This is a X-Post from The Rage topic. If you want to respond, respond here. I just wanted to migrate the conversation here:
Sorry guys, my internet connection had gone down for a while.
Essentially, my reasoning for libertarianism is that people should be allowed to do whatever fucked up or great thing they want to do, provide it doesn’t infringe on the established rights of others. Cooperation is great, problem is, as people, we haven’t reached the point where we can put our differences, personal desires, etc aside to deal with bigger issues. At some point, some dumbfuck will come around and take advantage of a fully cooperative society.
Now, a libertarian society does not condone “altruistic” tendencies. In fact, we welcome it. The basis of libertarianism is, after all, voluntary exchange. In a libertarian society, there will be charity groups, much like today, with many privately run non-profit charities. People donate without the input of government right now, so in a libertarian society, it’s not as if all people suddenly become self-absorbed assholes waiting on the next paycheck. The absence of government doesn’t mean that we don’t still feel compassion or sympathy. The point is that people have choice, without the forceful hand of the government (which relies on, lets be honest, the threat of force to achieve means) to dictate what you should or should not do.
Another reason why I’m a libertarian is because I don’t support strong government. Government’s aim is to pass laws, and uses the threat of force to enforce the law. When law surpasses the mere protection of natural rights (don’t kill, steal property, vandalize etc), then it’s either the enforcement of 1. morals or 2. laws that results in personal gain. For the first, morality is subjective, and to enforce a fundamentally subjective idea is the direct violation of someone’s own morality (If your morality is killing people, then that doesn’t apply, as your morality is in direct violation of someone’s natural right). For number 2, it’s using a undisputed position of power for personal motivations, and as we see from countless different points in history, that has ended very poorly.
And I am a fairly avid follower of economics. The problem with a lot of government intervention is, of course, the misallocation of resources. For example the lauded over Scandinavian Health care system is adored by people in the United States. But the reality is, when you phone into the hospital, it often takes months to half a year to get an x-ray, and for people that have serious diseases like cancer, that can mean the difference between life or death. And doctors are often not paid enough in these countries to make up the time spent studying medicine, especially counting the ludicrous 50% tax rates on income. Government just really hasn’t helped in the allocation of health care. And when you look at the numbers for health in the US, the stats are only bad due to cultural habits (like the culture of fast food and a blatant disregard for health in general), and actual figures for treatable and serious diseases are amongst the highest in the world. For a country of 300 million people, that’s impressive. And the US is in this strange limbo zone in medical care where it’s partially private but has many traces of government intervention. Some people call for more government intervention, but I personally think that less government intervention would result in an overall better health care system.
And, to be truthful, I’m not a huge fan of democracy. Sure, it’s great to have democratically leaders, and democratically elected representatives to bring state matters to the attention to the nation and all that jazz. But what democracies usually end up being is a dictatorship of the majority. Especially considering in the US, that split is pretty near 50 50, that means that at one point, 50% of the population is being ruled with the other 50%. And this is with the numerous checks and balances littered in the system. Democracies let the majority’s voice be heard, but the minority, no matter how large, is left in the cold to be pushed around, which I assume many would agree with me to be less than ideal. Libertarians don’t believe in a government, even with the support of the masses, to oppress a minority for thinking different.
That being said, I’m a libertarian, not an anarcho-capitalist. I believe that government, no matter that it’s an evil, is a necessary one. People who are less capable of defending one’s rights should not be at the mercy of his fellow citizens, as that just ends up descending to a government composed of the most ruthless and physically powerful.
This is why I’m a libertarian. I occasionally stray from libertarian principles (I’m an advocate of a voucher system of education rather than a full on privatization, and I do support NASA, even though private companies seem to be taking the initiative right now when it comes to space exploration), but I do value my natural rights over the veneer of security which the government provides.
