[extropy-chat] Re: What makes one a libertarian?

[Kevin Freels]

You are suffering from a severe case of classificationia. You are
classifying all of the libertarians as paranoid nuts. What you fail to
realize is that many of the paranoid nut survivalists out there are fascist
or republican as well. Some are even Democrats.
Also, the NRA is partially composed of libertarians. You have made a logical
fallicy by stating that libertarian fears of having the gov't take their
firearms are misplaced since their gun rights are protected by the NRA.
Yes, there is the fear that a robber could steal our guns, but that's how
robbers get shot. The purpose of those weapons is to protect against such
people. It is foolish to believe that the government can protect a person
from these people.
The point behind libertarianism is that people are responsible for their own
well being and protection. Police are to investigate crimes and capture
criminals AFTER they commit a crime. The judicial system is there to punish
them. Now we have police writing people tickets for not taking care of their
own well being by not wearing seatbelts in their own cars. One of the
reasons supporters of seatbelt laws give is the cost to taxpayers of people
not wearing their seatbelts. Noone ever bothers to ask "why is it costing
taxpayers anything at all?"
Libertarians are not anarchists and they are usually not militant. There are
a few bad apples on any tree, which is what I suppose you have been exposed
to.
I am a libertarian. I supported Bush. You will find that some libertarians
supported Kerry as well. You will never figure out what makes one a
libertarian if you are looking to put every libertarian in the same neat
little box. Instead you will find that we all agree on a few simple ideas.
Mainly that it is generally wrong to take people's hard earned money and
give it to others. Taxes are too high. That the function of the military is
to protect the country from outside forces by having the ability to kill
people and break things. That laws should only be enacted to protect people
from others and not from themselves. That each person has a right to
excercise free speech and freedom of religion. That everyone has a right to
keep and bear arms. etc.

Inside  the party, there are debates as to what constitutes too much
government involvement or not enough.
For example, I think that public education is a necessity. Mike Lorrey
disagrees with me. We both agree that the entire current system is screwed
up and takes much more money than necessary. As much as we both support stem
cell research, we both agree that it is wrong to take a person's money who
is against something like stem cell research and use it for that purpose. We
think the government should be out of the marriage business.

I really hope this helps you to understand. We are not a bunch of ignorant
yahoos running around playing survivalist in the woods. You can;t generalize
us any more than you can generalize republicans, democrats, southerners,
etc. Generalizing and lumping people into groups is perhaps one of the most
foolish things that I see people do. Please don;t contribute to the problem.
:-)

Kevin




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Al Brooks" <kerry_prez at yahoo.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 1:22 AM
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: What makes one a libertarian?


> Sure, some. Nevertheless the widespread libertarian
> fear of the state makes little sense; mistrust, yes,
> fear, no. Their fear is justified-yet-misplaced, for
> instance there is indeed a real risk of having
> firearms taken, however with an organization such as
> the NRA guarding second amendment rights the odds are
> vastly greater a robber will break in to their homes
> to remove firearms than the state will do so. Lib is
> very attractive philosophically, who doesn't want more
> personal liberty? What isn't at all attractive is the
> antigovernment paranoia many libs suffer from. In the
> '70s I liked libertarianism more than anything and
> went to meetings. Thereafter, listening to
> near-hysterical antistatist talk, I lost serious
> interest. Orwell wrote how Christians are the worst
> advertisements for their creed- same might be said for
> libs.
>
> >  Isn't it possible that some libertarians might just
> be libertarian
> > because they believe the idea to be sound, logical,
> and better than >the alternatives?
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat