[extropy-chat] Re: Authenticity, extropy, libertarianism, and history

[Marc Geddes]

I passed through a phase where I was an enthuiastic
supporter of Libertarianism but was gradually argued
out of it.  I'm still Libertarian leaning (I think the
Libertarian ideals are the right ones), but the
'Libertarian' label is ruined by the crack-pots and
abolutists.

The Ayn Rand gang (Objectivists) are a bunch of total
loons.  There's no way in hell I could vote for the NZ
Libertarian party for instance, because it's mostly
Objectivists.  The founder was a local NZ Objectivist
cult leader who runs a forum called SOLO.  He
basically just uses Objectivism as an excuse to
further his own ego and spit bile at people.  The
Austrian School of economics is total crack-pot
garbage.  Anarch-capitalism is a load of subjectivist
tripe.

The reason you see government virtually everywhere is
because life without it was pretty horrible.  Parts of
Southern Italy, Somalia or Russia today are good
examples of anarcho-capitalism in action.  The
'service providers' are mafia thugs.  That's life
without regulation.  The thugs and psychopaths take
over.  The few strong and agressive types are more
free, but virtually everyone else is *less* free.  The
purpose of government regulation is to *reduce* the
total force by restraining the psychos.  Real freedom
has to look at the *over-all* freedom (taing everyone
into account), not just the freedom of a few.

As someone on another board pointed out well, the
places in the world with weak states are all poor,
violent and disease ridden. Schools in India burn to
the ground without fire saftey regulations.  Tourists
in Asia fall sick without food saftey regualation. 
Disease is rampant without people can't afford drugs
and there is no proper infrastructure.  It's not a
pretty sight. 

A semi-Libertarian postion might work, but at the very
least you:

*Very strong democratic government to provide
accountability, transparency and due process and
regulate against force and fraud

*A minimal saftey net for those with really seriously
misfortunes (like disability).  Why shoud those with
disabilities have to be at the beck and call of the
lucky purely because of an accident of birth?

*Government to handle 'public goods' (goods and
services affecting every-one that cannot easy
partitioned).  In this category fall:  

Police
Defence
Courts
Infrastructure
Disaster relief
Dealing with Infectious Disease
Environment
Basic Scientific Research

Now if Libertarians would distance themselves from the
anarcho-capitalist and Randian nutters, and recognise
that we do need a Minimal government, I think the
Libertarian brand would really take-off and eventually
be wildly successful.  But if they continue to only
count anarcho-capitalists and hard-core Minarchists as
'Libertarian', then they're going to get absolutely
no-where and be (rightly) written off as crack-pots.





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'The brain is wider than the sky'
http://www.bartleby.com/113/1126.html

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