The barrel of a gun

The United States has a massive nuclear arsenal and the best-equipped, best-trained military the world has ever seen. It is an awesome, fearsome machine that can rain down inexorable death from the heavens.

But that's not why I drive on the right side of the road.

I drive on the right side of the road for a whole host of reasons -- practical, prudential, even moral I suppose. (Prudential and moral often overlap where safety is concerned. Plus Not Being an Asshole is a kind of moral reason.) All of those reasons precede the merely legal reasons for doing so. I'm certainly aware of those legal reasons as well. And in some vague sense I suppose I'm aware that there could be legal consequences for driving on the wrong side of the road and that those legal consequences, if it came to it and if I somehow survived to face them, would ultimately be enforced by armed agents of the government.

But it has never occurred to me that the possibility of violent coercion on the part of the state was among the most important, relevant or meaningful reasons for driving on the right side of the road. Nor has it ever occurred to me that such basic traffic laws are an undue restriction on my personal liberty -- or even worse, a kind of "taking." (If I can only drive on half the road, then my car is only worth half as much -- it's theft I tell you, theft of my car's full potential value!)

This is something I just don't understand about my libertarian friends here in cyberspace. For them, the menacing threat of armed government tyranny seems to be the only reason they can conceive of for complying with any law, rule, regulation or -- heaven forfend! -- tax.

And that's just, well, odd.

The good news is that I'm fairly sure they don't really mean it. The trajectory of their slogans forces them to argue some odd things, but most of them don't really seem to live that way. "Taxation is theft," they'll shout, and thus they wind up arguing that the only reason they pay their taxes is because the jackbooted thugs from the IRS have pried it from their hands at gunpoint. But that's not really the case any more than it's true that the only reason they send their kids to school is because the jackbooted truant officers have forced them to do that at gunpoint. Or that the only reason they do not embezzle, default on loans, defraud their neighbors or prey on the weak is fear of legal reprisal. If the state and the police and every coercive mechanism for law enforcement were to evaporate overnight, they would not take to the streets in a lawless rampage of rioting and pillaging.

Not most of them, at least.

They're not really the Nietzschean little sociopaths their arguments are always trapping them into claiming to be. If they met such a person, in fact, they'd probably do just what you or I would do -- call the police.

Participating in civilization -- particularly in a democratic civilization, a civil society -- requires accepting certain rules, regulations, mores, laws, and, yes, taxes in your own best interest and the best interests of others, i.e., for the common good. It also requires that we constantly and vigilantly question every rule, regulation, more, law or tax to evaluate whether it is necessary, fair, wise, efficient, effective, useful, proportionate, etc. But once we accept that as our task -- evaluating each on its merits and demerits in accord with the common good rather than dismissing them all, categorically, as by definition illegitimate -- then we become liberals and not libertarians.

And one of the nice things about being a liberal is that you never need to pretend that you're actually a barbaric hoodlum who only behaves civilly due to fear of punishment from the 101st Airborne.

Comments

[Jesurgislac]

Ooh, now this is good flame-bait!

*makes popcorn*

[Mikael Vejdemo Johansson]

As I have mentioned here earlier, similar arguments are what makes Christian or more or less closely related missionaries sound so extremely weird to me when I meet and talk with them - the idea that a Wrathful God watching Your Every Move is what keeps people moral and civilized is at least as bizarre as the far-libertarian idea that Monopoly of Violence is what keeps a code of law upright.

That said, I espouse a (for Swedish conditions) far-libertarian standpoint, not because I feel that monopoly of violence is the only thing keeping everyone decent, but because I feel that top-down organization very often is inferior to bottom-up, and that the things that can be organized on a low level to a larger extent should than is currently the case in, for instance, Sweden.

I also happily admit that I'm an idealist, who grudgingly admits that Realpolitisch the grand ideals may very well lie on the far side of a road much too rocky to travel comfortably.

[Praline]

If you do it anywhere you're likely to get caught, driving on the wrong side of the road is likely to have immediate, practical consequences that will do for you faster and worse than the police could. At least in most countries, the police aren't allowed to push a steering wheel through your head.

I suspect this basic principle applies when it comes to a lot of laws. I don't have much legal expertise, but I have the sense that laws are supposed to be formulations of the common will. If the common will includes the sentiment 'I don't want to be impaled on my gearstick', you need a law that reduces the chances of that happening. I suppose some people might argue that fear of the gearstick alone should be reason enough, but not all consquences are as immediately apparent.

If you drive on the wrong side, you can see the reasons against it hurtling towards you at fifty miles an hour. If you refuse to pay taxes, the consequences are a lot less obvious, at least at first. Hence the gearstick deterrent is less effective.

It reminds me of a joke I heard. Because it was a nuisance for the company to have people entering the building through the parking-lot door rather than checking in at reception, the manager put up a sign on the parking lot door reading 'Please use the front door only.'

Nobody paid any attention; they just kept coming in through the back door. So the manager put up a sign reading 'Employees are requested by company policy not to use this door; it causes security problems.'

Nobody paid any attention. In despair, the manager turned to the office boy for advice, and promised him promotion if he could fix it.

Next day, everybody entered through the front door. Bewildered, the manager went down to the parking lot door, and saw a new sign up on it. It read 'Wet Paint'.

In the absence of a sign reading 'Wet Paint', laws seem like a reasonable substitute to me.

[Elmo]

If I understand my friend the perpetual Libertarian candidate for this or that office correctly, there is no problem with taxes that pay for things that have a tangible return. Gas taxes pay for roads. Tolls pay for roads. Police are there to enforce (too many) laws. But the further it gets from home, the less he approves of it. Eventually it turns into "the government" taking his money to give to people too stupid or lazy to take care of themselves. And then he turns purple as apoplexy sets in.

Libertarians in general seem to have a problem with the notion of "common". They don't think it's wrong to graze too many of their sheep on the commons, they think it's wrong that there is a commons. Someone should own it and charge people fees to use it. The air and water -- if I pollute them and it hurts you then you should sue me. Everything is a transaction.

[Cyllan]

The air and water -- if I pollute them and it hurts you then you should sue me.

And this is where I lose faith with the libertarian ideal. When I was discussing libertarianism with someone who was highly active in the Libertarian party, he kept making statements like "Well, if you don't like it, sue!" although phrased better.

First, I don't think that lawsuits are really the best way to resolve anything. Secondly, the legal system is already slanted towards justice for cash; I can't imagine what would happen under a libertarian ideal. And thirdly, legal systems are a fundamental part of a strong governing system.

[Praline]

If you want to argue that altruism is a myth (which I personally don't), that doesn't necessarily mean you have to throw out the notion of 'common good'. I like the common good. I feel it benefits me to live in a country where medicine is free, poor people don't all starve in the streets, you aren't allowed to kill somebody just because you don't like the colour of their skin or the people they sleep with, and everybody gets a vote. I enjoy that selfishly, because it gives me a big pay-off: I live in a civilised country.

The fact that many people don't like to witness suffering gives us a non-altruistic reason for supporting the common good. If laws weren't there to stop the strong hurting the weak, then there would be a lot more suffering, and most of us, I think, just don't want to live in that kind of world.

[Tonio]

I sometimes think of myself as a "libertarian sympathizer" because of my concerns about government power. But I disagree with libertarians on two key points. First, they generally favor shifting power from the federal government to the states. Second, their concerns about government power often involve the impact of that power on businesses. I see the issue as the individual versus all government power and corporate power. Fred's penultimate paragraph sums up my position.

you never need to pretend that you're actually a barbaric hoodlum who only behaves civilly due to fear of punishment from the 101st Airborne.

In that respect, hardcore libertarians sound like Real True Christians. Perhaps both groups would place the same in Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

[Chuck]

Cyllan: And thirdly, legal systems are a fundamental part of a strong governing system.

And fourthly, have you ever actually tried suing someone? Lawyers are really, really expensive, and even representing yourself in small claims court is a huge investment of time, effort and money.

I occasionally wonder how many internet Libertarians are just lawyers who would like more work/money.

[Paul Bagosy]

And here I am, listening to Depeche Mode.

"And one of the nice things about being a liberal is that you never need to pretend that you're actually a barbaric hoodlum who only behaves civilly due to fear of punishment from the 101st Airborne."

Nail on the head, there. As opposed to the libertarian red-mead sentiment of Reagan that government is the problem, I'm a firm believer that civil (and even less-than-civil) society constructs for itself some or governance for a good reason, and it's best to not try to dismantle or destruct that governance, because what you'll have left looks something like Mad Max. I don't need the threat of my house being raided to pay taxes and drive on the right side of the road. I do it because I'm not the only person out there.

Our government isn't perfect, but breaking it down and throwing it out isn't the solution. Capitalism has its issues and is probably responsible for as many innocent deaths as it alleges its primary competition (Communism) is to blame for, but do we dump it in the trash for that? No. The answer isn't to rid ourselves of these societal and market constructs, but to work to *better them* for the common good.

-pb

[Izzy]

Praline: Exactly. I'm a callous and cynical bitch most of the time, but even I see that there's a distinct personal advantage in having an educated, well-fed, healthy populace. There's less crime, there's a healthier economy in the long term--and hey, I could get fired, sick, or hit by a truck, and I'd want something to fall back on while I got back on my feet.

Libertarians often seem to think they're immune to simple bad luck. It's kind of impressive.

[Alexis]

There was an article in our local paper yesterday about a survey done to find out why people pay their taxes. Turns out, according to the survey, something like 85% of Americans think that paying their fair share of taxes is a civic duty and/or moral responsibility. The threat of an IRS audit is not the primary reason they pay up, though it evidently plays a role. And this is a more interesting example in that not paying your taxes doesn't necessarily have immediate practical consequences like driving on the wrong side of the road does.

[Nina]

My introduction to libertarianism was a shocking moment when I realized that my grandfather and I actually agreed on something politically (don't get me wrong, I love my grandfather, he is a wonderful man, a good father and a good grandfather, funny, smart, and a real character...we just don't usually agree about politics). It was the subject of gay marriage: I support it, and was surprised to find that my grandfather does too - but he supports it for libertarian reasons. Basically, his reasoning was that it's none of the government's business who you sleep with or marry and they shouldn't be at all involved with our personal lives. This is a big part of why I struggle with libertarianism - on the one hand, I often agree with their social issues (that is, the government should get out of everyone's private business), but they melt that over into the economic sphere and say crazy things like "let's get rid of the department of education." Yikes.

[Jon]

I've come to believe that I'm seeing Libertarianism in action every morning on my commute to work just before and after the toll plaza. As we approach the toll plaza, three lanes split into seven or eight lanes, and then, on the other side, the seven or eight lanes converge into two.
Because there is no consideration of the common good, this invariably results in a free-for-all in which motorists cut across multiple lanes, heedless of the others on the road, to make sure they're the first ones who get to the toll booth that has the least amount of traffic going through. Then there is the inevitable snarl of traffic on the other side as they all rush to get in front of each other on the newly-downsized road.
This total lack of consideration for the hated common good has a negative impact on the good of the individual; the individual's selfish attempts to squeeze past everyone else ensures that traffic doesn't move smoothly for anyone, including the individual.

[Froborr]

The simplest way to have fun with a libertarian is to just say "Tragedy of the Commons" and then watch them twitch. "Veil of Ignorance" is another good one.

[Lee Ratner]

I agree with the comment that libertarians reduce everything to a transaction. After reading many statements made by libertarians, I came to the conclusion that libertarians seek to reduce everything to commerce. They seem to think that if something can be done as a money making operation, it should be done as a money making operation even if it was traditionally not done as such. The Libertarian approach to education and transportation issues are a good example of this.

[Tonio]

This is a big part of why I struggle with libertarianism - on the one hand, I often agree with their social issues (that is, the government should get out of everyone's private business), but they melt that over into the economic sphere and say crazy things like "let's get rid of the department of education."

That is my struggle as well. On other boards I've encountered several atheists who are hardcore conservatives and libertarians. Their economic views would make the late William F. Buckley sound like a socialist.

[MikhailBorg]

the individual's selfish attempts to squeeze past everyone else ensures that traffic doesn't move smoothly for anyone, including the individual.

Spot on, Jon. I commute every day over a bridge/tunnel, and in their frantic efforts to cut into the 'faster' lane, they slow down everyone behind them... which causes more sudden lane changes for the 'fast' lane... which often leads eventually to all of us slowing to a complete stop on a 55 MPH road. Thank goodness for podcasts to keep me occupied.

[Praline]

This is a big part of why I struggle with libertarianism - on the one hand, I often agree with their social issues (that is, the government should get out of everyone's private business), but they melt that over into the economic sphere and say crazy things like "let's get rid of the department of education." Yikes.

The idea that the government should stay out of people's personal lives isn't exclusive to libertarians, though. I'd describe myself as a liberal, and 'It's nobody's business who you love' is very high up on my list of reasons for supporting gay marriage. It tends to be the the centrist right-wingers who think that government is entitled to influence people's love lives, religious beliefs and other personal choices; most liberals are for minding your own business - as long as it really isn't your business.

It's not my business who marries who, but it is my business who pollutes what; simple distinction.

[Froborr]

I'm not clear, Tonio and Nina, why the struggle. Libertarians start from some really bizarre premises, and some of the conclusions they reach are similar to common liberal conclusions. Others are not. So, we can work with them on social causes and against them on economic causes. Where's the problem?

[Chuck]

Froborr: Spoken like someone who actually knows something about economics. As opposed to most Internet Libertarians.

[josh]

I consider myself to have libertarian leanings, although I admit that there are nuts in the libertarian movement. Anyway, I have a couple quibbles with your analysis.

This is something I just don't understand about my libertarian friends here in cyberspace. For them, the menacing threat of armed government tyranny seems to be the only reason they can conceive of for complying with any law, rule, regulation or -- heaven forfend! -- tax.

I guarantee you that if the IRS announced that it wouldn't prosecute non tax payers, government revenues would drop, probably substantially. Many people would still pay taxes, although I suspect that many of those people would pay less than they had previously. Also, forgive me if I'm attacking a straw man here, but don't liberals believe that government needs to regulate the business world because of the rapacious greed of businessmen? Why would that greed dissipate without governmental enforcement of its laws?

Participating in civilization -- particularly in a democratic civilization, a civil society -- requires accepting certain rules, regulations, mores, laws, and, yes, taxes in your own best interest and the best interests of others, i.e., for the common good.

I agree, that's why government exists in the first place, and I think most libertarians would admit this.

It also requires that we constantly and vigilantly question every rule, regulation, more, law or tax to evaluate whether it is necessary, fair, wise, efficient, effective, useful, proportionate, etc.

I agree, and most libertarians have come to the conclusion that many governmental regulations do more harm than good, and so think that, as a general rule, the system of government is inefficient with respect to the type of overarching programs liberals want to put into place (universal health care mandates, for example).

But once we accept that as our task -- evaluating each on its merits and demerits in accord with the common good rather than dismissing them all, categorically, as by definition illegitimate -- then we become liberals and not libertarians.

It's once you recognize government as being generally inefficient, and less responsive to the needs of its constituents the further it is removed from them*, that you start to think that governmental interference should be the last resort, not the first, and by that point you have become a libertarian.

*So, a county government can be more responsive to the needs of its constituents than the federal government. This is why libertarians are often federalists. Before you ask "why not entrust our national defense to local governments", I recognize that there are aspects of government's responsibility that cannot be completed without the vast resources of the entire nation. However, I think that anything that can be handled by the local and state governments should be handled by those entities.

[yuubi]

That's a good presentation of what seems to be the usual exaggeration of libertarianism in a couple of the blogs I lurk at. I don't see many people claim to hold that position, but I do see it ascribed to a lot of people who either aren't present to defend themselves or aren't articulate enough.

I'll start with your example. Many of the rules of the road make sense even in the absence of threat of force: drive on the same side of the road as everyone else, stop at stop signs, that sort of thing. To do otherwise would risk other people's lives and property, so running most stop signs or passing on a curve when I can't see is wrong, in addition to illegal. I'd stop at most stop signs most of the time even if it weren't the law[1].

However, I follow the speed limit most of the time[2] only because of the threat of force: if I ignore the speed limit, then ignore the blue lights in my rear view mirror, eventually someone will use force. Sometimes I drive slower than the posted speed limit because it's prudent to do so.

> tax

Laws against theft and murder and the like sort of delegate to the government some of the natural right of self-defense: if someone tries to attack you, it's not wrong for you to fight back; these laws sort of authorize specialists to do what you naturally have the right (but not necessarily the ability or inclination) to do for yourself.

People don't naturally have the right to take property from others, even if they were planning to use that property in a way that would benefit someone else.

> They're not really the Nietzschean little sociopaths their arguments are always trapping them into claiming to be.

Quotes or it didn't happen. Since libertarians "always" claim to be sociopaths, that ought to be easy. Perhaps you're confusing "government ought not to prohibit X" with "X is good".

[1] If I could see a mile of empty pavement both ways on the right-of-way road, I wouldn't stop there if stop signs didn't have force backing them up. Such intersections are uncommon.

[2] Interstate, daytime, traffic such that I can leave plenty of space around my car.

[Praline]

I see that there's a distinct personal advantage in having an educated, well-fed, healthy populace. There's less crime, there's a healthier economy in the long term--and hey, I could get fired, sick, or hit by a truck, and I'd want something to fall back on while I got back on my feet.

This is true; it improves your personal safety. But I think it improves your happiness level not to be surrounded by suffering on all sides as well. Other people's emotions influence us, and happy compatriots are a desirable thing.

This article may be familiar - http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/04/angrynegative_p.html - but it argues that being in the presence of unhappy people is likely to make you more unhappy, because we tend to mirror the moods of those around us. It seems likely to me that if we live in a society where many people are unhappy, and also angry because the main form of self-protection is to be more aggressive than those who would seek to hurt you, it must be very hard to maintain a cheerful state of mind. And, y'know, I like to maintain a cheerful state of mind.

Plus, it just hurts my heart to see people suffering. If my society is going to limit my exposure to that, the most thorough and effective limitation is to limit the amount of human suffering. Otherwise, I'm going to have to remain in a state of permanent denial, like Fred's curling fans who want to believe curling is more popular than baseball.

So, selfishly, I'd like everyone to be as happy as possible. It makes it easier for me to be happy. And I like to be happy. You all have a great day; I'd take it as a personal favour. :-)

[Anna]

I don't think I've ever met a hardcore Internet Libertarian of the sort that people are describing here. Perhaps I don't run in the proper message boards.

The libertarians I've met in real life were never as strident as the ones you're describing seem to be. Most were attracted to the movement based on a combination of somewhat-liberal social values and somewhat-conservative economic values. Since there isn't a major party that combines those two, they became libertarians. None of them took a complete dismantling of the government seriously as a proposition they might support.

[patb]

Well said. I've often had discussions with libertarians where I've said, "Look, we live in a society."

Now, if Christians could start to understand that atheists can act morally without the threat of a deity imposing eternal hellfire... I guess that's too much to ask.

[Fraser]

I think the appeal of "let them sue" for some libertarians--particularly those for whom libertarianism equates to being a big-business apologist (which I don't think is all libertarians)--is that a)as noted, it's much easier for corporations to afford big lawsuits than for aggrieved individuals to do so; b)a defeat for a corporation in court may establish a precedent, but that doesn't matter until it gets sued again, which means other corporations have better odds getting away with the same thing than if there were a law banning it. And, of course, my local libertarian paper can be guaranteed to whine with all the fervor usually attributed to bleeding heart liberals that the penalty is unreasonable and lots of good people will now be out of work and it's just hand-wringing awful.

My biggest problems with libertarians are that some of them (again, not all) openly dislike democracy--one columnist in said paper regularly grumbles that absolute privatization would be much superior to having public ANYTHING because private owners can lay down absolute rules on what can be done and there's none of that nasty debate and negotiation and compromise that comes when democracy gets involved. An autocratic corporate system, since it's non-governmental. would be fine with him (of course, corporations are purely a legal construct that wouldn't exist without government, but why be logical?).

[Tonio]

So, we can work with them on social causes and against them on economic causes. Where's the problem?

Because libertarianism can be boiled down to "government sucks," while liberalism's position on government takes an entire paragraph to explain. Molly Ivins came close when she said (as best as I can remember) that government was merely a tool that caused good or harm depending on how it was used.

[K]

Best anti-libertarian argument ever.

'Course, as an atheist, I'm somewhat eager to turn it around on you. Because there are those who would argue that, without God to literally define morality for us, there *is* no morality; therefore if you are godless, you are immoral.

But similar to what you said about laws and their armed enforcers, it's not fear of God (or Hell, etc.) that prevents me from either driving on the opposing side of the road, or stealing, or murdering people. It's such non-godly notions as utilitarianism, respect for fellow life, desire to leave in a peaceful society and world, desire to avoid harm of myself and/or others, etc., that cause me, all else being equal, to avoid those things.

In fact, if the only thing preventing a person from stealing, or killing, is their fear of God, I'd say that's a seriously disturbing problem.

[Jesurgislac]

Anna: Perhaps I don't run in the proper message boards.

*points at Scott*

(True, these days he just raves, and it's all very woeful, but a while ago he used to defend his libertarian principles quite a lot as opposed to just flaming Fred, and there have been other slightly less woeful libertarians here in the past.)

[Froborr]

I find it somewhat odd that nobody has taken exception to yuubi's claim, "People don't naturally have the right to take property from others, even if they were planning to use that property in a way that would benefit someone else."

That's utter bull. Of course they do, to save a life or avert extreme suffering. You've got a bunch of starving children, no money, and Aunt Mamie left a pie unattended on the sill? Of course you have the right to take it, so long as doing so doesn't cause Aunt Mamie undue suffering. Government redistribution of wealth (ideally, at least) is simply that principle on a larger scale.

[Izzy]

Praline: Cool study! (Also, Kathy Sierra rocks, generally.) I try to stay in the happy-person-who-gets-angry range myself, and I'm full of love for said article for also debunking the flamingly stupid "being depressed and mopey means you're profound" myth. (I blame White Wolf. And Hemingway. But mostly White Wolf, 'cause it's fun.)

Seriously, when I get all idealistic and sentimental and White Mage about things, I think everyone's *entitled* to have food, shelter, medical care, and a decent education--and nobody's entitled to make fifty million dollars a year while other people lack these things, if money can help the situation. I believe in capitalism; I also believe in lots of taxation above a certain bracket, out of what I think Calvin Trillin referred to as the principle of "enoughness."

Yeah, you, Hypothetical CEO Guy, made those fifty million dollars yourself. But you used society to do it--try making fifty million if you're living on a desert island with no Internet--and you owe society something in return.

[Froborr]

I can't be bothered to dig up a link, but Fred has made precisely the same argument as you in his Left Behind posts.

[Tom]

"This is a big part of why I struggle with libertarianism - on the one hand, I often agree with their social issues (that is, the government should get out of everyone's private business)"

Yeah, they talk the talk on social issues, but I've yet to meet one who wouldn't sell out gay people or potheads for even the smallest tax cut. Isn't that why they vote for Greedy Old Perverts?

[Froborr]

I can't be bothered to dig up a link, but Fred has made precisely the same argument as you in his Left Behind posts.

Sorry, this was directed at K. Probably should have mentioned that somewhere, cuz it doesn't make much sense, otherly.

[Nate]

josh: It's not just government, though. ANY organization gets less responsive and efficient as it gets farther from the people doing the actual work. Businesses are at least as bad as government in that respect. So the Libertarian emphasis on government as specially bad, and how the magic of the free market will fix everything, rings very hollow.

Especially when you add in incentives, and who the organization is responsible to. Even at the federal level, government is theoretically responsible to We, The People, who elect the officials. Businesses are responsible to their stockholders, NOT to their customers, employees, or the communities they operate in.

I'd rather have power vested in an entity that's at least a little bit responsible to me, instead of a business whose only goal is to maximize profits for the shareholders.

And for all I hear about how libertarians are opposed to business subsidies and undue concentration of economic power etc, they seem to spend a LOT more time fulminating about those damn lazy poor people who're getting their money from the government.

[Froborr]

Tom: I have. One of my libertarian friends recently informed me she's an Obama delegate for the state of Washington. Needless to say, I was floored.

[Anna]

Jesu: *points at Scott*

Oh. He's libertarian? I thought his MO was just to adopt a position contrary to what Fred was saying for the day and espouse it with Capital Letters on his Nouns. But libertarian makes sense also, I suppose. I always gathered that he was more anti-state than anti-government, though.

[MikhailBorg]

I recently had a libertarian declare loudly within my earshot that if a single mom in America had to work three jobs to feed her kids, let her - it would be good for her character.

This is, however, the same person who was declaring that American citizens had no legal tax liability, and that the income tax is a fraud perpetrated by Congress and the courts. (Where he believes laws actually come from, I have no idea. The Easter Bunny perhaps.)

[yuubi]

Froborr:
That's more an exception than a right. Of course, asking Aunt Mamie for food would probably work better.

[Craig]

Libertarianism, as I understand it, is more an extension of the checks and balances system than anything else. Pitting the governing divisions against each other is well and good, except when said divisions start marching in lockstep via either natural or partisan means (e.g. early in Bush's tenure). At that point, the government ceases to be "for the people" and instead becomes "for the President," causing a great many problems of which we're all acutely aware. As such, they argue, the government itself requires a balance*. That said balancing would be more effective if the government were drastically weakened is the natural evolution of that line of thought.

*What about voting? It's only effective as a balance (in the Libertarian sense) when the competing parties have as little overlap as possible. This, I think, is the main reason why Libertarians have taken to increasingly bizarre policies. They recognize the need to distinguish themselves from the ruling parties, but go about it in profoundly stupid ways.

[ajay]

And one of the nice things about being a liberal is that you never need to pretend that you're actually a barbaric hoodlum who only behaves civilly due to fear of punishment from the 101st Airborne.

Of course, many libertarians are vehement in their disapproval of desegregation (it was a government constraint on your right to free association, y'see) - which, of course, lines them up with barbaric hoodlums who really did only start behaving civilly when the 101st Airborne turned up in Little Rock.

[ajay]

I should say that, when I read the opening of this piece, I thought it was going to be an attack on the sort of sociopathic Christian who thinks that people only behave morally because they're afraid of going to Hell, and that atheists therefore can't have any sort of moral sense at all.

[bellatrys]

Randian Objectivists at least are (and always have been) hypocritical about private propert rights - Rand herself espoused the notion that it could, nay, should be taken away if you weren't using it "efficiently" and given to those who would use it more profitably.

At least, if you weren't a white European.

So it all comes down to defending class privilege for them in the end, and ill-gotten gains, which is I've concluded why they (and conservatives/"conservatarians" / aka "we're not uncool squares, REELY!") are so convinced that everything and everyone is just dog-eat-dog - it's gross projection.

[Praline]

The thing about whether people naturally have a right to take away property doesn't really work with taxes. Taxes are generally on wages. Wages factor tax in; if you didn't have to pay income tax, your boss would pay you 20-40% less than he does now. (And in a libertarian world, the government couldn't stop him giving you that wage cut, and if you didn't like it, you'd have to quit - only no other bosses would be offering a better wage.) The money passes through your hands, but it was always earmarked for public use.

There is, of course, an alternative to 'getting arrested' if you don't like this; you can find another country to live in, one with different tax laws. But staying in a country and taking advantage of its services - which you do every moment, if you factor in things like police protection - is more or less signing a contract with that country to comply with its laws, including the laws about tax.

Staying and refusing to pay taxes is like your boss refusing to pay you after you've worked all month. It's not that the property is yours, it's that it's temporarily yours but ultimately promised to somebody else - the somebody else, incidentally, who's maintaining the society in which it's possible in the first place to peacefully earn a wage. If Aunt Mamie made five pies out of ingredients Uncle Jimmy paid for, on condition that he got one of the pies, he's hardly robbing her if he comes and takes it.

[bellatrys]

(Rand's view is the same as Thos Carlyle's on why freedom was bad for Jamaicans - how dare they enjoy some quality of life instead of working to increase profits for MEEE!)

[josh]

RE: Nate

It's not just government, though. ANY organization gets less responsive and efficient as it gets farther from the people doing the actual work. Businesses are at least as bad as government in that respect.

That's very true. The only difference is that in a free market* a company, I'll use Southwest Airlines as an example, can enter the market and undercut their competitors by better serving their customers. It's extremely difficult to repeat the process for a government that serves 300 million people. As an aside, I think that's part of the reason (only part) socialism has worked better in Scandinavia than anywhere else; the population of those countries are small enough that government needs to be more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

*slight digression here. By "free market", I do not mean a completely unfettered market, but a market in which government has three responsibilities: busting cartels and non-natural monopolies, removing barriers to entry to spur competition, and not unduly favoring one business over a competitor's with generous tax breaks and other exemptions from the law. Right now, we have the worst of both worlds; government subsidizing business without performing basic regulation.

Businesses are responsible to their stockholders, NOT to their customers, employees, or the communities they operate in.

In a relatively open market, businesses do need to satisfy their customers, or their market share will be reduced. Of course, this doesn't happen sometimes, mainly because it's too difficult for a competitor to get started, either because of regulation or high start-up costs. (Most libertarians would probably disagree with me here, but I wouldn't mind government loaning money to businesses looking to break into an inefficient market with high startup costs.)

I'd rather have power vested in an entity that's at least a little bit responsible to me, instead of a business whose only goal is to maximize profits for the shareholders.

Ideally, yes. However, I suspect I have a lot more control over the policies of the deli down the street than the federal government. :/

And for all I hear about how libertarians are opposed to business subsidies and undue concentration of economic power etc, they seem to spend a LOT more time fulminating about those damn lazy poor people who're getting their money from the government.

I don't really fell like fulminating about poor people now. Sorry to disappoint you :)

[Froborr]

yuubi: Children are dying *right now* from lack of food and medical care. The government takes Aunt Mamie's pie in the form of taxes in order to save them. I don't see how this is any different from me snatching it off the sill.

[Praline]

Ah, yet another reason to hate Ayn Rand.

America's policies toward the Indians were generally benign. Do Randians then approve of breaking every treaty you ever sign?

Bloody fantasists. Tell them something was romantic and noble and done by gaunt people, and they fall for it every time. Maybe somebody needs to send them some photographs of particularly craggy-faced Native Americans and see if that does any good.

[Geds]

From bellatrys' link:

"Before Europeans arrived, the scattered tribes occupying North America lived in abject poverty, ignorance, and superstition"

I...I...what...?

That's, like, the third sentence and I just stopped reading right there (just in case the writer goes on to actually make a point worth making and somebody gets mad at me for missing it). Yeah, the Mayans, the Aztecs, the various pueblo dwellers, and the Iroquois were really sitting around in poverty just waiting for the good white folk from across the big sea to make everything better. And how are we defining "ignorance" and "superstition" here, Mr. Big White Man? Is it the same kind of ignorance that says that the Native American tribes were utterly worthless and living in their own filth until the colony period started and made everything better for them?

[yuubi]

Ajay:

IIRC, segregation was generally enforced by law, and a consistent libertarian would object to a segregation law too. Objecting to forced desegregation and not forced segregation isn't libertarian.

Praline:

> no other bosses would be offering a better wage

It would depend on the labor market, unless you're assuming a conspiracy that works better than cartels usually work (as soon as someone has trouble hiring, he'll cheat.)