Libertarian Ideology - What's wrong with it?

[Pangloss]

... while mouthing mantras about liberals and global warming...

 

[-Demosthenes-]

The problem with that is my money is spent on it. Why should I have to pay a dime towards someone else's problem? Charity is based on contribution, free will contribution. There are certain things I do think should be forced on us to have to pay for in terms of welfare - like veterans, the disabled...etc. But welfare for a perfectly able person is ridiculous and creates an entitlement attitude and embraces poverty as a culture.

 

Then why not just give it to those who need it? If there was a group of people elected to decide who needed it in a small community they could actually meet with the families and decide on an intimate basis. There would be more personal responsibility for the recipient (they actually see the people deciding if they get welfare or not, and how long).

 

There will always be people who need help. The reality is, we need to find a system that works, let them die (or live miserable lives), or use a broken system (like the one we have now).

 

A government's job is to mandate order, civil protection from external forces, establish currency...etc - it will always be about control. Even anarchy has to be protected from control. So working that into these ideologies is fruitless.

 

Mostly.

 

So I think it's irrelevant to say that capitalism is a mixture of anarchy and socialism. So what? That doesn't change the logic behind the ideology. My only point was that no single ideology is 100% perfect because humans are not 100% logical. We're a mixture of logic, instinct, emotion, and etc... so while the ideologies may very well be consistent, we are not. Therefore no ideology is or even should be implemented 100%.

 

The main point is that ideologies overlap. This can mean a Liberatarian can agree with a liberal or conservative while remaining a liberatarian. Even more than that, no one completely agrees with one ideology (except radicals/partisan fools, people we ignore anyway). Mine doesn't fit anywhere, and it changes daily. There are things that I've said in this forum in the past that I now see as down right asinine.

 

But you're approaching this from a conditioned position. We've already been living under the government umbrella - born' date=' raised and indoctrinated - so of course we're going to think that way.

 

When a society doesn't have the government doing everything for them, they learn to cooperate with each other and embrace pursuasion. That happens in small form today with protests and so forth, but it's so much easier to make a law and force everyone to be like you rather than convince them.

 

In your example above, we would boycott and punish Corp A because we don't like who they buy from, even though they know better. By the way, this unethical trade practice already happens today and no one is doing squat about it. Why? Because no one knows about it or doesn't care or expects our government to fight that battle. They expect our government to do all of our thinking and ammoral judgement for them. So, we all walk around blissfully ignorant about the world. We will pay for that. We will pay dearly for it.

 

Look at terrorism. The government and big business knew how they were pissing off that region of the world - but john Q public didn't. Maybe that wouldn't have changed anything, but for most americans Sept 11 was a huge surprise. For a select minority it was very expected. This is what happens when you depend on your government to do everything instead of YOU taking responsibility for yourself and your countrymen. We are all animals and at the end of the day it is still survival of the fittest and we're still competing with the rest of the world. Sticking your head in the sand will cost you.

[/quote']

 

I like this idea, I like it a lot. I just don't know if it can work. I know small groups can do these things. A community with members in the thousands (instead of millions) could govern itself so much better. Large groups of people lose cohesion, they lose that personal responsibility they have when they knew everyone in the group (only possible in a small group).

 

There are too many people who don't care, who don't feel personally responsible because the group is so large they are nothing but insignificant face in a crowd of millions. "there's nothing I can do... I don't feel responsible to the group [nation]... I don't care." Small groups can bond together and do anything, but not large, not on the small scale that you are suggesting (small as in protesting a corporation vs. something large like a terrorist attack, which we can apparently react).

 

I think you need to re-read my statement on this, actually the paragraph following it. I don't know how you got this out of that. I will concede that rights are abstract after all, but they're not elusive - they're quite obvious for a civilized society to exist.

 

And I concede that good rights for our society are easily recognized by our society, but not by other societies.

 

And so we invented war, which didn't turn out too well (multiple times).

 

"Republicans caused hurricane Katrina"

 

I think it was "Bush and Republicans angered God who caused hurricane Katrina."

[ParanoiA]

The main point is that ideologies overlap. This can mean a Liberatarian can agree with a liberal or conservative while remaining a liberatarian. Even more than that, no one completely agrees with one ideology (except radicals/partisan fools, people we ignore anyway). Mine doesn't fit anywhere, and it changes daily. There are things that I've said in this forum in the past that I now see as down right asinine.

 

Sounds like we agree on this for the most part. I describe myself as a libertarian for simplicity's sake, but I can't really be defined that way since there are so many issues with it still. I guess that goes for everybody really, except the radicals you mentioned.

 

 

I like this idea' date=' I like it a lot. I just don't know if it can work. I know small groups can do these things. A community with members in the thousands (instead of millions) could govern itself so much better. Large groups of people lose cohesion, they lose that personal responsibility they have when they knew everyone in the group (only possible in a small group).

 

There are too many people who don't care, who don't feel personally responsible because the group is so large they are nothing but insignificant face in a crowd of millions. "there's nothing I can do... I don't feel responsible to the group [nation']... I don't care." Small groups can bond together and do anything, but not large, not on the small scale that you are suggesting (small as in protesting a corporation vs. something large like a terrorist attack, which we can apparently react).

 

I share your concern and recognize the impersonal nature of larger groups, but I sincerely believe this would be a dynamic value depending on the importance of the issue. If it becomes a big deal in the media and it truly angers americans then it will be dealt with, especially when we're used to organized protest and etc.

 

I don't know if this style of governing as ever really been tried or not. Most governments in history seem to thirst for control and oppression. It would be interesting to read about an applied libertarian government somewhere in the world.

[-Demosthenes-]

I share your concern and recognize the impersonal nature of larger groups' date=' but I sincerely believe this would be a dynamic value depending on the importance of the issue. If it becomes a big deal in the media and it truly angers americans then it will be dealt with, especially when we're used to organized protest and etc.

 

I don't know if this style of governing as ever really been tried or not. Most governments in history seem to thirst for control and oppression. It would be interesting to read about an applied libertarian government somewhere in the world.[/quote']

 

Sure, big groups can take care of big issues, but we should handle small issues in small groups, eh?

[ParanoiA]

Sure, big groups can take care of big issues, but we should handle small issues in small groups, eh?

 

Actually the size of support should indicate the size of the issue. If it's a small issue, then why should the entire country go out of their way to deal with it? And how is that any different than the status quo?

[-Demosthenes-]

Actually the size of support should indicate the size of the issue. If it's a small issue, then why should the entire country go out of their way to deal with it?

 

No personal responsibility toward the other members of the group that they cannot see or physically talk to. Of course, I'm sure it's possible, just doesn't seem to happen.