I wonder how this idea holds up to scrutiny?

Very well.
A tiger can kill and eat you. So your right to life is not inalienable.

 

[Curious George]

Very well.
A tiger can kill and eat you. So your right to life is not inalienable.

I think it is likely that you misunderstand the concept. That something wrong can happen does not mean that it is ethical. Further, I think you misunderstand Reason's role in ethics and philosophy. Our rights are not asserted against things that cannot reason. In other words, it is not wrong for the tiger to kill a person. Therefore, a person cannot assert a right to life in the situation you have proposed.

Your example demonstrates a lack of understanding on your part.

 

[sayak83]

I think it is likely that you misunderstand the concept. That something wrong can happen does not mean that it is ethical. Further, I think you misunderstand Reason's role in ethics and philosophy. Our rights are not asserted against things that cannot reason. In other words, it is not wrong for the tiger to kill a person. Therefore, a person cannot assert a right to life in the situation you have proposed.

Your example demonstrates a lack of understanding on your part.

My logic is simple. Something cannot be "in-alienable" to you if any damn thing can (and often do) deprive you of it. We prefer to have life, liberty etc.....but just like any other good, they are not inalienably existing in us. Thus the question is about acquiring and keeping secure these important but fragile goods, and how our individual and societal actions can help us meet that objective.

 

[Jumi]

I'd be what you could call a centrist libertarian, but I'm also utilitarian so that sometimes overrides either.

 

[exchemist]

Different time, different place. Americans on the whole are pretty generous. I suppose I see politicians being more generous to their donors than the poor. The poor are getting poorer. The government in Calif keeps trying to fix the homeless problem in Calif and that just keeps getting worse.

The government has failed in this respect. I don't see it coming up with a solution that works anytime soon.

The whole thrust of this political idea is to give primacy to the individual and to destroy social solidarity. The sort of selfish, Ayn Rand-ish crap beloved by people who think they are doing OK and to hell with everyone else. Total failure to acknowledge that a lot of people are dealt a poor hand in life and that both social cohesion and Christian charity demand that the rest of us, through government, take a hand in helping. This is the thinking that leads to people living in fortresses with guns, Omega Man style, to keep the unwashed rabble at bay.

I think it is an appalling idea - and a quintessentially American one.

 

[Curious George]

My logic is simple. Something cannot be "in-alienable" to you if any damn thing can (and often do) deprive you of it. We prefer to have life, liberty etc.....but just like any other good, they are not inalienably existing in us. Thus the question is about acquiring and keeping secure these important but fragile goods, and how our individual and societal actions can help us meet that objective.

A right is not a thing like a piece of bread. The right is not being taken away when someone infringes on that right. It is an ethics concept. To say someone has a natural right is not to list something they possess like property but to describe something inherent like a quality. If I say you have an inalienable right to self defense, then I am claiming that your right to defend your own life is me claiming that you have a quality, the right to defend yourself, that cannot be severed from you.

How far that right extends may be subject to disagreement but few would suggest that such a quality can be severed from you.

 

[Curious George]

The whole thrust of this political idea is to give primacy to the individual and to destroy social solidarity. The sort of selfish, Ayn Rand-ish crap beloved by people who think they are doing OK and to hell with everyone else. Total failure to acknowledge that a lot of people are dealt a poor hand in life and that both social cohesion and Christian charity demand that the rest of us, through government, take a hand in helping. This is the thinking that leads to people living in fortresses with guns, Omega Man style, to keep the unwashed rabble at bay.

I think it is an appalling idea - and a quintessentially American one.

I think i only object to your use of quintessential.

 

[exchemist]

I think i only object to your use of quintessential.

I thought about that actually. I don't think any other society on Earth could come up with anything quite like it. From my brief time in the US I formed a strong impression that part of the frontier mentality, the American Dream etc involves a belief that everything that happens to you is due to your own actions, anything is possible if you try hard enough etc. A sort of moral view of self-reliance that I have never seen anywhere else.

This thinking has its attractive qualities of course, but the downside is that those who not do well can be dismissed as "trailer trash" or something, as if they are morally defective for not succeeding in life.

 

[Curious George]

I thought about that actually. I don't think any other society on Earth could come up with anything quite like it. From my brief time in the US I formed a strong impression that part of the frontier mentality, the American Dream etc involves a belief that everything that happens to you is due to your own actions, anything is possible if you try hard enough etc. A sort of moral view of self-reliance that I have never seen anywhere else.

This thinking has its attractive qualities of course, but the downside is that those who not do well can be dismissed as "trailer trash" or something, as if they are morally defective for not succeeding in life.

Self determination is hardly the same as libertarian. Americans are one of the leading countries of volunteering for instance (though rates have declined more recently). I think that you are correct in suggesting that most Americans idealize illusions of a self-made man and notions of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps. Many, if not most, Americans also understand the reality of this. America was founded on the concept of natural rights. Such notions find roots as far back as Aristotle. The class these ideas come from can hardly be defined as Americans. If anything Americans are quintessentially believers in Liberty not the reverse. But the problem is when we get to the shifting of terms such that believers in Liberty becomes equivalent to political Libertarians.

Most Americans are not Libertarian. While the Libertarian notions do not, per se, run contrary to the notions on which our country was founded, neither do Libertarians exemplify these notions.

 

[sayak83]

A right is not a thing like a piece of bread. The right is not being taken away when someone infringes on that right. It is an ethics concept. To say someone has a natural right is not to list something they possess like property but to describe something inherent like a quality. If I say you have an inalienable right to self defense, then I am claiming that your right to defend your own life is me claiming that you have a quality, the right to defend yourself, that cannot be severed from you.

How far that right extends may be subject to disagreement but few would suggest that such a quality can be severed from you.

Liberty is certainly a quality that can be severed from me, by imprisoning me for instance. I also think that the words "inalienable right to life" says something very different from the words "life as an inherent quality".

Meaning of the word inalienable:-
inalienable | Definition of inalienable in English by Oxford Dictionaries

"Not subject to being taken away from or given away by the possessor."

Now, clearly life can be taken away from me or I can give it away (by suicide say). Thus the sentence "inalienable right to life" seems to be a patently false statement. Sounds nice, good rhetoric, but false.

 

[HonestJoe]

Why Aren't you a Libertarian?

”Do you believe in individual rights and personal freedom? Then join our group and strictly adhere to our specific rules, principles and platform!”

Here is a link to the Libertarian platform.

I largely agree with the general ideas but not all of the conclusions and details based upon it. I find anything like this can tend to take valid principles too extremes, without accepting practical balance or compromise.

I'm just curious what specifically folks dislike about the libertarian platform that would cause people to vote against a Libertarian.

That is a very different question. I’m in the UK so it’s not specifically relevant anyway but as a general concept I’d never vote for or against a candidate just because of a political label attributed to them (by themselves or others). I vote for candidates based on what they personally do and say, with being too closely bound to any political party or philosophy being something candidates do that turns me off them.

 

[Curious George]

Liberty is certainly a quality that can be severed from me, by imprisoning me for instance. I also think that the words "inalienable right to life" says something very different from the words "life as an inherent quality".

Meaning of the word inalienable:-
inalienable | Definition of inalienable in English by Oxford Dictionaries

"Not subject to being taken away from or given away by the possessor."

Now, clearly life can be taken away from me or I can give it away (by suicide say). Thus the sentence "inalienable right to life" seems to be a patently false statement. Sounds nice, good rhetoric, but false.

Certainly you can be deprived of liberty. Your right is not being deprived. You are being deprived of liberty and this is dine rightfully or wrongfully based on your right to liberty, (not you actual liberty).

 

[Curious George]

Now, clearly life can be taken away from me or I can give it away (by suicide say). Thus the sentence "inalienable right to life" seems to be a patently false statement. Sounds nice, good rhetoric, but false.

Again this is a misunderstanding on your part. That life can be taken does not mean that your right to life was severed while you were still living.

 

[exchemist]

Self determination is hardly the same as libertarian. Americans are one of the leading countries of volunteering for instance (though rates have declined more recently). I think that you are correct in suggesting that most Americans idealize illusions of a self-made man and notions of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps. Many, if not most, Americans also understand the reality of this. America was founded on the concept of natural rights. Such notions find roots as far back as Aristotle. The class these ideas come from can hardly be defined as Americans. If anything Americans are quintessentially believers in Liberty not the reverse. But the problem is when we get to the shifting of terms such that believers in Liberty becomes equivalent to political Libertarians.

Most Americans are not Libertarian. While the Libertarian notions do not, per se, run contrary to the notions on which our country was founded, neither do Libertarians exemplify these notions.

Yes you are quite right about the rights, of course, and about the charitable involvement, which impressed me when I was there. I don't mean to suggest that most Americans are Libertarian, only that the assumptions that can lead to it seem to me to stem from ideas that run through American society specifically, as I have never encountered them elsewhere.

In Asia, societies tend to have a strong sense of social duty and to rather diminish the standing of the individual, by "western" standards at least. Not fertile ground for Libertarian thinking.

In Europe, and to some extent in S. America, one is always conscious of the history of class distinctions and aware that societies can easily end up being rigged - by accident or design - in ways that lead to unfair outcomes. In fact the political disease we tend to suffer from In Europe is the opposite of Libertarianism: that government exists to solve everybody's problem for them, using someone else's money!

But America was in part founded on the idea of getting away from all that class stuff (unless you were a black slave), and that everyone - apart from the slaves - had an equal chance. (My guess, by the way, would be that there will be relatively few black Libertarians, though I'd be interested to see the stats.) Hence it is easier to blame lack of success on the individual.

But, as I suspect you and I would agree, even with an equal chance, there will be the weak and the strong, and as society gets more developed and organised the strong will tend to engineer better outcomes at the expense of the weak. So the equal chance idea can't be maintained just by laissez faire. It needs constant regulation, which is an important role of government, as you observed earlier.

 

[Altfish]

Yeah, right. I'm pretty sure it's not common for Europeans to envy Americans for anything. If you feel that way, move to America and enjoy the bullets randomly whizzing about.

I think #Estro Felino lives in his own Bubble.
In my circle of friends and colleagues we just think, "How stupid are the Yanks having all those guns and weekly mass shooting, Keep them away from us"

 

[sayak83]

Certainly you can be deprived of liberty. Your right is not being deprived. You are being deprived of liberty and this is dine rightfully or wrongfully based on your right to liberty, (not you actual liberty).

None of this language makes any kind of sense to me. Rights seem to me as little else than a very strong desire to have some sort of good that have social sanction. Thus it is purely a social construct, like wealth or status etc.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Libertarians in this thread: do you agree that the libertarian position (on property rights and other issues) would not only allow the creation of company towns, but would be opposed to limiting the freedom of the company/landowner to administer them as they see fit?

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term: I'm talking about a place where a company buys up all the land (typically next to the company's mine or other remote resource), builds housing that it rents to its workers, operates shops where the workers and their families can buy goods and services, and either owns or donates the land for local schools and other institutions.

Typically, workers are evicted if they lose their jobs, and the stores in town run an effective monopoly because of the distance to any competition. Often, workers are required by their employment contract to live in the company town.

The town has no elected town council; since the company owns the whole town, it administers the town as it sees fit, taking or leaving resident input as it chooses.

For some examples of real-world company towns: Company town - Wikipedia

By my reading of the platforms of various libertarian organizations, it seems to me that the standard libertarian position would be "yes, the company should be free to do this, and any residents who don't like this arrangement should just find somewhere else to live and work." Do you folks agree?

Bonus question: if you lived in a company town like this, would you feel free?