this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 167 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Surprise surprise, the biggest supporters of "small government" just want to own everything themselves. Who could've seen that coming?

Oh, right, literally anyone with a brain.

[–] Sterile_Technique 70 points 4 months ago (3 children)

A lot of Libertarianism sounds great on paper, so it's an easy trap to fall into. Once you consider the human element and factors like greed, it stands out as an exceptionally abusable political model; but if you don't think about it critically (which is a LOT of people), it's just liberty this and non-aggression-principle-that and it all sounds just oh-so peachy.... again, on paper.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Communism is very similar in this way. It's great on paper, and then people put it into practice...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

There is a big difference though. Communism acknowledges collective goals and responsibilities. Libertarianism denies them.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Incidentally I thought both philosophies sounded somewhat reasonable when I was around 13.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Have a look into libertarian socialism aka anarchism (among other ideologies). An internally consistent ideology that accounts for humanitys shitty side while maximizing human freedom. With a decent track record to boot

[–] Eldritch 5 points 4 months ago

Unfortunately so many are indoctrinated through language to not understand such an abstract. Anarchism/anarchy is "chaos". Not to mention the horrible representation of the much more visible oxymorons. Anarcho-capitalists are a contradiction in themselves.

But there is one compelling argument for people to learn and understand it. Understanding it will piss off anarcho-capitalists and Big L Libertarians to no end. And take away any of the mystique or good will others might have towards them. No freedoms but social freedoms. If you have a freedom that is personal to you that others do not get to enjoy or share. That is a privilege and not a freedom. And even pointing this out will cause both groups to sethe and sputter ineffectually

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[–] GraniteM 112 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Isaac Asimov called it back in 1980.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

~~I’ve read most of his books and missed this, or it never stuck with me.~~

~~Thanks for posting it. Dude was smart.~~

I’d like the source, please.

3rd edit:

Asimov, The Sun Shines Bright, Ch. 17 Nice Guys Finish First!, pp 124.

It's actually a footnote and not part of the text, so here's some context:

Within these units co-operation has been brought about, despite the natural tendency to destructive competition, by the application of governmental authority, internal police and, most of all, the strictures of custom, social pressure and religion. The general advance in the size of the units within which co-operation is maintained has, at the present day, produced governmental control over a population of 950 million people in China; 22 million square kilometres of area in the Soviet Union; and one third of the real wealth of the world in the United States. The advance has not been smooth and steady. The stresses of internal decay and external pressure have led to the fall of empires and the periodic destruction of central authority and its replacement by smaller units. Such periods of regression usually result in a 'dark age'. (4)

(4) There are people who, disturbed by 'big government' today and its tendency to curb the advantages they might gain if their competitiveness were allowed free flow, demand 'less government'. Alas, there is no such thing as less government, merely changes in government. If the libertarians had their way, the distant bureaucracy would vanish and the local bully would be in charge. Personally, I prefer the distant bureaucracy, which may not find me, over the local bully, who certainly will. And all historical precedent shows a change to localism to be for the worse.

Today, the world undergoes centrifugal decomposition politically, as the old European empires break up and as cultural minorities demand nations all their own; but economic units continue to grow larger and the only economic unit that makes sense today is the whole planet. In one way, it's the political units that count, for it is they who wage war. Though peace is maintained within the units (if we ignore endemic crime and violence, and occasional terrorism, rebellion and civil war) there is war between them. City-states warred against each other interminably in ancient Greece and in Renaissance Italy; feudal estates did so in medieval Europe and early modern Japan; nations did so in early medieval China and modern Europe, and in all cases until modern times there were conflicts with barbarians on the fringes. The intensity and destructiveness of the conflicts shows a general rise with advancing technology, so that despite the growing size of the units within which co- operation can be counted on, competitiveness may still win out. Destruction still threatens to outpace the capacity for recovery. We now live at a time when the outcome clearly hangs in the balance. One more all- out general war and civilization will probably be destroyed - possibly for good. Indeed, even if the realization of this keeps the war from happening, the existence of potential conflict keeps the minds and energy of all the competing nations on each other as the enemy and not on those true enemies which threaten us all - overpopulation, resource depletion and technology inadequacy. Nasty guys will finish last.

Hes not wrong, just didn't have the zeitgeist to add climate change to the list.

[–] GraniteM 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"Nice Guys Finish First," collected in the book "The Sun Shines Bright," but originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

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[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 5 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Asimov published four books in 1980: Casebook of the Black Widowers, How Did We Find Out About Oil?, In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1978 and How Did We Find Out About Coal?

Of those, Casebook of the Black Widowers was a collection of mystery short stories and the "How Did We Find Out About" books were childrens' non-fiction, which leaves only In Joy Still Felt as a potential candidate for this quote. I downloaded an EPUB version of this book and did a search for "libertarians" and found nothing.

Either the OP got the year wrong, or they just pulled this quote out of their ass.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Hm. Did a search for a couple quotes from the text. Absolutely no returns on 4 search engines. One would think Asimov’s work would be pretty easy to find, especially a quote so timely. I’m now skeptical.

E: found it, see previous edit.

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[–] htrayl 8 points 4 months ago

This is fucking great, and a point I've tried to argue with some family several times. Power exists, it is just a matter of where.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 7 points 4 months ago (10 children)

What book/article is this from?

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[–] AstridWipenaugh 86 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (13 children)
[–] Noodle07 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Hahaha it's number 1 on campaign financing freedom

[–] PotatoKat 4 points 4 months ago

I literally laughed out loud when I got to that part. Everything in personal freedom was so low then campaign financing hit

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In California, something like 53% of the land is public or state property meaning that California has even more land for the public to use than Washington. Poor sap tricked himself into thinking Texas was so great. Texas is a shithole. Sorry not sorry.

[–] friend_of_satan 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This was a huge shock for me when I moved east. I should have looked at the BLM access maps before moving.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Oh yeah, when I first heard of BLM camping, I had to look it up, because there are very few opportunities for it here in the mid-Atlantic states. I had no idea such a thing existed.

[–] someguy3 62 points 4 months ago (1 children)

OP learns freedom is for the rich.

[–] Serinus 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Kind of. This also hurts the rich, unless they're really want to pay for a theme park experience.

I don't care how rich you are, nobody is buying 44% of Washington state.

[–] MotoAsh 4 points 4 months ago

I mean, the government bought an area over 10x of Washington, so I wouldn't say nobody... Rich people have a way of wanting the dumbest, most useless purchases, so I wouldn't put it past them to at least try, even if the government told them it had to stay national park. Not that it'd be dumb for a government to buy that much land, but a person who would absolutely still be told what to do with the land.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 months ago (2 children)
[–] DigitalTraveler42 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's known for it's one star rating

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

I just had to. Would make for a nice bumper sticker if it didn't get you shot down here

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[–] Alexstarfire 22 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Only outside of winter. For winter it's hell frozen over.

[–] DoomBot5 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] SlopppyEngineer 55 points 4 months ago

Have you tried not being poor and buying your own dirt bike track and forest to hunt in?

[–] Aceticon 49 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

It's the ultimate lie of Neoliberalism - it's not about Freedom for people (when you are born into a World were all places you could sleep in or grow your food in are owned, you are not Free), it's about Freedom for Money. Neoliberalism actually strengthens the rights of property, reducing the rights of non-owners.

So if you aren't one of the 1% you're even less Free under Neoliberalism than straight Capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

Neoliberalism has Neofeudalism as end-form. The goal is to get back to feudal times, where Lords would be the factual government on their territory, just that it would be justified through god given ownership, rather than god given priviledged status.

It is the same thing though.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Just want to point out that there is a difference between "Libertarian Capitalism" and "Libertarian Socialism"; and as per usual, the capitalists were the one who stole the label.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Interesting distinction. Could you or another explane it? My Political "chops" aren't that good yet.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers' self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other forms of libertarianism by its rejection of private property. Broadly defined, it includes schools of both anarchism and Marxism, as well as other tendencies that oppose the state and capitalism.

Wikipedia - Libertarian socialism

It's usually a synonym for Anarchism.

The oxymoron "Libertarian Capitalism" is an propagandistic rebranding of landlord feudalism, engineered by a right-wing grifter who thought Adam Smith was a pinko commie.

It's taken seriously by the folks who despite all of the evidence, think trickle-down economics is a good idea. It's a joke to everyone else.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (1 children)

the ideological justification behind privatizing everything is to make every man a king. the thing about that is, it means that any time you leave your kingdom you have to deal with several fickle idiot kings whose rules can change from moment to moment and who can ignore everyone and do whatever he wants without appeal. with public ownership there is one king, and he may suck but there are limits on what he can do and if we all don't like what he does we can replace him or change the limits.

[–] kaffiene 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In practice "every man is a king" means he with the most cash is actually a king and everyone else is their serf. It's a return to feudalism

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[–] FlashMobOfOne 37 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In my early 20's I thought I was a Libertarian, but that ended when I figured out they oppose all gun regulations, because after Columbine mass shootings only got more numerous and not less.

Libertarians are not reasonable people.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I also used to think I was libertarian until I started being exposed to the injustices of capitalism. I am no longer libertarian

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[–] BilboBargains 37 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I need somewhere to dort bike

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

The Western US is really pretty special this way, I think. When traveling other countries, even really pretty views or nice beaches, it's a little depressing many times there's just no wildish place to picnic or camp or wander freely without a guide or agenda.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

TBH, "libertarianism" was originally a left-wing ideal. Proudhon famously said "property is theft" and Malatesta (the most famous libertarian from Italy, where I live) was an anarchist. Right-wingers just co-opted the term like they did with many others.

(like they co-opted d'annunzio, a famous Italian poet. Now everybody knows him as "a fascist" but the nation he founded, the free state of Fiume, was the first nation to recognize the USSR (and the USSR recognized them back, irrc) He was also a member of a left-wing party, saying he was "going towards life" But as always, fascists appropriated a lot of things ideated by him. Worker's unions had real power in Fiume, compare it to fascist Italy where they were basically 100% subservient to the party and you start to get a more nuanced and "controversial" picture of d'annunzio and Fiume. I suggest people that believe him to be a fascist to study him more, that's all, from a guy that lives in Italy and has studied him. Rant over. )

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