Thank you, Dick, for illustrating a point I made to Rich earlier in the thread.
See, Rich? Dick thinks libertarianism is people "asserting their individuality to the point of making civil society impossible." He even goes to far as to set up this entirely false dichotomy of "people giving up their individual liberties in the interests of maintaining civil society" and people "asserting their individuality to the point of making civil society impossible." Apparently, either one wants to maintain civil society Dick's way, or one wants to make civil society impossible, with no room allowed for any other options.
That's a rather funny comment coming from someone who describes themselves as a "libertarian", a group that has apparently appointed themselves the arbiters of all things that constitute liberty, and dismiss all competing visions as "statist" or "anti-freedom".
Doubly funny because they mostly seem to be in the business of petitioning the state to inflict on their citizens policies the citizens have never, ever chosen for themselves.
You think you don't have open borders or gay marriage because governments are standing in the way? Is that a joke? Governments have imposed those things on their citizens at every chance they've gotten! Any time they've been put to a referendum, they've been soundly defeated. Who's the "statist" there?
It seems to me a large portion of "libertarianism" is the same politically correct crap governments have been trying to shove down the throats of their unwilling citizens for decades, sexed up with a veneer of sex, drugs and rock and roll and a leather jacket to make it appealing to gullible college students. No government ever had a better shill on the payroll than the Cato Institute or Reason magazine.
Hint: Liberty is an abstract concept, not a checklist of agenda items. There is no such thing as absolute liberty in civil society, nor could there possibly be. The domain of permissible liberties within civil society is a legitimate object of debate. Whining "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!" whenever your your pet agenda item is rejected is not.
Apparently, Dick thinks free trade in goods and labor creates a loss of economic liberty.
So, presumably, you would object to a government policy prohibiting a private entrepreneur from selling nuclear and biological weapons to third-world dictatorships hostile to the United States? Personally, I would consider getting nuked off the face of the earth a rather significant loss of my economic liberty, to say the least.
Another hint: You will never enjoy absolute liberty within any society. Before you enjoy any liberty at all, you have to facilitate an environment where liberty is possible. Some economic transactions are very much detrimental to facilitating that environment. I consider restricting the 5% of transactions that are damaging to that environment in return for maintaining an environment where the other 95% of transactions can flourish a very reasonable trade-off indeed.
Humans need water to live. However, a drink of water and getting drowned in a swimming pool are two different things.
Supporting more people having relationships that people have been relied on as an alternative to government is really, by Dick's accounting, an attack on those relationships.
Presumably, you are referring to gay marriage, which is hardly the extent of the range of examples I was referring to.
There is a good reason our political dichotomy is divided between conservative and liberal, and libertarian not at all. There are some functions necessary to society that will never be profitable from a economic perspective. Raising children or caring for infirm elders will never be economically profitable enterprises. However, they are necessary for a functioning society. The liberal views those activities as the appropriate domain of government. The conservative considers them more appropriately managed by traditional families, and therefore advocates policies which facilitates or strengthens the traditional structures. How does the libertarian propose to manage them? Markets don't cater to unprofitable activities.
Nobody is advocating telling anyone what kind of relationship they can form, and what kind of contracts they can make between themselves. But some relationships are valuable enough to society at large that society protects and privileges them. In the case of heterosexual relationships, they provide the means for a society to perpetuate itself. The law privileges them because, in return, they provide a value to society. What value do gay relationships offer society? None. That is why few, if any, societies grant them a privileged status. It's a demand of something for nothing.
And if we follow Dick's logic, the most civil society of all is one where individual liberties do not exist.
So, a society where I can shoot anybody who annoys me, rape my neighbors daughter, and help myself to his property is a civil society? The point here, is that
*some* restrictions on personal liberty are required for civil society. Nobody besides maybe the anarchist fringe disputes that. And the domain of what restrictions are required, and what liberties are permissible, is very much a legitimate debate.
I'm sure Dick will deny some of what I said,
No, but I'll certainly clarify your mischaracterization of it.
Rich, his attitude is far more representative of the general Republican response to libertarian ideas than is yours.
There are libertarians, and libertarians. I voted for Ron Paul. But if the Reason crowd started voting for my party, I'd wonder what was wrong with my party!
I see no reason why the Republicans should be bothered cultivating that kind of libertarian. A platform of Acid, Amnesty and Abortion did nothing for the Democrats - ask George McGovern - and I have no reason to believe it will improve the prospects for Republicans, either. Whatever votes they win from the more libertine branch of the libertarians will not compensate for the votes they lose from the sane.
