If you are a Libertarian and hold liberty as your core value, why do you not believe in universal healthcare? Nothing impacts liberty more than sickness and death.
Libertarians don’t give a flying fuck about liberty. It is an authoritarian movement that aims to eliminate any force standing in the way of their organizing society into a rigid hierarchy predicated upon wealth. A government that is answerable to the people is a countervailing force against the formation (or re-formation I suppose) of such a system. That was indeed the whole reason such a government was invented in the first place.
I don't think it's quite so organized as this mindset leads to extremely self-absorbed and selfish people who arent good at organizing en masse. Multiple times now, libertarians have tried to form their own communities on land and sea and it always falls apart once they actually try to form the communities as it just turns into government rules and taxes like we have now. They don't even want to live by their own group's authority.
I'm really upset that the coinbro boat didn't actually get to set sail. That article was insane. Reading it was like watching a pilot episode to one of the finest shows ever conceived, then learning the show got canceled.
Libertarians are political extremists who hate anything related to the government but don't care about being oppressed by private businesses, or they think that it simply won't happen in their utopia. Libertarians are everything they hate about the woke left, only applied to the government.
My anecdotal experience is 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires' lean Libertarian and imagine they'll be young and healthy until they're old and wealthy.
This is a bit of a loaded question and very poorly written. Bad troll is bad.
The problem stands that modern "Libertarians" have been corrupted by corporations and conservative bigots to mean "elimination of government and regulation" and not "government to uphold liberty" like it originally did. A correctly Libertarian government would write laws that solely uphold the power of the individual's self determination, which inherently requires restriction of the power of capital.
I consider myself Libertarian, but I feel there now has to be a distinction made between "Capital Libertarians" and "Individual Libertarians". One wants the liberty of capital, the other wants the liberty of the individual. I find myself in the latter. Corporations can go fuck themselves, the individual is paramount.
"Socialist" things like public infrastructure, and yes, public healthcare, would be supported by individual libertarianism. Social support structures like these support individual liberty but restrict capital liberty by requiring taxes to support them, whereas supporting capital liberty by making it "pay as you go" does nothing but remove the individual liberty of the population that finds themselves without any capital through no fault of their own. I absolutely support universal healthcare.
A capital libertarian government would not fund public roads. You would need to pay a toll to drive on every privately built road, because your capital is free to move. But roads to certain places would cost more than others, thus restricting the individual's liberty to their ability to pay.
A individually libertarian government funds public roads. Individuals then retain the right to self-determination to decide where they want to go without restriction. How they go on those roads might be subject to their capital restrictions- whether they walk, bike, drive, rollerskate, or whatever. But they are at least allowed to use those roads.
Certain things will always be needed in our society for humans to function. If humans are not functioning correctly, they are not free to self-determine their path. Gating such a simple thing as healthcare, which again, humans absolutely need to function, behind the ability to pay is inherently restricting their individual liberty in an immoral way.
100% Libertarianism originated as a left wing movement in the 19th century. Right wing libertarianism didn't ooze out of the swamp till nearly a century later. In the mid 20th century. Post red scare when actual leftist were keeping their heads down due to fascist witch hunts. And unable to really call out the posers.
Real libertarians don't have a problem with government. They just believe that it should be focused on maximizing freedom, and access to it. Where the larpers are all about maximizing their personal freedom (privilege) and don't care if others have access.
"Left wing", and "right wing" are far too nebulous to really have any continuous historical use. Even in current parlance they are borderline useless terms.
This is probably where I align economically, but I support statist mandates that are inconsistent with "individual libertarianism" or "civil libertarianism."
For example, we should decriminalize drug use, but there should absolutely be a strong statist intervention where people are forced to stop using drugs.
I feel there now has to be a distinction made between “Capital Libertarians” and “Individual Libertarians”.
You might be interested in Isaiah Berlin's "Two Concepts of Liberty".
Basically, there is no absolute thing called "liberty", because anything you do changes the material world and the state of the material world also shapes what you're able to do. So you can't talk about simply "liberty", and must always describe it in terms of those two relationships. What Berlin calls "freedom to" and "freedom from".
For instance, I might consider my liberty to mean that I have the "freedom to" shoot a gun in the air. My neighbors might consider their liberty to mean that they have the "freedom from" falling bullets.
We can't create a policy which guarantees both "freedom to" and "freedom from" for all people. But we can create a policy that guarantees both for some people. We just have to allow that some people get to enjoy both the rights and the protections, while other people lack the rights and must suffer the consequences of others' actions.
And that might be why the contemporary conservative version of so-called "libertarianism" plays so well with a notion of a superior social class, whether that's economic, religious, or racial. You can invoke the word "liberty" in support of your attempts to bully others, and then you can invoke it again as a protection against others' attempts to bully you.
Famous libertarian Friedrich Hayek supported universal basic income. As a libertarian myself, I always ask myself: “Will this make people more free?” If the answer is yes, then I support it because that’s what true libertarianism is. In the case of UBI and universal healthcare, both of those would unequivocally make people more free. People will be more free to choose a profession they like rather than one that merely keeps a roof over their heads. America already has a form of limited universal healthcare. It just happens to be restricted to the military and maybe some other government servants. Those members don’t have to worry about their healthcare and it allows them to focus their attention on more important matters, as their healthcare needs are met. Clearly the government has seen that universal healthcare is beneficial.
The sovereign citizens and the right wingers masquerading as Libertarians have given the ideology a bad name.
I recently got out of the military and it's been a complete shock how bad the private healthcare system is. So much red tape, so many charges, so much money being spent on both ends: to the insurance company, again to the insurance company (copays), and then to the provider when the insurance company won't cover things.
With Tricare? "Hey doc, I need this med for my migraines." "Alright, here you go." No charge.
The American health system is a complete scam keeping people under the boot of their employers and of the for-profit insurance companies.
If anarchists are often misunderstood I'd imagine libertarians even more so. Both philosophies advocate for the lack of a state, splitting between preference towards the community/collective vs individual, and are often misinterpreted to mean every thing the state does or should provide today can't exist without it.
American "Libertarians" consider liberty as self-sufficiency, not just freedom from a government, but from being required to contribute to society as a whole.
Or they delude themselves into thinking everyone will pay their fair share voluntarily, forgetting that rich people exist who don't give a fuck about the common good.
Libertarians want freedom from government force. They want to be able to fund healthcare by choice. They want the freedom to not have taxes being used to send weapons oversees. Libertarians are for social and economic freedom.
I'm not sure what you are implying. An individual can pay for insurance or not. They are free to choose. Or they can pay for the entire cost upfront when problems arise.
Just going to the doctor for the first time at say 30 (imagining you started working at 20 but "decide" to not pay taxes) would cost you houndred of thousands of missed back pays before you get let into the building.
Is that your libertarian thing? Or do you think you just would never go to the doctor/hospital/dentist/need an ambulance ride, ... ?
Libertarians are, to an individual, categorical idiots who don’t seem to have the mental capacity to seriously and rigorously analyze and understand what a true “free-for-all” hypercapitalist society would imply. They just want to not pay taxes.
Yeah, but libertarians are antisocial asshole idiots by simple virtue of the fact that they think libertarianism is a viable concept. It’s just not, nor will it ever be going forward.
I can put it another way: I find the ideology offensive and societally caustic in the extreme. We do not live in a vacuum. We live in a society (in a literal sense - not going for the meme here). To pretend that we don’t is incredibly dumb.
It’s not really about liberty, it’s about freedom from taxes and consequences. They don’t get far enough in the reasoning to understand that they would benefit.
But I'm 20 and healthy, why should I have to pay for healthcare for mrs. sickey over there? Did she even try being born without a chronic illness? Doubt it.
It's a theory that in reality already mostly doesn't exist. You can hire a range of body guards, personal security people, bounty hunters, and self-proclaimed bad asses to fuck people up.
...the more money you have the more connected you are, the more stuff like that you can do.
NAP is a theory that requires people with money "respect" rather than chilling in the forts they've already built in this system, let alone a more free market one.
NAP is a pipedream Libertarians have circle jerks about but like most of their theories would be utter vaporware in practice.
If say, a socialist argued that the average Russian in 1960 was better off than in 1880, and while technology played a positive role, so did the political system, then wt:thon would be arguing that socialism—at least that variant—has profited the average Russian more than monarchy—at least that variant.
and please answer the questions in my previous post, regardless on how it's probable that neither of us have enough information and knowledge to answer something so hypothetical, with a great amount of authority.
The term "libertarian" has been hijacked in the anglophone-world (starting in the US, of course) to essentially just mean "fundamentalist capitalist" - they are right-wingers who have been immunized from reality and mindlessly support only "liberty" as it applies to private corporations and their interests. Therefore, it shouldn't surprise anyone that you can find these (so-called) "libertarians" anywhere you find neo-nazis and the KKK.
In the non-anglophone world, the term libertarian still holds it's original meaning - a socialist... or, more specifically, an anarchist.
"Libertarian" became popular in the US when it started being incorporated into various science fiction novels. Probably the most famous is "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress." I love the book as science fiction, but the society the author creates depends on so many caveats that even the author has the old style 'free' system fall apart as soon as an actual government [as opposed to prison regulations] is formed.
“Libertarian” became popular in the US when it started being incorporated into various science fiction novels.
They got their que from right-wing economic grifters like Rothbard and Hayek - people whose beliefs wouldn't be out of place in Nazi Germany. That's why olden days US sci-fi writing was a festering hole of fascism - nothing else could have produced people like Heinlein.
Heinlein was a huge friend to Philip K. Dick, and any number of Jewish science fiction writers. He was one of the first writers to have an African woman as a hero, one of the first to have a transman character. Stop using the word 'fascist' for anyone on the Right. It dilutes the term.
No, really, liberal - where the fuck do you see anything that can be called left with a straight face contesting anything in the formal political establishment?
Or is it just that you got your cartoonish and Reagen-esque idea of what left and right even means from hysterical liberals and fascists on CNN and Fox news?
you just fabricated your idea of what the other dude thinks in that second paragraph.
No, I didn't. If you think there's anything "leftist" about the formal political establishment it indicates a very specific form of brain-rot that is childishly easy to trace to the mass misrepresentation of political concepts one can easily find simply by turning on a television. Both liberals and their fascist fellow-travellers suffer from this brain-rot... and it's symptoms are perfectly predictable.
I don't think they're fascist, just selfish in most cases. They take the "me" in "Don't tread on me" too literally, and only care about their own rights and their own needs, fuck everyone else's.
Their Venn diagram of "Things the government should provide/allow people to do" and "Things I personally need/want to do" is just a circle, and they won't lift a finger to try to shape the government to work well for anyone else.
One of the vilest messiahs of US "libertarianism," Murray Rothbard, associated with Holocaust deniers and argued for the pig to be allowed to torture suspects (not people convicted of anything - suspects).
If your roots are fascist, you are fascist. US "libertarianism" is about as fascist as Heinrich Himmler.
Probably 99% of self described libertarians don't know anything about that, or actual libertarian rhetoric in general, they just want to smoke weed and not pay taxes for stuff that doesn't personally benefit them and they think that's what libertarianism is
Now that lemmy is overflowing with liberals - people who get their ideas of what political concepts actually mean from CNN and "Law & Order" reruns - I am constantly having to deal with people who don't know where the ideologies they cling to come from. or even means in reality.
So I guess these (supposed) "libertarians" isn't alone in that regard.
Rothbard was one of the foremost proponents of the pseudo-psychology known as praxeology. Rothbard viewed property rights as paramount to freedom and so went even beyond von Mises, who was a minarchist, in advocating anarcho-capitalism. He was also known as a big critic of fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve. Because of his philosophy, he held many views that would be seen as progressive as well as ones that were misguided. For example, he voiced support for the civil rights movement,[note 1] but also defended the practice of child labor, "racialist science,"[2] and that "cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment."[3] Also, despite his initial vocal support for revolutionary black power politics, he later worked with Lew Rockwell, founder and then president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, to run a campaign strategy to exploit racism in order to build a libertarian/paleoconservative coalition (dubbed Paleolibertarianism),[4] and praised the notorious work by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve.[5] He was known as the first anarcho-capitalist.
Benito later followed his mother into school-teaching and became politically active as a democratic socialist. He was a very prominent member of the Italian Socialist Party in the years prior to World War I.[18] He edited several socialist papers and also wrote a satirical novel, The Cardinal's Mistress, which was poorly written and mostly served as a vehicle for numerous anti-clerical rants.[19][20]
Apparently Rothbard wasn't as bad as Himmler, but he was bad enough.
You no more have to be a disciple of Rothbard, Rand, or Hoppe to be a libertarian, anymore than you have to be a tankie to be leftist, however tankies might say otherwise.
Of course not - the likes of Rothbard or Rand will never be caught dead close to the mass-graves their ideological grifting helped to dig.
anymore than you have to be a tankie to be leftist
I make a hard distinction between leftists and political racketeers masquerading as leftists right until they get the power they crave. I place everything spawned by the Bolsheviks in the latter category.
There is nothing unique or new about this distinction.
They don't want to pay taxes because they don't like how government uses taxes and don't trust the government to do a good job. Plus, it's an additional layer of bureaucracy at the top which costs more money and is less efficient.
That graph is relating cost of healthcare to quality. Not necessarily comparing cost of countries with universal healthcare to America. Additonally, most of the healthcare spending in America is already by the government and look how that's going. America is also significantly larger than any of those countries listed. Overseeing healthcare for a country so large requires way more overhead.
Every graph of healthcare costs vs privatisation with the US in it is necessarily a comparison between private and public healthcare systems since most countries have single payer as most of their healthcare.
The US government healthcare programs are by far the most cost effective offering in the US but it's hampered by regulations such as not having the ability to negotiate prices (until the recent tiny concession on a handful of drugs that has paid off in spades).
Finally, other large countries including India and China may have lower life expectancy, but they're close and rising rapidly compared the stagnant US trends. Of course the bang for the buck they get is at least 5x what the US gets with its ridiculous system
Libertarians only care about 2 things: lowest taxes possible and legal weed, and they would gladly sacrifice the latter in favor of the former. Anything else is nothing more than lip service.
Universal healthcare means taxes, and that is the one thing Libertarians hate above all. Never mind that it would be cheaper than private insurance. They relish in the fact they can skip buying insurance, and if they get hurt, ERs are required to treat them anyway.
I think there are roughly three subgenres of libertarian; the two you identify (wants hierarchy with warlords and wants public heroin use without jail time) but then there is also a third group that has focused a lot of rage on age of consent laws for some reason.
Libertarian care about maximizing social and economic liberties. Liberty being defined as freedom from authority. Taxes are forced on citizens so libertarians generally want to limit taxes to a minimum. I see no reason to believe that universal healthcare would be cheaper than insurance. The government is an inefficient monopoly where private insurance companies have to compete for the lowest rates.
Profit margins are to keep a company out of debt and ensure it can grow as technology advances. Government would still need to pay employees and keep up with tech. But your right, government does need to avoid debt because it can just print money but that leads to inflation. There is no way to make cost just disappear.
You want to maximize liberty, but have a funny way of showing it. Libertarians vote for the most authoritarian they can, as long as they will cut taxes. Even if that means banning abortion, keeping marijuana prohibition, forcing religion on children in schools, supporting civil forfeiture, preventing people from choosing sustainable energy, and so much more.
As has famously been said, taxes are the price we pay for civilized society. The non-aggression principle I believe is absolute bullshit. Libertarian would happily screw over anyone, claiming they are simply exercising their personal liberty. They couldn’t care any less about the well being of anyone else but themselves. Absolute barbarians if you ask me. Personally, I’m happy to get good services for my taxes, and not see my money go to a greedy asshole CEO. Sure, politicians are also greedy assholes, but at least the people can vote them out.
It would cost less because a single entity, costing much less overhead. Also, a single entity would have far more buying power. Almost every doctor would have to accept them, eliminating out-of-network costs. And we wouldn’t have hundreds of overpaid executives that pat themselves on the back with multimillion dollar bonuses for denying sick people coverage. And we can see it in action. Most industrialized countries already have some form of universal healthcare, and they all cost less per capita. People that actually have universal healthcare generally love it. And don’t talk to me about waiting lists. I’ve been on plenty of waiting lists right here, and lots of people can’t even get on them because they can’t afford the care they need.
Competition simply does not work in the healthcare market. When people are sick, they are limited typically to one option. And it has inelastic demand, so changing prices don’t change demand, and thus hospitals and doctors can charge whatever. The system, built on the economic principles libertarians espouse, is god-awful.
How is having numerous private companies all concerned with billing in any way efficient? Imagine if everyone was covered and the money and time and intelligence used to decide how much they pay and how much you pay went towards actual healthcare. The whole existence of health insurance is an inefficiency.
Used to think I was libertarian. But now I think it's too absolute of an ideal to be any good for humanity. I definitely think free healthcare, housing, food, and education should be guarenteed for everyone.
Your comment precisely expresses my attitude. When it came up i used to say that I was fiscally conservative and social liberal. A Libertarian.
But the older I get the more I realize that Libertarianism isn't the fiction of Atlas Shrugged. There are many people of great worth that cannot be Dagny Taggart or Howard Roark.
Rand failed to take into account that the allure of increasing wealth subverts many bright creators into becoming resource vampires that in turn become oppressors. Ayn Rand would have loved Mark Zuckerberg's rise through intelligence and hard work, but what would she think of what he's ultimately built and what it's done to society?
Real people aren't as altruistic has her characters.
I think we read different books if you think her characters were altruistic. I remember her specifically calling out altruism as a sin (compared to the virtue of selfishness).
I agree. The world requires way to much subtlety to function well for everyone for single truth ideas and ways of doing things to work at large scales.
I don't think being downvoted for answering the question in good faith should happen, but I do see a few bad faith answers that absolutely should be downvoted
I consider myself a libertarian and I believe in free healthcare. I think certain industries should not be run for profit. It creates perverse incentives that harm the common man. For example healthcare.
If there's a profit incentive in bealthcare, there is incentive for drug companies or hospitals to raise their prices. This would mean less people getting treatment or more people in medical debt.
Another industry I think shouldn't be for profit is education. We want an educated population. It should be encouraged, so it should be free for anyone who wants it.
In my view, libertarianism is a perspective that the government should interfere with the personal liberties of the individual as little as possible.
Every single government action should be heavily scrutinized and challenged. Some actions are justified. For example regulating healthcare I think is justified. You are taking away the liberty of starting a hospital - but the benefits outweigh the costs.
I believe that cooperatives should be encouraged if not explicitly mandated for large companies.
I think to Chomsky's conception of anarchism. Look at all hierarchies of power and challenge them. Some are justified - the power a father has over his child. Some are not - the power a cash advance place has over their customer base.
I think governments often make mistakes and through heavy handed actions end up screwing the average person. By dramatically limiting government action, you help prevent this.
There's examples that swing both ways of a government being benevolent and self serving. The more likely outcome is the government being self serving. I personally anticipate every government to eventually go that route. For instance Agustus and a few following Roman emperor's had set a good example. But once corruption had set its teeth within the government it became incredibly difficult to be a "good" emperor. Not impossible but discouraged.
So yeah. Just because there's good examples doesn't mean you shouldn't be cautious even in their cases. Enjoy the prosperity and encourage it but do have a Killswitch of sorts just in case
There are benevolent kings every once in a while. Doesn't mean monarchy is a good system in the long term. Nordic countries have some of the highest wealth inequalities in the world. They keep the working class content with the programs and benefits. They have been able to afford it up to now, but the system is straining.
In the long term they cannot sustain this and we see it with their indicators slowly falling over time to match other Western European countries.
French & UK citizens are not fans of their government.
Less power the government has unnecessarily, the better. Doesn't mean the government shouldn't have power, just we need a mentality that we always need to be trimming the fat.
You just described a somewhat progressive leaning liberal.
You believe that the government should stay our of our homes, socially. Progressives have been leading that charge for decades, and moderates have been on board for a while now.
You believe in universal Healthcare and income. Those are very progressive ideals. Those are about as anti libertarian as it gets, because they take away a lot of "individual" freedom, because to fund that, roughly half of your income will need to go to taxes. Maybe more, I haven't looked at the numbers in a long time, but plenty of current examples to pick from.
You believe in industrial regulation to combat bad actors when necessary. That is a general liberal ideal.
Nothing besides keeping the government away from your personal life is even marginally libertarian. And that's pretty much the only overlap between libertarianism and liberalism.
It seems like you have an interesting definition of liberty. Liberty (to me) is freedom from authority. Libertarians core value is not having government force individuals to do anything. If people want to opt into a universal healthcare private system they are free to do so (kind of like insurance). A big motivation for this is lack of trust in government to handle the job well. Libertarians see government as inherently prone to corruption and thus want to limit their power as much as possible. The extent to which a given libertarian wants to limit government varies. By appointing government authorities to the system the cost of everything rises as in addition to health care you also have to pay the government workers who oversee the system and it's not very efficient. Not to mention politicians get to decide how much money goes to these programs etc etc. do you really want politicians involved in your health? With all the inefficiency and corruption in politics why do you trust them to handle your health?
Damn, you'd have to be completely brain dead to still believe anything is more efficient than single payer healthcare. The US has the worst outcomes for the highest cost in terms of life expectancy. Same with roads, utilities, schools etc... the more you privatise the more expensive things get for a lower quality product.
A well regulated, competitive market is good for many things, but for others it's atrocious. An unregulated market has never produced good outcomes on any scale larger than the board of directors.
If you're seriously summarizing the libertarian agenda then I can't believe any one over 14 could hold these ideas unless they were VERY sheltered from reality.
If you want a healthy discussion, you need better arguments.
Competition is inherently meaningless in the context of healthcare. What are you going to do, shop around while you're having a heart attack? Also, with single payer, the government is not involved in your healthcare directly. Compare that with the current system where insurance companies often decide if you're worth the treatment or, if you're under or uninsured, you get to carry the debt until you die.
I think part of the problem is the blurred lines between routine healthcare and emergencies. You are right, if you are having a heart attack insurance should step in to help you front the unexpected large cost. But for expected care like dentist visits you can and absolutely should shop around.
I like your point about insurance getting to decide but I think it's important to note you can still get treated even if insurance doesn't pay. Or you can sue them if you feel they should pay. You make some good points though.
Preventative care. If you have insurance that covers checkups, screenings, etc. then you get that benefit. If you don't have the insurance and can't afford the out of pocket expense, you skip. The issue is that then people wait until they're in really bad shape before seeking treatment meaning that outcomes are worse and treatment is much more expensive than if the illness had been caught earlier. Who pays for that? We all do through increased premiums.
This doesn't happen in a well-run single payer system.
But for expected care like dentist visits you can and absolutely should shop around.
Why? I'm not seeing any benefit to your idea vs single payer dental. It's not like your mouth isn't a part of your body or that dental issues don't effect your overall wellbeing.
Or you can sue them if you feel they should pay.
If someone can't afford insurance, what makes you think they can afford a lawyer?
It's very frustrating seeing someone argue for disproven theories (like the government is less efficient than the free market in arenas most countries have socialised) using easily disprovable statements (like single payer healthcare would be more expensive to US citizens than the private system you have now). Especially when those ideologies can only hurt everyone.
I do apologize for the tone since you have been respectful and I have been less so. You don't deserve the rudeness but your ideas don't deserve the consideration they get in civilised society either.
If you listen to online libertarians they seem to believe everything is on the tables. Utilities have already been partially privatised and they've successfully impressed the classification of broadband as a utility which would have improved service, accessibility, and price at the cost of corporate profit.
To me, this reads like it implies that government and govt programs are bad because of the govt employees, but if you were to take those same "corrupt" politicians and put them to work at private companies that they would stop being "corrupt." Like it is a belief/reaction to one specific bad instance of a large government/program. "The government sucks at program X, so if we get rid of that program, the same general population will gain empathy, morals and efficiency if working for a company to run program X."
It's a about competition. I'm not saying business owners aren't corrupt. But if one company, say nestle, turns out to be rotten then you can buy your chocolate chips from another company. But with government I don't have a say. If I don't pay taxes I go to jail and if I don't like how my taxes are spent then too bad. There is no alternative.
There is often no alternative in private business either. Take Nestle for example. Go look up how many different brands they actually own. You may think you've boycotted them, but in fact you're just buying one of their hundreds of other brands. We're very late in the capitalist system now, and the power has been heavily consolidated. Many industries are completely dominated by 1-3 companies, and they all collude to eliminate competition.
How often do we see real competition? Even if a new company comes along with a great idea, it's more likely to be gobbled up by a bigger company than be left to flourish.
But with government I don't have a say. If I don't pay taxes I go to jail and if I don't like how my taxes are spent then too bad. There is no alternative.
It's called voting, really basic part of our world you seem to have forgotten about.
You happy with how that's been going so far? Do you honestly feel represented by trump/biden? We are presented two rotten options and told we get a say in politics. That's just one more option than dictatorships. If I don't want us tax dollars gifting missiles to Israel I have no option in either party. That's not a say in government. I don't get to tell the president to spend my portion of the taxes. I would rather keep those taxes and voluntarily give to homeless shelters and other charitable groups which do a much better job helping people then the government ever will.
Libertarians see government as inherently prone to corruption and thus want to limit their power as much as possible.
I prefer voluntary interaction to using force or violence. Personally I believe we're obligated to help each other and our community and would voluntarily be a collectivist - I'm just not willing to force everyone else to.
We still need to modify liability and IP law to disincentivize megacorps and not use violence to benefit the wealthy.
Government programs IS US HELPING EACHOTHER. Sure corporations have been undermining democracy, but the government is OUR corporation. It's the only one that we get the choose what it does. The fact we're obligated to pay taxes is EXACTLY the implementation of your statement "we're obligated to help eachother"
I don't understand how you can make statements like this. The threat of violence? The government's monopoly on violence is rephrased as the will of society to ban violence in public life by restricting violence only to the enforcement of democratically selected laws. There is no other way I can conceive. Should more people have the ability to use violence to enforce their views on others? Should corporations have that right? If no one has that right how can we stop someone who decides THEY have that right?
The whole "government monopoly on violence" is for me the most absurd librarian statement of them all. What's the alternative? Who should decide what deserves violence? Who should use violence? What do we do if someone breaks this compact? Because the current answers are at least ideally "the people, through democratically enacted, clear and transparent laws", and "the people, through the police they pay for accountable only to the people" and "apply fair and balanced justice through the judiciary system, run by the people and accountable only to them". I'm in no way saying that it's working perfectly as is clear in recent politics, but it's certainly trending in the right direction in social democracies. We're closer to that ideal now than we have ever been. As far as I've seen libertarian ideology has only come up with absolutely HORRIFYING answers to these questions, or wishy washy nonsense.
How do libertarians generally handle minority rights? Is it as bad as conservatives? A good example are all of these anti-trans and anti choice in abortion bills. What would a libertarian think of these?
Looking on the internet it kind of feels like libertarians are usually suburban people or people so out of the way that the messes in Washington don't affect them as hard as those in the cities. So I have only met one and he didn't seem to fond of our black coworkers, if you get what I mean.
Libertarians are just like other political parties. There are different groups that subscribe the the term libertarian each with slightly different beliefs. Whatever extremists people are out there in the Internet do not represent the whole. I really suggest watching some of the 2024 libertarian debates. They are educated smart people who are informed about the complex issues like those you mentioned. This whole thread has been really eye opening for me. I had no idea people had these conceptions about libertarians. I am guessing there are a bunch of far right groups that like to identify as anarchists and throw around the term libertarian while they do. But if you listen to the rhetoric of the political party and the representatives you will see that those ideas are not held by the party as a whole.
To answer your question, libertarians are, in general, pro personal liberties and pro economic liberties. They believe the individual should get to choose. A common line they use is government should not exert force one way or the other. This means they tend to agree with Democrats on issues like race, drugs, LGBTQ etc. The people who actually get a stage in the political party are absolutely against racism, sexism etc. There was a debate recently where the candidates (about 7 primary) were Asked their stance on abortion. Most of them said they were personally pro life BUT they would still veto any bill or cut funding to any program that forced that perspective on others. Any person who goes around saying they think this and they want the government to force and regulate that disagrees fundamentally with the libertarian perspective. I said most, because one of the candidates was unapologetically pro choice. Please don't think that whatever alt right edge lords are out there actually have any idea what libertarianism is.
The term for this is "negative liberty": the freedom from something; whereas, "positive liberty" is the freedom to do something. Libertarianism, generally, aligns with the idea of negative liberty.
If there is freedom from a governing authority then there is no one to take away my freedom to do what I like. Sounds like two ways of saying the same thing. Maybe I miss your point.
The distinction between positive and negative liberties is, indeed, a rather blurry one, but there is generally a difference in mindset between the two. That being said, libertarianism seeks to minimize the size and influence of the government, but they don't seek to abolish it — those that seek to abolish it are anarchists (I'm not sure if I am reading your comment correctly, but it seems that you are advocating for anarchism rather than libertarianism when you said "freedom from a governing authority"). It's important to note that negative liberty is a concept that distinguishes a certain class of liberties — it doesn't require the presence of a government.
Well said, I probably wasn't very clear, but I am not an anarchist. There are certain critical functions that the government must control. When I say freedom from authority I refer to specific government agencies that can exert force on individuals. Government roads don't force users to do anything but rather empower citizens.
Government roads don’t force users to do anything but rather empower citizens.
Another argument for why government roads are ethical is because they fight off monopolization — property ownership is at high risk for monopolization. I'm not sure if the Georgist idea of taxing the land value that a private road would be on is enough.
Right, government should provide oversight to public goods that, by their nature, require monopolies such as roads or utilities. Government also needs to have a judicial branch that mediates conflicts between individuals and entities.