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Libertarianism - the absence of compassion?
I was intriguided by Rym's comment (I belive it was him) that he is a libertarian.
I used to be very libertarian. After all, the thought of our lives being free from government is appealing - on the surface. With age this has changed.
Let's take a drug user, for example...
Assuming (and it's a HUGE assumtion that I wouldn't concede otherwise) that he/she is only hurting themself with their drug addiction. A libertarian would say that it is their right to destroy themselves, and government has no business intervening in this decision.
I submit that this is actually a selfish notion... Why shouldn't we care about others? Don't we have some base level of morality that suggests that we should help others? If someone is destroying themself shouldn't we, as a society, try to prevent that? Sure... it's easier to bury our head in the sand - but is this moral? I submit that libertarianism in its true form is actually narcissistic.
To add more fuel to the fire - can a religous person be a libertarian in its truest form?
I used to be very libertarian. After all, the thought of our lives being free from government is appealing - on the surface. With age this has changed.
Let's take a drug user, for example...
Assuming (and it's a HUGE assumtion that I wouldn't concede otherwise) that he/she is only hurting themself with their drug addiction. A libertarian would say that it is their right to destroy themselves, and government has no business intervening in this decision.
I submit that this is actually a selfish notion... Why shouldn't we care about others? Don't we have some base level of morality that suggests that we should help others? If someone is destroying themself shouldn't we, as a society, try to prevent that? Sure... it's easier to bury our head in the sand - but is this moral? I submit that libertarianism in its true form is actually narcissistic.
To add more fuel to the fire - can a religous person be a libertarian in its truest form?
Comments
If you want to help drug users, and I do not,
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So would you agree with me that your form of libertarianism involves a lack of compassion?
As for charities:
I suppose I could throw a handful of colored tiles onto a wall and hope that it makes a picture.
I submit that charities usually have more of an agenda than government ever would.
("If you accept this drug counseling, you're going to have to pray to our God"; "We'll pay your rent this month - but you'll have to sell a kidney.")
With no oversight, you'd have examples of charities acting with hidden agendas. For example, a charity that is in the adoption business may counsel drug addicts to give up their children when the children are not at risk.
Yes, most people are good people. But the reality is that a minority are not. Do we just give them the keys to the kingdom?
I still haven't heard any argument that makes me believe that libertariansim is anything but a cop-out. (And trust me... I used to be libertarian.) I've just seen too many problems in this world for me to feel that we shouldn't work as a society to tackle.
For example, before we had drug laws roughly the same population was addicted to drugs as today - with 1/3 the population! Look at how well we were doing when we just left it up to "charities." It is no exageration to say that I have literally seen people die before my eyes due to drug addiction. I've seen children die due to neglect caused by drug addiction. How could you not want to see that end?
Like I said... I never used to care. But one day I realized that societies that don't care about their problems will never flourish.
Do I think government is the answer to everything? Absolutely not? But... I do think that there is middle-ground somewhere.
The last line should not have had a question mark after "Absolutely not" - in addition to the many other typos I shuold have corrected!
For example, before we had drug laws roughly the same population was addicted to drugs as today.
Doesn't that just prove that drug laws are stupid and useless? They've seemingly had absolutely no effect on the "problem," yet there are numerous examples of their causing problems in other arenas.
People should be able to choose whether or not they want to use drugs. If they make a poor choice, then they have to deal with the consequences. If they want help, they are welcome to seek it and people are welcome to provide it. Governments can provide social safety nets when their constituents consider them necessary. Governments can provide police and schools, as these are available to those who want them, work arguably toward the common good, and do not significantly infringe on the rights of those who choose not to partake.
Now, I said very specifically that I was a "libertarian with a lower-case L" on numerous occasions. I ascribe to the libertarian principles of freedom and self-determination, but I expect that a government will work toward the common good. I have no problem with a government using resources, at the bequest of the people, to provide assistance to drug addicts who desire help. My problem is when the government forces that help upon people, thus removing their freedom of choice.
If people are not allowed to make bad decisions, then they don't actually have the freedom to make decisions in the first place. The right to make poor decisions is the basis of a free society.
Lastly, libertarians correctly believe that the government is really slow, inefficient and mired in beaurocracy. Therefore, people like you and me doing good things is more efficient than the government doing it. A million dollars in tax money to help drug users will do far less than a million dollars used directly by people and charities. And yes, of course some charities are bad, but good charities are better than the government. And do you really want the government choosing charities for everyone? Let the crazy christians give to their causes and let us give to ours.
And yeah, I'm not a Libertarian as with the political party. A lot of their beliefs regarding freedom and capitalism I agree with, but they call for a much smaller government than even I would like.
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For example, before we had drug laws roughly the same population was addicted to drugs as today.
Doesn't that just prove that drug laws are stupid and useless? They've seemingly had absolutely no effect on the "problem," yet there are numerous examples of their causing problems in other arenas.
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Maybe you were confused by my point.
Prior to the drug laws, our country had 1/3 the population it does today. Despite this, the same NUMBER of people were drug addicts. Not percentage - the same number!
So yes... our drug laws have curtailed addiction, as measured per capita, tremendously.
I guess the fundamental flaw I see is that you are assuming two things:
1) That the choices of others (at least as far as drug addiction) do not harm others; and
2) One's "choice" to destory themself is a voluntary choice made after rational consideration of all the options.
I disagree with both of those propositions.
Which gets me back to my original point...
Is it really moral to say: "I've had privileges and I lead a good life, so why should I care about anyobody else?"
As for the charity vs. government issue... I do agree that government is often not the most efficient organization. I, however, would rather work on efficiency than depend on an unorganized patchwork quilt of services that may or may not be effective.
I never said that. People's decisions can harm others, and people can be punished/momentarily restrained in order to rectify this. You can't enact prior restraint, however, for in doing so you remove that person's right to make decisions. In that case, where's the line? Is someone not allowed to choose to smoke weed? Is someone not allowed to choose to eat at McDonald's? Is someone not allowed to choose to paint their house orange?
There are already laws in place to punish those who bring harm. If I choose to drink, that is not illegal, but I have assumed the risk of being drunk. If I kill a man while drunk, I am charged with the crime of murder or manslaughter, not with being drunk. Just because someone -might- kill someone while drunk is not rationale enough to ban drinking.
"One's "choice" to destory themself is a voluntary choice made after rational consideration of all the options."
So people don't have the right to act irrationally? If person A irrationally takes hallucinogenic drugs, and you wish to take away this right, then what of person B who acts irrationally in a board game, or person C who acts irrationally in buying an overpriced home? You can't outlaw irrationality in and of itself. You can only outlaw the consequences of such.
"Is it really moral to say: "I've had privileges and I lead a good life, so why should I care about anyobody else?"
Where have we said this? You seem to be assuming that people with libertarian ideals don't care.
I never said that. People's decisions can harm others, and people can be punished/momentarily restrained in order to rectify this.
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This is an incredibly simplistic view of the world.
For example, I've had many instances in my career when I see the destructiveness that is brought upon children.
I can assure you, that if you wait... and don't care at all about a person, and simply "punish" or "restrain" them when they are beating their kid because the kid wanted lunch money that would otherwise have been earmarked for drugs... there is already irreparable damage to that child. And there is absolutely no child-development expert that would disagree with this.
So I guess it's a personal choice - but I'd rather participate in a government that is willing to care for its citizens, even if that means making some morality decisions.
In short - "punishment" and/or "restraint" is not at all effective in solving some very serious problems. So time to think of another answer - unless you are willing to live in a world where (in my example) children have no chance of a future.
Now I suppose you can argue that "charities" can just step in and take care of this. But that gets me back to my argument that:
a) there has to be a threshold for morality; and
b) charities have their own agendas and any chartiable response would be an unorganized patchwork.
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So people don't have the right to act irrationally?
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If they are harming themselves - it is immoral to sit there and condone it.
If they are harming others - they absolutely do not have that right. (And see my above argument as to how just "punishing" in this case is an illusory solution.)
You stated earlier: "We can punish people for poor decisions that harm others, but only after the fact."
I'm, all for avoiding the harm in the first place - and that is the fundamental difference.
I'll be the first to admit that there is a grey area.... but that doesn't mean that you throw your hands up in the air and ignore everything.
We talked earlier about the danger of having an innocent go to jail. Would you then abandon the criminal justice system entirely? It's the same logic.
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"Is it really moral to say: "I've had privileges and I lead a good life, so why should I care about anyobody else?"
Where have we said this? You seem to be assuming that people with libertarian ideals don't care.
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Uh... when you say things such as this:
"If you want to help drug users, and I do not, why should the government force both of us to spend our money to help them?"
Yeah... that leaves the impression that you don't care. That's what this whole conversation was about - is it moral to have that attitude?
what is moral?
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I admitted that there is a grey area - and I don't begrudge anyone from debating what is moral within the grey area. My argument is that this does not entitle you to throw your hands up in the air for areas that are not grey.
Harm to a child is one of those areas. Even libertarians agree that government should protect against harming others. So if drug addiction in a home is proven to harm children (and it has been proven), what's so wrong with government trying to protect against this harm? (Whether it be educational programs, assisting access to mental health services, or whatever...)
Has there ever been a libertarian government of any legitimate size that has prospered?
I ask this because I truly don't know the answer.
Maybe it gives you the impression that I don't care, but you're wrong. In fact, because I am atheist I care more about people than anything else. The thing is that I care so much about people I want everyone to be happy and free. We seem to agree on life, but you seem to be against liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If it makes someone happy to drink, who are we to stop them? If someone likes bad movies, who are we to prevent them from watching them? There is nothing wrong with helping people. There is something wrong with hurting people, and there is something wrong with forcing people to do things against their will.
But in order to prevent this turning into an absurdly long debate,... I guess we'll just agree to disagree.
Here are a couple of websites that I just looked up that are worth a look:
http://www.spectacle.org/897/trust.html
http://www.theworld.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
They can probably debate this better than I ever could. (Although I wish I saw these when I started this debate!)
Geeks love libertarianism!:
http://www.theworld.com/~mhuben/pk-is-against-liberty.html
It's what I would have said if I only had a philosophy degree and a LOT of time on my hands.
It's spot on.
The essay I cited had a great argument as to that. Just a short quote:
The second fallacy is one that I personally refer to as the Libertarian Fallacy, since unlike the Revolutionary Fallacy it is specific to this branch of philosophy. It is popular with several subtypes of conservatives and most anarchists, as well as with Libertarians. It can be expressed as the idea that freedom is measured by absence of laws. Another way of stating it is that only the government can restrict your rights. (Some Libertarians strongly support this wording, saying that a law removes or restricts your rights, but a private entity can only infringe on your rights without changing them.) To me, this is an artificial double standard, which labels a restraint on your freedom by one outfit in a completely different way than the same restraint by a different outfit, because one has the label of "government" and the other does not. Indeed, much of the fabric of reasoning in Libertarianism is based on presuming that the government is uniquely unlike any other entity, and therefore must be judged by entirely different standards from how anything else is appraised.
To me, the question is how much power others have over you and how constrained your choice of actions is, not whether the constraint is by public action rather than private action. In the viewpoint of those who hold this fallacy, what matters is how free you are on paper, not how free you are in what choices are actually open to you right now in real life. According to this view, a destitute person with no public support is more free than one who gets some kind of pension or welfare, despite the fact that the latter is the one who can do many things that are closed off to the former.
Does the freedom of choice include suicide? Does it include the suicide of the entire human race due to mismanagement? To what extent does the pursuit of happiness triumph over the stability of the system in which we live? Kilarney seems to be arguing against the extremes because that's all you've presented in you arguments.
I can agree with an Opt-out society in principle, but really only in principle can I apply it universally. If you choose to opt out of publicly schooling your children, you run the risk of damaging them, possibly with intent if you want to keep them out of public school to fill their heads with junk and hate. There are things we cannot and should not be able to opt out of, and to a certain extent, drug treatment is one of those things. You shouldn't have to be forced to get treatment if you aren't harming others, but when you are harming yourself to the point that it harms others, you need to be treated. And private charities are prone to a poor choice of motives or devices, since they wouldn't face the freedom of the market in a charity, and those that would succeed best and make some kind of profit would probably be the most harmful.
Human beings might be mostly good, but the simple fact is that they are rarely completely competent. This is why large systems have waste in them, because humanity is not efficient. Evil is very simple in this regard, you just take advantage of the inefficiencies of the system to accumulate power or money, which has a large inertial weight to earn more power and money.
Edit: Can one of the mods or Kilarney change this thread to it's proper category: Flamewar?
If Government removed all regualtion on buisness, people would buy the cheapest not the most moral product. Maybe I'm just cynical due to my experiences with shit bosses but I think the arses of the world would use the free market to their advantage and srew the normal people royaly. Although that kind of happens now anyway.
On last night's show, Scrym complained about the system in New Jersey whereby you can pay extra $$$ to avoid points and a raise in insurance premium if you get a speeding ticket.
Huh?
New Jersey decides to build a small free market in their speeding ticket system and you guys are complaining? This is the only part of the system that gives the consumer (forget the debate on speeding laws - it's a red herring in this argument, especially since speeding is voluntary.) a choice - and you guys are complaining about that? Imagine the NJ driver who is about to lose his license - I am sure that they are very happy this choice is available. So please don't tell me that you are "libertarian" but against consumer choice.
As for the lawyers sending you mail... isn't that just an exercise of free speech in a free market? (again... the speeding ticket law is a red herring.... those lawyers didn't do anything to make sure you got a speeding ticket.) Or do you envision a libertarian world where telemarketers magically stop calling because the "market" won't like it? I guess it's bad if the government tells telemarketers that they can't call my home if I sign up for a no-call list, but it's fine if telemarketers call me against my will at 11pm when there is no government restriction on tele-marketing. Quite arbitrary, wouldn't you agree? It's bad if the government takes away a freedom, but perfectly fine if a corporation takes away a freedom.
You keep bringing up specific issues, putting words in my mouth, and then arguing against the straw man. If you want to argue any of those individual points, then so be it, but it seems that you just keep changing the frame of the debate in order to always be on the offensive.
To hit all of your "points:"
Most of the factors involved in the speeding issue have nothing to do with the court system itself. Car insurance is NOT a free market. It is compulsory in most of the United States. Consumers do not have a choice to opt out, nor can they seek all available options. Choosing to pay the fine forces you to now purchase expensive insurance in addition to it. Fighting the ticket costs roughly the same amount. Whether by design or chance, the system is such that an innocent person and a guilty person both pay the same amount, while a person who asserts his innocence and loses in court stands to pay substantially more than if he had just plead guilty in the first place.
The lawyers are well within their rights to mail us their offers. We are well within our rights to complain about it and/or take whatever actions permissible by law we desire against them for it. At no point did we advocate the government stepping in and preventing them from sending us those letters, barring proof that these letters were themselves part of a larger network that could be considered under existing law racketeering.
The do-not-call list is a perfect example of everything I want. The following is an analysis of the issue:
The freedom at stake was the right of corporations to contact non-customers for commercial purposes. The risk of this freedom is that corporations may contact people who do not desire this. The cost of this freedom is the annoyance of said customers and the interruption of their personal time.
The risk of abridging this freedom is that a corporation may no longer be able to contact any person it desires. The cost of abridging this freedom is a clear, specific limitation of a corporation's right to freedom of speech. The cost of abridging this freedom is also a possible loss of revenue for said corporations.
Additionally, a benefit of abridging this freedom is the reduction of previously rampant exploitation of the elderly. (There were countless cases of telemarketers convincing the elderly and/or feeble minded to purchase unnecessary services. They or their relatives would now have the ability to shield them from this.) This benefit is irrespective of the man body of my argument; I only include it to note that in some cases the limitation of a freedom can have benefits, and those can be considered in the analysis.
The vast majority of Americans decided that the risks and costs of abridging this specific freedom were far outweighed by the benefits of doing so. Thus, the freedom was, as it should have been, limited.
So stop arguing against silly straw men. Libertarianism is nothing more than a set of ideals, just like any other set of ideals. It's just a label, and the actual situations therein are far more complicated than you make them out to be.
Remember... I wanted to put this thread to bed a couple of days ago!
It seems to me that you agree that certain freedoms have to be abridged if the benefit outweighs the detriment.
So it just goes back to my original argument (that I DON'T want to get into again) that it's best for a democracy to decide where that line is drawn. If left up to individuals, chaos will ensue. Just my two cents - that's turned into $1.15!