[ExI] Libertarians who draw lines?/was Re: (no subject)

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 5:04 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 7:03 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> The argument you're making here is actually the typical anti-libertarian
one: free people can make bad choices -- choices we disapprove of -- and
this might cause harm to others -- someone might read Karl Marx and form a
revolutionary group to take over society -- so we must limit their freedom
-- control their reading of Marx, for instance.  dan
>>
>>> So you think that, for instance, limiting the amount of alcohol in
one's bloodstream while driving a car is anti-libertarian?  Really?

Bill, I think you're dropping context here. What you wrote was:

> I used to agree with that.  Heroin, cocaine, crack, anything.  Make it
all legal.  Take the
> high profits out it.  Then I find things like one puff of a cigarette
changes your brain
> permanently.  I kicked alcohol and tobacco cold turkey, but other members
of my family
> have found it much harder to do.  Most people are not good at moderating
their intake of
> things that make them very happy - I wasn't either.  But I was an
excellent quitter.
>
> Just too many people would ruin their lives and put great burdens of
society by legal
> everything.  I have worked in several mental hospitals and can assert
that the craziest
> people I saw were those on amphetamines - very psychotic.  (Heroin, by
contrast is a
> far easier habit to kick.)
>
> I am a libertarian but there just has be lines drawn.

I responded with:

"The argument you're making here is actually the typical anti-libertarian
one: free people can make bad choices -- choices we disapprove of -- and
this might cause harm to others -- someone might read Karl Marx and form a
revolutionary group to take over society -- so we must limit their freedom
-- control their reading of Marx, for instance."

Your original point didn't seem to be about a specific context like driving
a car, but about some (or any) people using heroin, etc. at all. Did you
just mean specific contexts -- like if someone wants to drive a car on
public roads they shouldn't be under a certain level of influence? Or did
you mean something more in line with your original statement -- "too many
people would ruin their lives," so some prohibition or controls must be in
place?

Also, regarding what's libertarian, you said, in response to Samantha, that
you are "a libertarian but there just has be lines drawn." That seems to me
to be admitting that libertarians per se would be for decriminalizing these
things and not drawing lines, but that you are not a per se libertarian.
Please elaborate.

Regards,

Dan
  Sample my Kindle books via:
http://author.to/DanUst
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20160508/7abba45b/attachment.html>