27 April 2012

Quote for the day -- the freedom to suppress freedom

This is the best capsule summary of libertarianism I've seen:

"The Libertarian party line is that nothing calling itself 'the state' or 'the government' should be able to interfere with employers’ and landlords’ interference in the personal lives of those they control. Libertarians only 'support' marriage equality and reproductive freedom in that they think the ability to repress individual choice shouldn’t be handled by a representative government but should be devolved to property owners."

Commenter "M Groesbeck" here

6 Comments:

Blogger Ahab said...

I find libertarians annoying because they fail to realize that such polies would have disastrous effects in real life.

27 April, 2012 07:04  
Blogger Robert the Skeptic said...

Reminds me of the Yogi Berra quote: "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice."

As luck would have it, I just listened to an archived "This American Life" episode titled "Regime Change". Listen in particular to "Episode Two, Or Give Me Death". Synopsis: ... a band of libertarians with a plan to take over a state. They call it the Free State Project... They pick a state with a low population, 20,000 of them move to it, establish a voting majority, and run it according to libertarian principles.

27 April, 2012 16:42  
Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

A guy I know here in the neighborhood is a Libertarian, seem's to be really heavier than usual into it though, we just know each other from sharing gun talk and gun's and some politic's. He seem's to be heavy against government across the board as far as even having it for that matter, isnt very fond of thing's like social service's, welfare, etc, etc. Of course he is very confident, young and hadnt been in the same experience's or perhap's situation's like some or myself, and he's 30 year's old, make's a decent living, etc. Long story, but he's interesting to talk to.

Thanx for the read Infodell ....

27 April, 2012 18:07  
Blogger Tommykey said...

Robert, I've been wondering if that explains some of the weird legislation that has been submitted to the NH State Legislature recently.

About a dozen years ago I was in a libertarian phase and I used to complain about having to pay Social Security tax because I felt that if I could just diver the money into my own retirement account I could be a millionaire by now.

My dad died six years ago and my mom lost his pension because he foolishly selected the option to get a higher monthly payment that gets cut off if he dies rather than a lower payment that would have continued after his death. Social Security is one of my mom's two main sources of income. She is not in great shape physically or mentally even though she is only 76 and she would be in real trouble without Social Security.

27 April, 2012 19:30  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Absolutely right.

They don't object to oppressive and tyrannical power so long as it's in the hands of employers and not, thru the democratic state, in the hands of employees, consumers, students, etc.

Someone will decide the minimum wage, the work day, the work week, whether and when there is overtime pay, how safe the workplace is, how safe the product is.

They say you are free not when you get to decide these things thru representative government, but when your employer gets to decide them entirely on his own.

And you can take it and starve slowly or leave it and starve quickly.

That's American, rugged individualism and the philosophy of freedom.

28 April, 2012 05:45  
Blogger Shaw Kenawe said...

GSG's comment is something I've repeated to my "I Hate All Taxes and All Government" libertarian friends.

Representative government isn't always perfect, but I prefer something of a say in it rather than have a corporation make all my decisions for me.

28 April, 2012 12:00  

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