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It is a highly unfortunate and indisputable fact that certain misguided individuals find libertarianism to be a convenient excuse for not caring about others. H
by didgeoridoo 10y ago
It is a highly unfortunate and indisputable fact that certain misguided individuals find libertarianism to be a convenient excuse for not caring about others. However, that tendency is antithetical to most libertarian thought.
In the absence of government coercion, it should be obvious that the moral responsibility for aiding the poor and unfortunate falls heavily upon us as individuals (primarily acting through voluntary civic associations). Libertarians acknowledge that the "free-rider problem" that requires taking of resources by force is a real thing, but believe that it is a result of the withering of civic responsibility as government has increased in scope over time.
You can disagree with any and all of these premises, but to accuse all libertarians of being psychopaths is not a great way of convincing them to rethink their assumptions.
- M_Grey 10y ago"It should be obvious..." A lot of things should be obvious to people, that are not, or that they conveniently ignore. Your fantasy of human nature, is not human nature. Humans are the ones who wait for the comet to whisk them away to a spaceship, and when it doesn't happen they believe in it even more. People march each other into mass graves and ovens. People as a group are vulnerable to populism, and the vagaries of chance and hard times leading to short-term instabilities that rapidly magnify. We are chaotic. You're welcome to entertain whatever optimistic fantasies you like about the natural state of ungoverned people, just don't try to sell it to anyone.
- didgeoridoo 10y agoI guess I'm not clear how government force solves the problems you're worried about. In the vast majority of modern cases, the government has been RUNNING the ovens, not protecting people from them.