Is libertarianism about liberty or tyranny?

Well it's probably important to point out that libertarianism in general, whether of the north america's right wing variety or the rest of the world's usage of it in its left wing variety, is kinda limited. In fact fascist-like political parties get more attention than "libertarian" ones around the world. Civil libertarianism in general is what is unpopular, probably because it wants to take power out of the state's hands. The most recent poll in america found that most americans (like 80%) do think "drugs" should remain illegal. Why real freedom is unpopular I'm not completely sure, but the fact is no politicians are more likely to be pro-choice.

Libertarian socialism (traditional anarchism) and north american libertarianism do have important tenants in common. Both should be against any laws that restrict private morality and personal freedom.....eg drug laws, sex laws, weapon laws, and the like. Privacy and and personal autonomy are very important in either systems.

They do of course differ in how they view economics. For instance anarcho-capitalists or minarchists see the state as an unnecessary evil that should be abolished or reduced. But they seem to ignore the other coercive hierarchies in society like big business, patriarchy, religious authority, and the like. If you ask many libertarians they will say that yeah they are against big business privileges but it seems like they don't care as much about it....they focus their main attacks on the state. And some who call themselves libertarians do believe in corporations.....which is fucktarded and not real libertarianism imo.

But even the libertarians that are as against big business as much as they are against the state still seem to ignore the importance of lessening inequality as much as possible. Freedom cannot be preserved if there is no equality, because obviously those with economic power will use their wealth it to consolidate powers. Same principles as feudalism.

Still, I think the majority of north american libertarian thought is sound, at least as far as civil liberties are concerned. But when you get to the capitalist economics of many american libertarians; their logic and consistency seems to break down somewhat.

 

So what is it does the removal of welfare get people working or not and if it does why replace it with an equal amount of charity?

And if welfare doesn’t have anything to do with people getting out of poverty what are the libertarian policies that would?[/QUOTE]

The meat and Potatoes of libertarian philosophy is that the state always use's force to do whatever it sees fit and this is Illegal and Immoral. Libertarians believe that just by being born in a state does not mean that the state has the right to use force to prevent you from doing things with your property and being that do not violate anyone else's right's.

Force can be violence, theft, or incarceration or any act of aggression. Keep in mind that the united states government makes the use of force to obtain what it wants into an art form.

Anyone that puts time and effort into the creation of his personal wealth deserves to own his wealth as long as he does not use force on another to gain said wealth.

People are under some kind of delusion that libertarians support corporations when in fact corporations are just an extension of the state. There is no such thing as a free market in the united state and there fore the world. But any person that owns a business earns the right to enjoy the fruits of his labors. The state telling someone they cannot enjoy the fruits of there labors is a crime and the only means they have to enforce the denial of rights is aggression.

Growing up in state housing myself("projects") I learned very quickly how the system worked and how it is a sink hole that is near imposable to get out of. A simple thing as percentage based income rents, holds people in public housing and on welfare. How is an un-educated individual supposed too, by some miracle, get a well paying job and save the money to move into an apartment when he/she has to pay a % based rent. Poor people get poorly paying jobs and taxes take are larger percent of there wealth then the upper class to rich(sales,property,income ect.).

Taxes are theft. Most libertarians are happy to pay some taxes. They would just like the option to not pay them(for services they don't use) and maybe not live check to check. Taxes only hurt the poor. The same taxes that are stolen from one poor man are given to another poor man(true un-employment rate in america for the poor is 31% mind you).

Welfare in itself has become a need for the people simply because of the economic policy that have put in place in the United States. Because of boom and bust(also known as the bubble theory) economics that have been practiced since the institution of the keynesianism banking/policy's, the poor are more likely to gain and lose a job very quickly(these leads to wealth transfer from the poor to the rich). The average american now switchs jobs more then 11 times in there life and 100 years ago it was 3-4 times. When you are dealing with an un stable economy and rampant government spending the poor live in a constant state or turmoil and are much more likely to "stop fishing and start asking for fish".

The state is the start of the problem welfare and the poor are a symptom.

Take all the fat people in the United States. Everyone in america is responsible for the things they eat correct? BUT lets look at the corn subsidies(the state provides these). There are so many corn subsidies in America that the corn industry can sell corn syrup cheaper then it costs to make. Because of this other corporations are putting it into EVERYTHING because it is a preservative and it tastes good. Now that it is in at least half the common house hold foods and drinks, it is the number one source of calories for Americans. This is a huge reason why we have so many fat people.

Now lets go a step further. Fat people get sick more, its a fact(1 in 3 of my generation will contract diabetes in there life). Getting sick is expensive in America. One of the biggest reasons is because of laws that prevent American company's(hospitals, pharmacy's, distributors) from buying drugs from foreign company's(united state consumes more drugs then any other country in the world). So now with this in place, private insurance prices are driven up by a enormous percent(drugs cost at least 300% of what they should) making it un-attainable for the average person to buy(i pay 383$ a month). Now that the average person(poor to middle class) cannot afford this health care they need to rely on the state who had a massive hand in creating the problem in the first place.

Lets move on to the military. You cannot use any form of aggression on a foreign nation without being aggressed on. You cannot have base's, men, tanks, bombs, planes anything that would be an act of aggression against a foreign nation because this is a violation of a person's rights. It Violets my rights because of the taxation and it violets the foreigners rights because they are being aggressed upon.

War. War to any libertarian in itself is the worst possible evil there can be. It expands the state, it forces increased taxation, It increase's nationalism, it kills needlessly ect. ect. ect. War is the states permission to murder the innocient. Does the farmer agree to go to war? Does the factory worker? Do YOU agree to go to war. Of course not but you will suffer and you may die because of a war started by your state.

Winston Churchill spoke extensively about world war one being dragged out and intensified because of America getting involved. This caused millions more to die.

Lets look at world war two. Why did Hitler rise to power. Why was he democratically elected in Germany. The United states, UK and various other country's put economic sanctions on Germany causing the currency to go into hyperinflation and bankrupting the German people. This opened the road for a hate-monger to gain power and give a reason why they are broke(Jews) and what do to about it(kill the Jews and take there wealth).

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
~Adolph Hitler

These are a few general examples of libertarian beliefs. I can get much more in depth on the wide range of libertarianism, because libertarianism is much more complex then any of the other political philosophy's.

I hope this has been some what helpful, and please respond with any questions or if you need any material to go along with what i have written.

 

As a libertarian I would say you need to think about what you are supporting.

Republicans and Democrats = Unconstitutional Wars, Overspending (to oblivion), Drug war, unconstitutional laws, civil codes that help government and the manufacturing industry,monopolization of pretty much everything, jailhouse labor(not to support the cost of jailing, but to enrich corporations), Genetically Modified Foods with no labeling, cloning animals and dumping them in the food supplies with no labeling, gun control, and many other problems.

 

Mrblump



Sorry but you post seem to be a rambling series of slogans rather than answer the criticisms levelled at libertarian thinking, it just reiterated many of the tenets of the dogma not their implications.

The thing is that a lot of the things you highlight would be exacerbated by libertarian ideas rather than been improved.

The main problem as stated many times is that the ideas and policies often pursued by libertarians would seem to work against what they claim to seek. The likeliest outcome of libertarian ideas is a government captured by wealth and run in its interests to the detriment of all others.


Here a few more things that you might wish to look at -

Free market = plutocratic tyranny.
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=353336&f=36

How is libertarianism a right wing idea?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=383316&f=36

Rightwing libertarians and drugs
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=368871&f=36

 

Balb, you take too much time to respond to the people who join to make one and only one post in the politics forums.

 

When government regulation of business wipes out small individually owned business I become a libertarian. I fail to see how regulations helps any individual.

When the individual's rights are stepped on in the name of control the markets flat line and the only ones who make a profit are the too big to fails.

 

Do you not think that the drug market is an unregulated for profit market right now? At least if drugs were legal the money spent on them would go to the free market instead of the black market.

 

Market is market, money is still being spent, that money winds up somewhere eventually. What changes the situation is taxation on the legal market vs the black market, which is a form of government control.

 

Mad

Because that is the polite thing to do and it doesn’t take that much time.

 

Yomama

But this is my problem with the right wing libertarianism that is so dominant and pervasive in the US, it shouts loudly about being on the side of the ‘little’ person but always seems to have policies that would make the ‘big’ people stronger and more powerful.

Free market = plutocratic tyranny
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=353336&f=36

It seems to me it does this by filling people so full of so many slogans that they can’t think straight, I mean are you honestly saying you cannot think of any regulations that help people?

 

I could agree with that. But please tell me how government regulation is wiping out small businesses and how the Libertarians would prevent it.

Open a checking account and get a credit card and you'll eventually figure it out. In the meantime think about the consequences of lifting all regulations in the food industry, including restaurants.

What rights have I lost, and how do individual rights affect the markets?

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i'm a civil libertarian. i work for the ACLU (american civil liberties union)

i'm NOT an economic "libertarian".
economic "libertarianism" is a wolf in sheeps clothing.
it is plutocratic fascism.

the so called "libertarian party" is full of contrdictions!
how in the hell do you bring about an open society based on civil liberty for all, while at the same time you bring about an "open" society based on "economic liberty?"
YOU DON'T!
is it really that hard to understand?

i have always notice, that the american libertarian party, has the exact same problem as the marxist communists.
both ideologies bring about tyranny.
during the first international in the 19th. century; the anarchists drop out of the first international, due to the communists living in denial of where their idology would lead.
in the late 1980's the anarchists drop out of the american libertarian party due to the parties stance on "ecomonic liberty."
they saw that "ecomonic libertarnism" is a "new and improved" version of the 19th. century might makes right dog eats dog social darwinism.

i was there when the so called "mini-archist" wing of the american libertarian party forced us anarchists out of the party.
the american libertarian party is now, "libertarian" in name only.
it is in reality a fascist party now.:sad:

 

Very interesting post. I think I agree with you.

 

The Libertarians seem to have their own para-military faction ready for civil war.

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/.

They are only 3% of the population, yet they want to control national policy.

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anyone who tells others how they should live is tyrannical .....

 

yeah, right. so we all live down river from you, and you shit in everyone's drinking water down river. we all get sick from your shit being in our water.
we ask you to please not shit in the drinking water.
you start screaming that we are infringing on "your property rights" (my house/property. it's my way, or the highway!)
fuck all of us, we can all go eat (drink) your shit and die... for all you care!

now a group of us come and force you to stop shitting in the drinking water. we no longer want to be sick because, we are forced to drink shitty drinking water.

and their my friends is the great juggling act of all of human history!
how to blance the rights of the individual on the one hand and, how to blance the rights of others on the other hand?

 

How about your rights end where mine begins and where the "common good" begins.

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blackcat


Thing is to me ‘civil libertarian’ sounds a lot like being an anarchist.

I agree with your analysis of what ‘libertarianism’ has come to be seen as meaning in the US (and in many places outside of it) so I think it might be wise for people to disassociate themselves completely from the word to avoid all confusion.

 

i didn't say we should live in an anarchist state... or that tyranny didn't already exist to some extent in most societies

some tyranny is necessary.. half a town shouldn't get sick with cholera just because i decide to empty my arse in a river... so we trust a few (elected) individuals to make a law and employ some people to stop me doing it

i'm comfortable with that, it means that i don't have to worry about you taking a dump in the river and me gettin' sick either

you can look up a more pleasant sounding word in the thesaurus if you like, but if you are trying to tell anyone else how to live, or face consequences (trial and punishment if your lucky enough), it's tyranny ... no matter what lifestyle you are trying to impose on them

i think a world of peace love and harmony would be fun ... but i have no right to tell/ask/expect another individual to want the same... most people don't want it, or we'd already have it... most people want different lives, that's why human's spend all their time tipping the scales one way or another... nobody can agree where teh balancing point is

 

I think this is how most people understand tyranny:

To suggest that laws protecting members of a society from the acts of others is tyranny is stretching the meaning of the word beyond credibility.

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