The "I Hate Libertarians!!!" thread

ITT All the reasons, rational, logical and otherwise, to hate libertarians. All different forms and colors, no discrimination.

I go first.
Libertarians suck because they think that clearly defined ownership rights is enough to stop crime.

Those that think Ayn Rand has brilliant insights suck.

The rest of them aren't too bad.

They suck because they believe that its more important to be free from taxes than to be free from starvation, homelessnes and bad health, and that all systems that take the opposite view are oppresive by default.

>>2

Yeah, objectivism ≠ libertarianism.

>>3
Well, they are, at least in that regard.  And as for freedom from starvation? I'll take the liberty please.  I'm not worried about starving because I'm a responsible person. 

I'm not worried about starving because I'm a responsible person.
Wait till you take a few hard knocks in life.

I used to think the only person I needed to depend upon was me, and usually that was enough. But not always.

It's not something I'd stake my life on.

Their environmental policy could start a fucking war

Libertians have an irrational and excessive disdain for governments and place too much faith in the private sector.

>>7
What is their policy?

You can bend the interpretation of property and the safety of the individual all kinds of ways. For example, if you dump shit in the air and water, doesn't that violate both for everybody else?

>>1
"All different forms and colors, no discrimination."

In making sweeping accusations about 'libertarians' like you did, you already started discriminating.

>>10
While I disagree with >>1's statement, I think you need to reread what he wrote a bit more carefully.

Copypastaed from some other libertarian thread:

But are you really free in such a society?

Let's assume you work 40 hours a week for $50k a year. Along comes someone with similar ability who will work 45 hours a week for $40k. Either you drop your price, or work more, or get replaced. Now consider that happening repeatedly across the entire market.

After a while you end up with many people working unhealthy hours for little wage, since there is always someone desperate prepared to replace them. You could decline, but then you'd have nothing to eat. Is that freedom?

>>12
"But are you really free in such a society?"

Yes.

"Let's assume you work 40 hours a week for $50k a year. Along comes someone with similar ability who will work 45 hours a week for $40k. Either you drop your price, or work more, or get replaced. Now consider that happening repeatedly across the entire market."

Yes? So what? The guy has as much right to compete for the job as you have.  You also both have the freedom of association - you can unionize to attempt to raise your wage rates.

"After a while you end up with many people working unhealthy hours for little wage, since there is always someone desperate prepared to replace them. You could decline, but then you'd have nothing to eat. Is that freedom?"

We had such a system for a couple hundred years in the United States, and, in the words of Milton Friedman: 

"We didn't live in a paradise, but there is no period in human history in which the ordinary man -- the ordinary man -- had as great an improvement in his lot in life as in the nineteenth century in the United States when the government was of trivial importance."  -Milton Friedman

>>13
Yes? So what?
You missed the thrust of the argument. There is nothing wrong with them doing that, but without minimum wage, what will fear do? Fear that you will be replaced and have no income. Fear of no food and shelter for you and your family. Given the choice between that and slave wage, what will everyone pick?

you can unionize to attempt to raise your wage rates.
Certainly. And employers can reply with Pinkerton.

Or the employees could vote for minimum wage and a social safety net. In fact, that's exactly what they did in the end, isn't it?

We had such a system for a couple hundred years in the United States, and, in the words of Milton Friedman:
Ah, so, you would like to live like that? You first.

"We didn't live in a paradise, but there is no period in human history in which the ordinary man -- the ordinary man -- had as great an improvement in his lot in life as in the nineteenth century in the United States when the government was of trivial importance."  -Milton Friedman

Thats because of technological improvements in sanitation and such, not because BIG BAD GOVERNMENT was letting corporations work 9 year olds 80 hours a week

>>12
If that logic was true we all would be working at minimum wage as of now.

I never thought of myself as a libertarian until I saw my professor stumble about why its wrong and not provide a coherent argument against it; even after me and a few others pushed him hard on the issue he still couldn’t muster a logical argument, just emotional ones. These emotional arguments satisfied most of the class but not me.

After further investigation (Milton, Nozick) I think ive become a moderate libertarian. Ive still yet to meet a professor (political, philosophy or otherwise) that could provide me with a moral reason why it’s wrong, or why it wont "work" both practically and theoretically (work as in within the moral framework set forth by libertarian esq. utilitarianism) without resorting to truly radical views that no person of common sense would accept as desirable. I expect no different in this thread, people will flood it with horrible arguments that satisfy to reinforce preexisting worldviews.

Go ahead; continue to lampoon a system that only wishes to defend moral guidelines that we all live by. Don’t believe we all live by them? Or that we should? Then head on over to soviet Russia, communism offers the only escape. Go ahead and try to label it impractical but remember exactly where you stand, as an enemy of a good and just state.

>>16
Lets not make a strawman. The demand for some skills is high enough that companies offer competitive wages. But for unskilled labor, will pay minimum wage if they can get away with it.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2002.htm
See that? You have millions who are working at minimum wage. Do you think the companies wouldn't lower the wages if they could? Are you familiar with the Progressive movement at all?

>>16
First, we don't live in a libertarian society, so your reasoning with regard to minimum wage is nonsensical. We have minimum wage, a social safety net, and some form of free healthcare and education.

But since we're talking the current system, you might want to ponder the gradual erosion of the middle class the past few decades.

Second, it's easy to out-argue a person if you catch them by surprise. Chances are he didn't care about libertarianism, so never bothered to do some research and think about it. If you bested him in a written argument, then it'd be worth something.

And lastly, many systems work (pick your metric). Not all are pleasant to live in.

P.S. Your state is both good and just? Where do you live exactly?

>>16
BIG BAD GOVERNMENT was letting corporations work 9 year olds 80 hours a week

Nyoro~n

>>16
Because letting the poor be poor and letting the hungry starve is in essence, unethical.
There, I just poised a moral counterpoint to your infallible theory, suck more cocks.
Libertarianism is so fucking air-tight because it has never been implemented in reality, because it is incongruent with human beings.  A political system that doesn't work with human beings and their psychological tendencies should really be ignored in favor of one that works, IE a mixed economy.

Libertarians are usually the white college-age male who likes to think they've got it all fucking figured out, who often have been raised in a upper middle class family with every advantage and privilege available to them.  Having little ethical grounding, they will seldom acknowledge how despite their "horrible, oppressive society of freeloading and government bureaucracy", they live in the freest, most luxurious, and nice country on earth.  Rather than bitch and moan about how "bad" we've got it, why not devote our energies to working harder, developing the sciences, and helping other human beings.

Last I checked, in America, we have millionaires and billionaires.  I don't think the system needs to be pushed in a pro-business direction, or that it even needs to be pushed at all.

The vast majority of libertarians support libertarianism because they have little vision or something worthwhile to devote their time to, since they already occupy the upper echelons of society, it makes more sense for them to justify their position and increase their wealth by curbing government influence.

The same could be said of poor people supporting socialism, but poor people get sympathy easier than rich people, so go cry more.

>>20
quit whining, bitch

hjhgfghjgfd

Libertarians should be more pragmatic, less theoretical, ivory-tower and high-n'-mighty.

And let go of Ayn Rand's skirt. http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm

>>23
Libertarians hate Rand already you idiot

>>20
"Because letting the poor be poor and letting the hungry starve is in essence, unethical."

Inaction doesn't equate to action.  The rich are not responsible for taking care of the poor.  Each individual is responsible for taking care of himself.

"Libertarianism is so fucking air-tight because it has never been implemented in reality, because it is incongruent with human beings."

We had a more or less libertarian society in many parts of the USA for quite a long time, and to great success.  During this span of time, as Friedman said: 

'We didn't live in a paradise, but there is no period in human history in which the ordinary man -- the ordinary man -- had as great an improvement in his lot in life as in the nineteenth century in the United States when the government was of trivial importance.'  -Milton Friedman

The point is that it was not a pleasant time in history, no.  BUT- nowadays? We are standing on the shoulders of the people who came before us.  Our economy is already developed thanks to the industrial revolution and the capitalism that helped move things along and created progress.  Your mixed economy, if implimented back in the 18th and 19th centuries would not only not likely have worked, even if it did, it would have resulted in a far lesser standard of living for the people today than was the result of our chosing to go with the more individualistic system that we did.

"A political system that doesn't work with human beings and their psychological tendencies should really be ignored in favor of one that works, IE a mixed economy."

Mixed economies 'work'? I guess if enormous amounts of corruption, foreign intervention, and warfare statism equates to what 'works' in your mind, well fine. :)  Such are the consequences of abandoning libertarianism for your mixed economy you revere so dearly.

"Having little ethical grounding, they will seldom acknowledge how despite their "horrible, oppressive society of freeloading and government bureaucracy", they live in the freest, most luxurious, and nice country on earth.  Rather than bitch and moan about how "bad" we've got it, why not devote our energies to working harder, developing the sciences, and helping other human beings."

Our standard of living that we have right now is NOT because of the mixed economy.  Our standard of living is because we went through a few centuries of capitalism in the past.  Again, we are standing on the shoulders of our forefathers who lived in a libertarian society and provided what was necessary for us to have the standard of living we enjoy today.  Had we implimented a mixed economy to the extent that we have it now, do you think it would have provided the standard of living we have today in 1850? Get reasonable.  I am not saying we are worse off now than people were in 1850 - that isn't the argument.  If you still don't understand what is being argued, gb2 high school.

"Last I checked, in America, we have millionaires and billionaires.  I don't think the system needs to be pushed in a pro-business direction, or that it even needs to be pushed at all."

Removing regulations on business would likely allow smaller businessmen to compete with larger and already established businesses more effectively.  Allowing companies to establish themselves, grow large, and then establish all kinds of complex and often expensive regulatory measures and taxes is a recipe for punishing small businesses and eliminating competition for the millionaires and billionaires you despise so much.

>>25
"Removing regulations on business would likely allow smaller businessmen to compete with larger and already established businesses more effectively.  Allowing companies to establish themselves, grow large, and then establish all kinds of complex and often expensive regulatory measures and taxes is a recipe for punishing small businesses and eliminating competition for the millionaires and billionaires you despise so much."

If regulatory measures and taxes are really meant to prevent small businesses from competing with their larger corporate counterparts, it's only because the government allows itself to be a tool to the corporations who want to prevent small businesses from competing effectively with them. Preventing them from using it doesn't stop the richer, more powerful, larger businesses from having their way, it merely denies them a tool.
Removing regulations on business won't stop companies from buying each other, merging, and forming large conglomerates that own everything related to a field so that small businesses have no hope of competing, if anything it makes it easier.

>>25
"Inaction doesn't equate to action.  The rich are not responsible for taking care of the poor.  Each individual is responsible for taking care of himself."
If you ever catch on fire, I hope nobody pisses on you to put it out.

>Inaction doesn't equate to action.

Yes it does. If you drive by a car wreck and do nothing to help like call an ambulence, etc., that's pretty immoral.

>>28
Yeah, seriously, >>25 just proved what a immoral and unethical shithead he is. Thread over.

>>26
Libertarians will deny this on the nebulous "only government allows businesses to monopolize".  You're banging your head against a wall here.

I do agree with you though.

Our standard of living that we have right now is NOT because of the mixed economy.
Yeah, let's just ignore the past century and something, where we've had the biggest leaps in technology, education, life expectancy, infant mortality, basic science...

Next time you make a very BOLD assertion, think it over first, mmkay?

Also, I'd like to state that libertarian states are probably inherently unstable. If a large number of people in a democracy are pissed off, they vote. Or are you planning to force people to remain in a political system at the point of a gun? (tee hee, I mock thee)

How do you think today's society came about? God said "let it be so?"

>>28
You can say whatever the fuck you want, inaction does not equate to action.  In not taking an action to help other people, you are not taking an action that hurts them. 

>>28 & >>29
In debating libertarianism, you should also consider:  is it moral to use violence, force, or coercion to achieve ends that you percieve to be moral at the expense of other people?

For example, if one person has a lot of food, yet produced it legitimately and fairly without harming other people in the process, and another man who has nothing to do with person A is starving, is it moral for you to stick a gun to person A's head and force him to give his food to person B? Is it moral to vote to stick a gun to the head of person A?

>>26
Name me a single monopoly that has ever been formed without government intervention. 

>>31
If we had had a mixed economy of the sort that we have now for the last two or three hundred years, do you think we would be in the same situation, a worse situation, or a better situation?

>>36 rather than a generally capitalist economy, I mean to say.

Charity is good.  Extortion is bad.

>>36
Difficult to say. This isn't an experiment where we can just alter one variable. :(

However, if I go out on a limb, judging by what my colleagues in the pure sciences say, and the way that big pharma often behaves, I suspect we'd be worse off. We owe a great deal of out quality of life today to the sciences, which are being horribly gutted by market forces. The free exchange of information has been strangled in biology, and physicists and chemists just aren't getting any funding for blue-sky projects.

Also, the health of your parents and their education, as well as their parents also play a role. The uneducated and unhealthy don't leave much space for great leaps forward.

Also, I really ought to add that what worked in the past may not work today, and what works today may have not worked in the past.

The biggest asset people had a few hundred years ago was muscle. Today it's the mind. The situations are completely different.