this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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If this is what a fake libertarian is, there's no such thing as a real one. This is every single libertarian I've ever conversed with.
You need to find yourself some Left-Libertarians.
You're usually looking for some type of Georgists or some flavor of small-scale Social/Communist Anarchy. Most of them are way more able to grok the concepts of things like "natural monopolies" or "Tragedy of the Commons" and other fun market failure states. They tend to focus more on the existence of the market itself as a tool for creating competition that drives innovation and efficiency while giving less lip service to the idea that just because you accumulated a bunch of capital from an idea that's its a good idea.
If I scam a bunch of people, I've gathered a bunch of capital, but that doesn't mean I've actually produced anything of value for anyone. If I refined chemicals in my house and dumped all the waste in my neighbor's pool, I'm not actually competing in an even market, because I've burdened my neighbor with the cost of waste remediation while I get to keep all the profit.
Yea but my neihbor is a POS.
I don't understand your point. Would you mind elaborating?
Georgism is actually a very interesting political philosophy. I hadn't heard of it before you mentioned it in your comment. Thank you for sharing!
These are, indeed, two very important, and critical issues. When one is advocating for libertarianism, capitalism, and the like, they mustn't be ignored.
This point doesn't actually hold much, if any, ground, as it is fundamentally at odds with the philosophy of libertariansim. Libertarianism is about equal freedom of the individual, yes, but that does not grant one the right to burden other's with un-consented cost.
When I considered myself libertarian, I was not a fan of police brutality, pro LGBTQ rights, more open border, and legalized drugs. I still hold all of those views but have gotten a lot more to the left from am economics standpoint. A lot of that is die to my econ degree.
That said, post 2016 I definitely noticed a ton of faux libertarians who were very defensive of Trump. If you voted for Trump, I don't think you can consider yourself libertarian. I think I recall hearing that the whacko New Hampshire libertarians basically took over the party. Those guys are a bunch of racist fascists.
I wouldn't go so far as to draw that line at voting, as one could certainly be voting strategically -- it's possible that they don't agree with many, if any, of Trump's policies, but they were of the belief that voting for Trump would push policy in a direction that would be in their interest -- this is, of course, a symptom of FPTP, and it could be possibly solved with a ranked ballot. That being said, I do completely agree that if one is a vehement supporter of Trump, and his policies in a similar fassion to the usual MAGA group, then they cannot call themselves a libertarian in good concience -- there are many policies of, and actions by Trump that are very un-libertarian.
This means you have never interacted with a libertarian then, just a ashamed conservative/republican wanting to be labeled something else.
Everyone knows the True Libertarians hang out in Scotland. With the True Scotts.
Generally I lean libertarian in terms of pure individual choice. Worship no gods or a million, be single or marry 20 people at once, put whatever substance you want in your own body, kneel for the flag or shed a tear, yes I will use your pronouns.
Every man a king, that's my philosophy.
The rest of the stuff yeah. I want food stamp programs, I want a secular neutral state, I want antidiscrimination laws, I dont support a company dumping pollution on us.
You just described being a leftist. Why are libertarians so afraid of being put on the progressive left? You are not a libertarian lmao
For the sake of clarity in this conversation, would you mind defining "leftist"? It is rather ambiguous.
How many have you talked to? I'm guessing the root cause is your sample size is too small.
I can confirm the same.
Yeah, OP's argument is founded on a logical fallacy -- it is called a Faulty Generalization.