Being libertarian because you want to smoke pot versus not trusting a authority that has the power to ban it at the state/federal level. My aggravation since being a high schooler is how the former became the household definition, because the mode averaged person has an allergy to cynicism for some gods' forsaken reason. These naive idealists, coinciding with single-issue fuckwads, are so invirtuously useless for society that the proggie NPC has a point when he paints a libertarian as a social loser living in fantasies. Then we have anarcho-capitalism, a designation stemming from humans irresistible urge to subdivide into counterproductive tribes, to be divided and conquered by the outside culture. Any hypothetical minarchist state and ancapistan would be indistinguishable in practice.
Paleoconservative/paleolibertarian would be great brands if they weren't syllablistic vomit doomed to irrelevancy to the average Westerner. Would someone notable start a movement that isn't complete anathema to social marketing, but not so vague as to be amorphously inclusionary? I propose the axiomatic party. Principled yet without delusion, unique, and only slightly more grating to pronounce than "Democratic" or "Republican". I suggest taking a lesson out of Heinlein's History and Moral Philosophy class, sticking to uncomfortable, unambiguous social truths as a serious science. Of course the conditions in Starship Troopers were different, where hard men emerged out of truly hard times, and not bread and circuses limbo we're stuck in.
If my axiomatic ideal were attempted in my lif, neurotypes and grifters would just pervert the meaning like they did to liberalism. Principled will be confused with being a dense zealot. But really, libertarianism needs to rebrand.
I think people should be able to open a coffee stand or a bar without having to study/memorize thousands of pages of regulations and get a bunch of licenses and permits. But if you make your customers sick you should be punished quite severely for it, more so if you're making your customers sick out of negligence or are trying to cover up the fact you're doing it.
I also think bums should be "out of sight; out of mind" but also think that if a man in a suit and tie wants to drink a beer while on his way back from work that should be OK provided he isn't causing trouble.
Similarly, "youths" wearing gang colors and flashing gang signs shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun into a store, but a clean-cut man with a his wife and children ought to.
I don't know what that makes me politically.
Should be just up to the owner. That's pretty libertarian to say it's his property -- he can do what he wants. This is de facto discrimination against blacks, so you're a pretty extreme libertarian for America.
Where I am in WA they made open carry a "right" in a lot of places because too many property owners where banning the clean-cut men out with their wives and kids from carrying. But that also comes with the "youths" also having the "right" to open-carry.
I like the idea of clean-cut men having the inalienable right to carry into a store since if the store bans it they don't have the reciprocal obligation to ensure the safety of their customers, but I also don't want gangbangers to have that inalienable right.
I think I'm just not an egalitarian: I think one's rights to a certain extent should be in proportion to one's obligations and contributions to society. And I don't like the idea that decent people are forbidden from doing a thing because to allow it means the dregs of society must also be allowed to do it.
This is along the lines of a libertarian meritocracy:
Your freedoms are limited, until you earn the rights to those freedoms.
It's how it should be, anyway.
Until libertarians of either type accept the necessity of national borders, both types of them are idiots.
The idea that you have to be retarded to have anti-government principles is yet more propaganda, much like the classic "what about ROADS" if you say certain taxes are unnecessary or unethical.
If you think your libertarian paradise will not immediately collapse without enforced borders then you are indeed retarded. I'm not talking about roads. I'm talking about borders.
Libertarians are every bit as delusional as communists. For either to "work" it requires every person to be a willing participant. As soon as a few reject the system, the whole thing collapses.
Libertarianism does not equal pure anarchist open borders idiocy. Only idiots think that - that is what my first post was saying. A strong border is 100% necessary to the continued existence of a nation. You're confusing memetic stupidity from propaganda with what the principles are actually about, which is minimal government.
Tell that to the rest of them then, because you are in the minority of libertarians who get this.
Generally, explicitly right-wing libertarians support controlled borders. Center libertarians have done a lot of damage to whatever potential the movement had, with humanist positivity peddling and a lacking adherence to game theory both on platform (I.e. some in favor of special tax breaks that lobbyists make sure don't apply to small business) or in campaigning (ex. Jo bending the knee to BLM).
There are a minority of people who actually understand politics at all. The entire thread topic is someone being confused over the retarded contradiction that is the so-called "left-libertarian". The political compass popularized this decade is another horseshit tool used by morons and propagandists to confuse the public.
Also, I am not a libertarian. I understand that ideology, but disagree with it to a degree on it's optimistic interpretation of free markets, and have foreign policy disagreements with libertarian ideals.
And the need to protect children from pedos, and the need to keep the left out of power, and the list goes on.
Because there were so many claiming to be "libertarian" that either were instead liberals or became authoritarian leftists as they got older. They weren't actually for small government and freedom, they desired some non-existent freedoms and also to tear down some things as they just didn't like what either major Party was doing. The term was fine over a decade ago, but the rise of SJW-ism during Obama and its metastasizing in reaction to Trump, caused the term to morph. It's tainted to the point that you can't really claim to be one without garnering a negative reaction, similar to how words like Nazi and racist were used to denigrate people until those words lost their power.
And really the West is so polarized now, you're not going to be able to go outside the dichotomy without one of the major factions accusing you of being the other, even when some sheep among both of them have similarities, in that they are anti-freedom and autonomy. A declining society/civilization will feature this behavior as humans regress to their tribal instincts. The current state of the mass populace is not really any different to WWII, when all the major belligerents were practicing some form of Socialism yet we're supposed to pretend one alliance wasn't evil. Historically, intelligent people always suffer from this cycle.
Libertarians have been a vocal minority shunned by many establishment types, for example the Moral Majority or left-leaning academics too dependent on government infrastructure. Certainly so by the mid 00's when I was discovering politics beyond the watered-down version taught by grade school. But it's certainly intensified from relatively fringe snarky mockery to the modern vitriol shared with Trump supporters, Brexiteers, and other right-wing populist undesirables.
I don't know how I would define it now, however back around the time I was beginning to understand politics and the world, I wanted closed borders, a balanced budget with no more grift and handouts (both welfare and world policing go away), the lower taxation to go with it, and the government to leave people alone if they were being responsible and exercising their rights as per the Ninth Amendment. People being allowed to prosper without unnecessary government interference and without appropriating their fruits to subsidize those who don't want to contribute. Currently I'm cynical about whether or not Americans are competent enough to accomplish that.
Again, it's because of the polarization. The specific vitriol is really stemming from the consolidation of "tribes" on either side. As things become more strained, there's less room for disagreement about the solutions.
all drugs should be legal if you are a landowner
no drugs should be legal if you are a peasant
lolberts are still beholden to the fundamental liberal premise that people are "equal"
This applies to many parts of the philosophy, and I've notice two types of proponents of libertarianism:
People who recognize the hierarchy and think they'll be at the top. (the
kingslandowners)People who pretend this hierarchy won't exist. They're either fooling themselves or knowingly being deceptive to gain more converts to libertarianism.
I like the idea but I don't imagine some utopia where maximum liberty means every man a king.
Equal treatment under the law is a tool to keep people happy. People can superimpose whatever hierarchies on top of that they want. They are wont to do it, and it happens. The principle can be useful. However, I don't think it's "divine" or inherent as certain people claim.
When people already have a high degree of egalitarianism in their culture -- Americans PRIOR to 1776 were some of the freest and most equal people in the world -- you don't want to have a caste system. If your population is made up of Hindus who've known nothing else, you probably do.
The question is always who decides, and you might have some very unhappy hoi polloi if you straight up tell them they have no rights.
I wouldn't propose a hierarchy. I'm simply recognizing that hierarchy is natural law. Enforcing a caste system is as silly as enforcing equality. If someone is able to move up a level in the hierarchy more power to them. That's what liberty allows. It also allows some people to fail.
A functioning hierarchy is better for everyone across the tiers. The lower tiers have something to aspire to, the higher tiers have something to uphold.
Your "drug" example, although absolutely silly, makes sense for voting but not for basic rights. You do understand that if rights are ordained exclusively by taxes combined by land ownership, all the upper echelon have to do is bribe government to regulate self-sustaining business out of existence and buy out all the land? Civil unrest begins and civilization goes bye-bye and you start all over again.
Equality before the law regardless of socio-economic status at least creates some political and societal stability. Why participate in society if you aren't wealthy enough to own land because the value has been inflated to where 80% of society can't afford it? In many states or town jurisdictions you don't even own the land anyway, because your town is in possession of the title deed to legally siphon property taxes.
There is not a right to drugs. There is a lack of right of the government to tell us what to put in our bodies. At least, I don't understand why anyone would give the government that ability.
If you want my opinion, government should have an advisory-only role on drugs. you want to wait for FDA approval ? Go for it. You want to buy some sketch bat shit or fake elephant tusk from China. Go for it.
Getting high is a "basic right"? Where did you get that ridiculous idea?
The idea of "well the rich people will own everything" is commie talk. Wealth is created by one exceptional man then squandered by his progeny in two or three generations. That churn is all of the "redistribution" we need.
If you are in a crappy position you develop a specialized skill or a relationship with someone in a higher position in hopes of taking advantage of an opportunity to move up. Feeling resentful because other people have it better is giving in to the evil whispers of the spirit of Cain.
You participate because you understand that God placed you at your station in life for a reason, even if you don't understand it, and that your reward is in heaven with Him and not on this earth.
You spoke of drug use in the same post as "fundamental liberal premise that people are 'equal'". I assumed you were meaning that universal equality and recreational drug use are concepts that should be treated the same.
Material wealth is temporal and vain, sure, but I believe that accepting fate and hinging one's purpose in life on something that has no tangible observable evidence, aside from "this world is so complex and elegant", can be a life "squandered", but... whatever helps you sleep at night. Not saying God doesn't exist, but I don't think humans truly understand exactly what they receive when life passes.
Sure.
Eh. This is just my take, but I'd personally rephrase to doing drugs or being excessively intoxicated in a public space (or someone else's house) should be illegal.
You obviously need some guiderails, or losers just shit up society, and it is a big failing of the libertarian drug position. The woke cities that implement it spiral further down the toilet really quickly.
I find myself philosophically aligned with what you call the "utilitarian libertarian" but not at all with the ""permissive" school. In fact my anarcho-capitalist dream is that it will be legal to go vigilante style on the libertines. Anyone blasting loud rap music or dressing like a whore gets one warning and then gets shot (out of our territory in a cannon), in accordance with the rules of our neighborhood pact. Don't like it? Stay away from my voluntary association township, hippie.
That said I understand it's idealism and largely unrealistic with real people involved, to the degree that it's odd to call it "utilitarian". Utilitarian more accurately describes the oppressive web of power structures and politics that govern the world today, because that's what humans settled on after 1000s of years of history.
Right, it's a pipe-dream for enough people to break free of the matrix (incl. the useful idiot commie left) even if doing so is necessary for humanity to not collapse in the post-industrial age. Just like how diminishing religion didn't change people's propensity towards dysfunctional conformity, but discarded the positive effects of official religions with the masses embracing covert quasi-religions.
libertarianism, like paleoconservatism is just another jewish gatekeeping psyop to keep you on the plantation. they are both rooted in individualism, liberalism, progressivism. designed to put up an attractive screen of smoke and mirrors to keep you from nationalism. Nationalism is what they fear and what makes a country strong and resilient to their infiltration and subversion.
Whenever I hear libertarianism I think of this:
-Murray Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty
I don't think in any case the state now forces parents to feed their children. The state steps in when they don't. Often by feeding them, but also they sometimes take children from their parents. If the parents have effectively abandoned the child, by refusing to feed him, you're taking nothing from them by removing the child.
So yeah, umm you don't compel parents. You get someone else to take care of the kids.
Are you saying nationalism is opposed to individualism?
Individualism is bipolar. To some it's independent thought, individual responsibility and consequences, and to others it's a free pass to degeneracy.
The 1800s and 1900s proved that nationalism can be subverted just as easily as any other social system if there aren't foundations of redoubtable first principles instilled in the populace. Some theories are at odds with nature (communism, progressivism), but any system with potential still requires a virtuous populace willing to spill blood to defend it.
Utilitarian libertarians for the most part support controlled borders.
Nationalism and libertarianism aren't competing ideologies. Libertarianism is based upon anti-government political principles. Nationalism is a cultural principle, not a political ideology.
The state is not the nation.
You're trying to herd cats. Different libertarian groups aren't necessarily going to compromise on their principles to form a solid political party. Voting violates our Non-Aggression Principle by forcing our desires on opposing voters, after all (/s).
The major problem in libertarianism that might never be properly countered is in our opposition to state structures.
I don't think it's that. People are generally pretty skeptical of certain aspects of the state (see US approval ratings of the legislative branch), or at least their political rivals, but there are fears to be raised when you want to decrease funding or power of police, national security, schools, or welfare programs. There is fear in the unknown, an "untested" method without a presumed permanent structure that states have "given" for some generations at this point. There's a reason "muh roads" is a meme. People are accustomed to a central authority to take care of things.
"Left libertarian" is a propaganda meme just like horseshoe theory. You want drugs and abortions but are otherwise pro government, you aren't a libertarian, you're a degenerate. Libertarian is an inherently right wing set of principles.
Principles decide position, positions don't decide principles.
There is no philosophy more totalitarian than utilitarianism taken to its logical extreme. Just ask Bentham.
I guess consequentialism (superset of utilitarian) and not letting beliefs distort perception reality are what is important. It is disconcerting that there are/were influential people that guided by literal utilitarianism, humanism, etc without an comprehensive anchor (what the word holistic is supposed to mean). Uilitarian libertarianism happens to be an identifiable brand that contrasts with single-issue fuckwads and true believers.
Finally, someone here who's to my taste.
I use the first thing 'lol why pot illegal' to get people into the mindset, and if they're worth talking to on a deeper level you can introduce them to things like less overall government power, reducing the tax burden and other specifics.
It's both a branding thing, and a self reliance thing, where most people today in anything but an extremely rural environment are just assuming someone from the government is around to help them. Breaking this on individuals around you is key to getting that ideal, and is what prevents entryism if it grows large enough.
Will that happen in our lifetimes? Dunno, but it won't stop me from trying.
It's the reverse of the "gateway drug" slippery slope. America largely turned pro-marijuana, and the three letter agencies haven't lost any power. 2020 showed how static 2/3 of human society is.