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Do libertarians inadvertently enable fascism?

Do libertarians inadvertently enable fascism?

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 14.0%
  • Probably

    Votes: 2 4.7%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 7 16.3%
  • Probably not

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 28 65.1%
  • Don't know

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    43
Galt - nobody is telling you to love it or leave it. All I am saying is that if somebody does not like the situation here and objects loudly to it with very little chance of getting what they want, perhaps they should exercise their freedom of choice and try to do better elsewhere.

Would you have said the same thing to abolitionists in 1800? In 1800, there were as many abolitionists as there are libertarians now. And every abolitionist in 1800 would have very little chance of actually getting what they want in their own lifetime. Should they simply move?

You're saying that just because I don't fall into the mainstream, I should leave.
 
Why do you think they bail out the businesses in the first place? It is not because there is nothing explicitly preventing them from doing so, even if there was that wouldn't stop them.

That's where the second Bill of Rights would come in. The whole idea behind the Bill of Rights is that they can never be touched or altered.
 
Would you have said the same thing to abolitionists in 1800? In 1800, there were as many abolitionists as there are libertarians now. And every abolitionist in 1800 would have very little chance of actually getting what they want in their own lifetime. Should they simply move?

You're saying that just because I don't fall into the mainstream, I should leave.

First, I honestly have no idea what I would have said to anybody back in 1800.

Second, how do you know the number of libertarians and abolitionists are about the same?

Third, leave or stay as you see fit.
 
First, I honestly have no idea what I would have said to anybody back in 1800.

Second, how do you know the number of libertarians and abolitionists are about the same?

Third, leave or stay as you see fit.

You mean, love it or leave it.

Second, the number of abolitionists in 1800 was VERY SMALL. They didn't enter the mainstream until about the 1840s.
 
I say what I mean and I mean what I say. It would greatly further discussion if you did not interpret my words, twist my words, or attempt to change my words from what I wrote.
 
I guess, what you're saying in the OP is that in a libertarian state, the government would be so weak, that it would be subject to overthrow or corruption by other powerful interests.

Beyond question, IMHO. The historical playbook for radical usurpers has always included weakening the existing state.

My response is that a libertarian government still has all of mechanisms needed for it to work. It still has police, a military, and courts.

So did every government overthrown in history. Clearly it takes more than the mere existence of institutions to defend them from usurpation.

The state is still fully capable of putting down unrest.

Only unrest by the general population. To my knowledge, there has never been a case in history where a coup undertaken by economic elites in a state with extreme wealth inequality failed to succeed. The Business Plot against FDR only failed because it was exposed before the coup could be attempted, and even then - despite the impeccability of the witness - no one was ever prosecuted for it. The only way to head off such conspiracies is to keep inequality under control so that the power-value of money does not destabilize the state.

My point is, I don't see how all the extra stuff you want to add on, like entitlements, welfare, and other programs, would add to the stability and prevent fascism.

On the one hand, it denies potential usurpers a populist angle - tyrants from Caesar to Hitler have greatly benefited from the vast poverty in their societies. On the other, progressive taxation, jobs programs, and infrastructure spending keep a significant portion of the economy subject to democratic mechanisms, thereby counter-balancing the power of private wealth. Freedom is all about balance of power, not merely its absence.
 
I say what I mean and I mean what I say. It would greatly further discussion if you did not interpret my words, twist my words, or attempt to change my words from what I wrote.

"leave or stay as you see fit."

Would anyone else like to defend Haymarket's argument?
 
I do not need anyone to defend my statement. There is nothing to defend... or attack. You are a free citizen to leave this land or to stay her as you see fit. That is not an opinion, but a fact and as such needs no defense.
 
Right: "America -- LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT."
 
I do not need anyone to defend my statement. There is nothing to defend... or attack. You are a free citizen to leave this land or to stay her as you see fit. That is not an opinion, but a fact and as such needs no defense.

"There are no walls keeping you or anyone here against their will if you do not like that arrangement."

So, you leave me with two options. I can leave, or I can stay under the current arrangement. Or, as the Tea baggers might say: "Love it or leave it."

Where's the option that lets me stay to try and change the arrangement?
 
"leave or stay as you see fit."

Would anyone else like to defend Haymarket's argument?
This is what falls out of one's mouth when they have completely run out of legitimate criticisms. According to my program, ad hominem is up to bat next. :popcorn:
 
Coronado... I am willing to bet you know nothing of what is next. Or do you have skills to predict the future? The lottery numbers that win tomorrow would be a nice demonstration of those skills.

Galt - if you stay, of course you are free to exercise your rights as a citizen. Why would you not?
 
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Galt - if you stay, of course you are free to exercise your rights as a citizen. Why would you not?

Shouldn't I be asking you that question, since you only left me with two options?
 
it looks like we both agree

I never said stay and you have no rights
 
it looks like we both agree

I never said stay and you have no rights

But you only gave me two options to choose from: Leave, or stay under the current arrangement. It sounds an awful lot like the leave-it-or-love-it sentiment.
 
Okay - I watched it - all 11:20 of it. Before I invest more limited time from my limited life, what am I suppose to get from this?

Where is Boaz speaking and who is he speaking to?
 
You have addressed nothing.

I'm sorry, but we don't seem to be reading the same thread.

All you have are things you suppose and things you conjecture. You haven't provided one iota of proof.

You need proof that it's easier to overthrow a weak government whose people have little contact with it or interest in its survival? Frankly, I started this thread as an opportunity for Libertarians to explain how their approach to governance would not create such a situation. Some Libertarians have responded constructively, albeit unconvincingly. You, however, have not: You insist that I prove straightforward logic and common sense to be correct, like insisting I demonstrate that 2 + 2 = 4. I've been debating long enough to know where this leads: Nothing I can possibly say will be sufficient. I am not interested in games. If you feel my analysis lacks perspective, you are welcome to provide it, and I've invited you to do so many times now. You have declined the invitation, and instead just deny, deny, deny. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

But you have NEVER addressed libertarian philosophy.

Indeed, I only address libertarian reality.

There is nothing else in this world that has improved the livelihood of so many people than a more open market.

This is too broad a statement to meaningfully address. "More open" than what? Furthermore, markets are just tools - used or configured improperly, they are harmful: Political corruption, monopolism, gangsterism, and pollution are all consequences of the market. Political liberty and human rights, however, are not - the concepts arose in areas of early civilization where wealth was hardly overflowing.

it is the actions of millions of people facilitating mutual aid, out of self interest.

Again, you are speaking definitively about highly circumstantial processes. The circumstances under which self-interest compromises collective interest far outnumber those where it facilitates mutual aid - the laws of every society on Earth recognize this as an easily-demonstrable fact. Markets have to be configured for their outcomes to serve the general prosperity, and even then they are not a panacea: Just one particular process with its own advantages and disadvantages.

But that isn't true, no self respecting libertarian would argue that, it's hyperbole.

Then your standards of "self-respect" are very exclusive, because I run into that argument all the time among self-described libertarians. They make categorical statements to the effect that higher taxes mean less revenue and lower taxes mean more revenue - ipso facto, that zero taxation would yield maximum revenue. There is no specific analysis involved in their position, they simply hold it as an article of faith that whatever the current tax rate is, reducing it would yield a superior economic result. Supply-side economics is more religion than science.

Libertarianism is a smaller, logically and rationally implemented government.

But notice how you stipulate "smaller" separately from "logically and rationally implemented government." The part about reducing its size does not come from any specific analysis about systemic requirements, it is pure ideology - an end in itself. Whatever follows from that end, libertarians would deem it a good thing by definition. That is not "logical" or "rational" by any stretch of the imagination. That is substituting the Law of the Jungle for human morality.

Cato documents, practically, all the stances they take with fact based evidence.

The last report of theirs I read was about two years ago, and the "fact-based evidence" it cited was essentially what I mention above - the categorical, absolute position that taxes should not be increased, and should be decreased. I will gladly examine any Cato report you're aware of that advocates raising a tax. Surely a legitimate think tank would have found some occasion in all the years of its existence to support increasing some tax somewhere?

Libertarians laugh at the idea that they consider the free market a "godhead"

Right, it's just an "invisible hand" that must not be desecrated by impure forces (i.e., government), and if respected and sacrificed to will deliver bounty and prosperity to its deserving adherents and righteous punishment to the non-believers. But it's not a deity. :lol:

but there are those who certainly consider it a near-supernatural devil.

And those people would be a serious concern if this were 1950, but today's concerns all revolve around the unchecked concentration of private wealth and corporate power over American politics.

The free market is the most voluntarily cooperative system ever devised by man.

Here we encounter one of the central fallacies of libertarianism - that markets are voluntary. It starts from this premise, and then derives the idea that poor people choose to be poor, and those who accumulate wealth have ipso facto earned it. Most people are not voluntary participants in market transactions - they pay the profit-maximizing price set by the seller, and accept the profit-maximizing salary their employer chooses to give them. They have near zero individual leverage. Only collectively do they achieve any degree of leverage, but that usually requires some level of legal protection and facilitation.

Perhaps you can name a Fascist regime under which the government was limited.

No one is claiming Fascist government is limited, and nor am I saying that the problem with libertarianism is that it imposes limits per se: Simply that its bizarre Freudian obsession with size yields a weak government, a population with minimal knowledge of or contact with that government, minimal public loyalty or interest in defending it (since it does so little for them), and minimal resistance to elite usurpers who would already dominate people's lives as employers and controllers of resources.
 
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Troubadour, one thing I do not understand is how a society that does have things like police, lack of corporate favoritism, and a military is any more likely to devolve into Fascism than any other system? I can see the need for some social welfare stuff, but after reading through this thread, I cannot understand why we need big government to protect us from bigger government.
 
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