[ExI] Usages of the term libertarianism

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:04 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 8:27 PM, Kelly Anderson  wrote:
> <snip>
>> I support this statement. It is wrong to take $100 from a millionaire
>> to save the life of a starving child. If he wants to donate the $100,
>> that's super! But to force him at the point of a gun, with threat of
>> imprisonment if he does not comply, is indeed WRONG, imho.
>>
>
>
> And that is exactly why 99% of the population regard hardline
> libertarians as insane.
>
> The child is starving because the billionaire and millionaire classes
> have left almost nothing for the rest of the population. Look around
> at the destruction of the USA by the wealthy, then tell me about
> charity again.
>
> Unfortunately, no amount of discussion will change your emotionally
> rooted belief. It is impossible to argue someone out of a position
> that they were not argued into in the first place.

### Well, yeah, if you refuse to think, and prefer to feel, you can't
progress. I remember I thought like you did, but I pulled myself up by
my intellectual bootstraps (with a kick or two from sages of great
wisdom).

First of all, you need to calm your emotions, especially rage. It's OK
to hate but only *after* analysis, not before. Once you are calm, you
can dissect the situation, that is apply a form of reasoning called
"disjoint analysis" - looking at all combinations of relevant
alternatives. In this care, you should first ask the question: What
are moral dilemmas involved here? What is the moral choice? Is it
really the case the taxing the millionaire is the *only* way of saving
the starving child?

If the answer is "Yes", then the initial moral dilemma is valid - you
have a choice between saving a life and taking a bit of money that is
presumably not needed too much (from the way the problem is posed, the
millionaire stands for somebody who is not believed to need the
resources he controls). This is the dilemma the leftist manipulators
want you to consider, and stop thinking right there.

If the answer is "No", then there is no moral dilemma as posed. You
can feed the child without taxing the millionaire, so there is no
choice between death and taxation. This is the point which your
leftist handler hopes to prevent you from considering (by fanning your
rage - rage feels nice, but as I said, only after you are done
thinking).

The next element in the disjoint analysis is asking whether there are
any the real-world situations where the answer to the previous
question is "Yes". If indeed there are real world situations where you
have a true dilemma, you will have a description of the possible
conditions where taxation would be justified, provided you think
preventing a severe harm (saving a starving child) is more important
than refraining from inflicting a minor harm on another person.
However, if the answer is "No", then the moral analysis stops here: If
there are no real world situations posing a choice between starving
children and taxing millionaires, then the whole point is moot, a
piece of communist demagoguery and best left behind.

So, now ask yourself the question: Is it really true that at any place
in the world today there are starving children that can *only* be
saved by taxing millionaires? Are there? Even a single one?

I can give you the answer: There is not a single starving child in the
world than can be saved only by taxing millionaires. Every starving
child can be saved by taxing the middle class. In fact, since nowadays
there are very few starving children, and the poor (i.e. the -2SD
income group) are actually quite rich by historic standards, you could
maybe even save the children by taxing the poor. You could also save
any single starving child by your own personal charity, since you are
a rich Westerner, you could possibly save 5 or 6 children without
going hungry yourself.

Therefore, there is absolutely no moral case for taxing the rich to
save the children. Every claim to the contrary is a lie, a communist
obfuscation, a piece of hypocrisy, likely driven by envy.

Now, after thinking your way through, you can let your emotions flow.
You should hate hypocrites and liars. You should be opposed to envy.
You should be an outraged libertarian.

Rafal