It is a pretty arrogant list though. For one thing, if lib’tarians are the super, ultra geniuses of the world, you’d think they’d be able to come up with ways to convince more people.
One of the really big disconnects in the mind of a libertarian is the fact that liberty is a political AND moral concept and libertarians don’t believe in politics or morality. So the libertarian is a contradiction. A defeatist with a really good rationalization for it. It’s a way to go down to destruction at the hands of statists and feel good and justified while doing it.
It’s a belief system that makes you superior to everyone else around you, without your having to actually stand up for or do anything. All you have to do is talk, to anyone who’ll tolerate you, or to no one. Pretty convenient.
>you’d think they’d be able to come up with ways to convince more people.
…and then one day you discover that “common sense” isn’t really that common 😉
Honestly, it’s easier to talk people into socialism, “safety nets” and subsidies. Plenty of people who would prefer to vote rather than work for a living out there.
TL;DR. I don’t care if Libertarians are nice to me, because I make no special effort to be nice to them. They’re folks who throw a plank in the river and call it a bridge. But they are the people you can most depend on to tell you where there’s a good pot party with hookers, I’ll say that in their favor. Same-sex married, transsexual hookers with guns even.
When I say “morality” I am NOT referring to sex or drugs, or other “lifestyle” nonsense. Unfortunately, our culture has done an excellent job of confusing the word’s meaning.
A lib’tarian friend recently said he thought it a shame that so many people want to “legislate morality”. I pointed out to him that all laws attempt to “legislate morality”. Theft, assault, rape, et al are moral issues. The very concept of human rights is a moral concept, not recognized by all cultures.
The problem with legislating morality is that our government has been violating human rights on a wholesale level, and is proud of it. Why, the would-be thief might ask, should I not steal when our government is the greatest thief in the world?
And so the concept of balance, or of a sliding scale, came up, and a moment of confusion came on. That’s when I said that the answer, or the dividing line, is a very clear one. The line is crossed when someone’s rights are being violated. Simple as that.
Most of us make the mistake of bringing up “harm” to some other person, and that’s a flase metric. Harm, per se, has nothing to do with it. If you start a competing business right next to someone else’s business, you will likely cause that person financial harm, maybe even put him into bankruptcy, but you have not violated anyone’s rights and so, morally, there can be no law against it. Outlawing what some poeple see as “bad” and subsidizing what others think is “good” is to completely ignore basic morality, and so it cannot be called “legislating morality”.
“Legislating morality” therefore is exactly what all lib’tarians want. They just can’t be specific about it, feeling an urge to run away from the corrupted version of the word.
November 3rd, 2014 at 7:26 pm
That pretty much covers it, so now all I have to do is refer the statists in my life to that page, then clean my guns.
November 4th, 2014 at 10:39 am
Yep.
November 4th, 2014 at 11:17 am
Yup! Pretty much covers it. My voting, now, is shaped by a desire to foil the DemCong and their vomit-eating enablers in the CrminalLiberalPress.
November 4th, 2014 at 1:10 pm
It is a pretty arrogant list though. For one thing, if lib’tarians are the super, ultra geniuses of the world, you’d think they’d be able to come up with ways to convince more people.
One of the really big disconnects in the mind of a libertarian is the fact that liberty is a political AND moral concept and libertarians don’t believe in politics or morality. So the libertarian is a contradiction. A defeatist with a really good rationalization for it. It’s a way to go down to destruction at the hands of statists and feel good and justified while doing it.
It’s a belief system that makes you superior to everyone else around you, without your having to actually stand up for or do anything. All you have to do is talk, to anyone who’ll tolerate you, or to no one. Pretty convenient.
November 4th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
>you’d think they’d be able to come up with ways to convince more people.
…and then one day you discover that “common sense” isn’t really that common 😉
Honestly, it’s easier to talk people into socialism, “safety nets” and subsidies. Plenty of people who would prefer to vote rather than work for a living out there.
November 4th, 2014 at 3:42 pm
I’m not required to be nice, officer.
Am I free to go?
November 4th, 2014 at 4:46 pm
No, they just don’t agree with you on what actions are moral. That does not equate to not believing in morality.
November 4th, 2014 at 5:49 pm
TL;DR. I don’t care if Libertarians are nice to me, because I make no special effort to be nice to them. They’re folks who throw a plank in the river and call it a bridge. But they are the people you can most depend on to tell you where there’s a good pot party with hookers, I’ll say that in their favor. Same-sex married, transsexual hookers with guns even.
November 5th, 2014 at 10:26 am
So, I should be very wary if a libertarian invites me to attend a party across a river? Got it.
November 5th, 2014 at 10:57 am
>you’d think they’d be able to come up with ways to convince more people.
I fairly sure that I’m smarter than a dog. Still don’t think I can “convince” one to not lick its ass.
November 5th, 2014 at 12:07 pm
So, I should be very wary if a libertarian invites me to attend a party across a river?
“Keep your guard up but always talk to strange ladies. Adventure will come your way.” — Heinlein
November 5th, 2014 at 6:17 pm
When I say “morality” I am NOT referring to sex or drugs, or other “lifestyle” nonsense. Unfortunately, our culture has done an excellent job of confusing the word’s meaning.
A lib’tarian friend recently said he thought it a shame that so many people want to “legislate morality”. I pointed out to him that all laws attempt to “legislate morality”. Theft, assault, rape, et al are moral issues. The very concept of human rights is a moral concept, not recognized by all cultures.
The problem with legislating morality is that our government has been violating human rights on a wholesale level, and is proud of it. Why, the would-be thief might ask, should I not steal when our government is the greatest thief in the world?
And so the concept of balance, or of a sliding scale, came up, and a moment of confusion came on. That’s when I said that the answer, or the dividing line, is a very clear one. The line is crossed when someone’s rights are being violated. Simple as that.
Most of us make the mistake of bringing up “harm” to some other person, and that’s a flase metric. Harm, per se, has nothing to do with it. If you start a competing business right next to someone else’s business, you will likely cause that person financial harm, maybe even put him into bankruptcy, but you have not violated anyone’s rights and so, morally, there can be no law against it. Outlawing what some poeple see as “bad” and subsidizing what others think is “good” is to completely ignore basic morality, and so it cannot be called “legislating morality”.
“Legislating morality” therefore is exactly what all lib’tarians want. They just can’t be specific about it, feeling an urge to run away from the corrupted version of the word.
November 5th, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Otherwise known as “Ten Reasons Libertarians Will Never Hold Serious Political Power And Actually Be Able To Get Their Agenda Passed”.
…but that’s all right with them, as long as they can continue free-riding on voting blocs they claim to despise.