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Its easy to point at a greedy billionaire who wants to ruin [insert public service here] so that he can squeeze out another dollar for himself. But have you co

Its easy to point at a greedy billionaire who wants to ruin [insert public service here] so that he can squeeze out another dollar for himself. But have you considered that they _genuinely_ belive that minimal government and more privatization leads to overall better results? It might just be that they have good intensions, that they really wish for a better outcome for all. I don't share that view, but i do think that there is a fraction of hardcore liberterians that truly believe we'd be better of without many of the government-founded services such as libraries, schools etc. - and while i do not agree with that, those people are still entitled to their opinion and are allowed to lobby for it.

aahhahahaaa 6y ago
If they wanted a better outcome for all then they wouldn't be billionaires, IMO. The fact that they exist is the sign of a problem that they're happy to exploit and automatically warrants suspicion about their motives.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
quickthrowman 6y ago
> But have you considered that they _genuinely_ belive that minimal government and more privatization leads to overall better results? It might just be that they have good intensions, that they really wish for a better outcome for all. Yes, and that makes it even worse. They’re so out of touch with common people and so insulated from routine everyday life, their opinion shouldn’t count for anything. I don’t care if joe programmer on HN or Jeff the General Contractor at the bar are advocating for dismantling the post office because of libertarian ideology, because they have neither the power nor resources to affect change. I do care when insanely wealthy billionaires who are completely insulated from the rest of society argue for horseshit like this because they have power to change it, and it’s for ideological reasons. It’s pure narcissism to argue for a position that would negatively affect millions of people when the one arguing for change wouldn’t suffer one damn bit and in effect disregard everyone else’s suffering for their ideological bullshit position. The existence of billionaires combined with Citizens United is an actual problem, the post office is not.
- sparkling 6y ago
  > [...] their opinion shouldn’t count for anything. Dangerous path there, buddy. > [...] to argue for a position that would negatively affect millions of people [...] Again, it seems impossible for you to even grasp that they might geniuely believe that their way of doing things might lead to better outcome for all, including people living in poverty. > The existence of billionaires combined with Citizens United is an actual problem, the post office is not. I guess well have to agree to disagree. Kind regards from me (definitely not a billionaire and not even close to a millionaire)
  - codemac 6y ago
    A billionaire's opinion should not count more than any other random person's opinion. Genuinely believing something is good on the part of a billionaire has no bearing on whether or not their vote should count once per human or once per dollar.
  - quickthrowman 6y ago
    Why should we listen to someone who probably doesn’t ever open their own mail or pay a bill or send a package regarding the postal service? They don’t have to deal with the change they’re advocating for, they have the resources to actually change things. > Dangerous path there, buddy. Their opinion should count as much as any regular person. I’m not arguing for silencing anyone, merely limiting their outsized influence. I should’ve clarified this in my original post. How would privatizing the mail help the poor? I’m curious.
    - manigandham 6y ago
      Why should we listen to you? Most people don’t experience the change they advocate for. Removing money from politics is a good thing but I’m wary of outright saying certain people don’t matter. That doesn’t lead anywhere good.
      - quickthrowman 6y ago
        I’m arguing in favor of keeping mail delivery under the USPS because it’s one of the few functional democratic government services available. The government uses the USPS to send out many notices, payments, census forms, and so on. It’s a small miracle that one can place a postcard in a mailbox anywhere in the US and have it delivered to almost any address (some areas have mail service at a post office instead of home delivery). The utility of this service being available to everyone for the same price regardless of location is more valuable than any increased competition created by removing the USPS monopoly on first-class letters. I’m arguing in favor of a system that everyone can access for a low cost, a service one could rightly consider essential. Why should you should listen to me (or any other poster in this thread arguing in favor of keeping the status quo postal system) instead of the Koch brothers? I take the needs of everyone into consideration when formulating my argument instead of ideological or profit motives. Do you think it would be beneficial to the nation to saddle poor rural people with mail rates 10-50x what they are now when we have a perfectly functional system? I don’t, because it screws over the least fortunate to benefit.. who? It literally does not affect me if I have to pay .55 to mail a letter, but someone living on $700/mo that needs to use the private mail to mail a $10 letter will absolutely notice. Why destroy a functional and equitable system just so rich people in cities can pay less for postage? It’s not practical or fair. I also clarified my position on the influence of billionaires and their opinions: They shouldn’t be ignored completely, but they should not be allowed to have the massive outsized influence they currently enjoy. Their opinion should count no more or less than anyone else.
pizza 6y ago
They can have all the opinions they want. Ultimately, a handful of billionaires' opinions and lobbying efforts should not be enough to destroy public institutions.
mindcrime 6y ago
I don't share that view, but i do think that there is a fraction of hardcore liberterians that truly believe we'd be better of without many of the government-founded services such as libraries, schools etc. Just to be clear, we don't have any problem with schools or libraries. We just think the model of having governments collect taxes and then pay for those things is broken. In consequentialist terms, it's broken because it removes competition from the equation, and competition generally leads to progressively improving products and services, and/or lower cost goods and services. In deontological terms, it's broken because taxation is theft.
- djur 6y ago
  In deontological terms, taxation is not theft, because theft is the unlawful taking of property, and taxation is lawful. To argue otherwise requires a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the state, and most people are not going to accept that premise, which is why libertarian rhetoric in practice tends to rely on casuistic arguments about waste-fraud-and-abuse, red tape, and so on.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Even the libertarian theoretical argument for the illegitimacy of the state depends on a mode of analysis that is incompatible with with things that US libertarians advocate for in practice, such as private property.
  - mindcrime 6y ago
    and taxation is lawful. And that notion is what many of us reject. To argue otherwise requires a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the state Not exactly, although plenty of Libertarians do reject the legitimacy of the State out of hand. I find the issue to be more nuanced than that. If you hold, as Bastiat did, that "the law" (aka "the State") can be something like - but no more than - the "collective extension to our individual right to self defense" and that no mere aggregation of individuals can have a right to do anything that a single individual doesn't have a right to do, then you can conceptualize a State that does things like, say, protecting private property, but which can't lawfully require payment of taxes. All of that said, I didn't come here to write pages and pages on political theory. There are entire books that treat this entire topic much better than I could. I'd refer anybody who is interested in this to The Law [2]by Bastiat, as well as the works of Lysander Spooner[2] among others. [1]: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner
jeromegv 6y ago
In theory yes, they should be allowed for their opinion. However their hold on society is much bigger than the 1 vote they are allowed. With their billions, they can contribute to elect and influence politicians. So while the view to destroy the USPS is well funded, what about the small business or lower income people that rely on USPS as an affordable and needed service (in the middle of a pandemic no less)? Who can they lobby? They just have 1 vote and not billions. So while in theory I agree with your premise that they are allowed to lobby for whatever they want, the reality is that their influence on society is way overboard and should be limited (limited political contributions!).
- sparkling 6y ago
  100% with you on limited political contributions and other forms of kickbacks
0xddd 6y ago
Sure, but with the amount of wealth and power that they have, it goes beyond lobbying. If there were any sense of the other side getting equal bargaining power, maybe people would be less upset.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  I agree, and I will add that once someone's net worth and exaggerated power are quite apparent, there should be some serious oversight if they are utilizing their money to vote like a block of x billion people. I think there should be more oversight at the government level as well...but the government isn't just one person's opinion.
harimau777 6y ago
This is tough because I don't want to straw man them, but I'm not sure I've ever heard a hardcore libertarian really argue that their policies would be better for the whole of society. Generally it seems like they think that minimal government leads to better results in a social Darwinism or "get rid of the parasites" sense. I've also never really seen them seriously recon with the question of what you do with people who cannot compete, and at some point I feel like that crosses the line into intellectual negligence. Again, I don't want to try to demonize the other side and I really wish I could think of a good example, but I really cannot.
- buttcoinslol 6y ago
  > I've also never really seen them seriously recon with the question of what you do with people who cannot compete, and at some point I feel like that crosses the line into intellectual negligence. It absolutely is intellectual negligence, and there's nothing wrong with pointing it out. The standard answer trotted out is "charity" which is disingenuous at best, and completely impractical at worst. There's nothing wrong with pointing out the logical flaws of people who secretly wish they were feudal lords or a pater familias in Ancient Rome, and wildly overestimate what their position or level of success in a theoretical 'Libertarian Society' would be.
coliveira 6y ago
Of course they can have whatever opinion they want. But what demonstrate the big danger of billionaires is that they have the resources to fund any number of think tanks, lobbyists, ONGs, TV shows, newspapers, and what not to sway legislation to their particular, minority view.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
specialist 6y ago
Billionaires and governments are natural enemies. Why would I care about Koch's views towards government? Would I ask Harvey Weinstein about sexual assault and harassment? Would I ask a creationist about evolution? Would I ask a pro-lifer about women's reproductive rights? Would I ask an Iowan farmer about agricultural subsidies? Would I ask Coca Cola about diabetes? Would I ask a reality TV star about presidential powers? Would I ask Rupert Murdock about journalism? Would I ask The Sinclair Group about media consolidation? Would I ask a white supremacist about race relations? Would I ask members of John Birch Society about voting rights? Would I ask members of The Federalist Society about balance of powers?

aahhahahaaa 6y ago

If they wanted a better outcome for all then they wouldn't be billionaires, IMO. The fact that they exist is the sign of a problem that they're happy to exploit and automatically warrants suspicion about their motives.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

quickthrowman 6y ago

> But have you considered that they _genuinely_ belive that minimal government and more privatization leads to overall better results? It might just be that they have good intensions, that they really wish for a better outcome for all. Yes, and that makes it even worse. They’re so out of touch with common people and so insulated from routine everyday life, their opinion shouldn’t count for anything. I don’t care if joe programmer on HN or Jeff the General Contractor at the bar are advocating for dismantling the post office because of libertarian ideology, because they have neither the power nor resources to affect change. I do care when insanely wealthy billionaires who are completely insulated from the rest of society argue for horseshit like this because they have power to change it, and it’s for ideological reasons. It’s pure narcissism to argue for a position that would negatively affect millions of people when the one arguing for change wouldn’t suffer one damn bit and in effect disregard everyone else’s suffering for their ideological bullshit position. The existence of billionaires combined with Citizens United is an actual problem, the post office is not.

sparkling 6y ago
> [...] their opinion shouldn’t count for anything. Dangerous path there, buddy. > [...] to argue for a position that would negatively affect millions of people [...] Again, it seems impossible for you to even grasp that they might geniuely believe that their way of doing things might lead to better outcome for all, including people living in poverty. > The existence of billionaires combined with Citizens United is an actual problem, the post office is not. I guess well have to agree to disagree. Kind regards from me (definitely not a billionaire and not even close to a millionaire)
- codemac 6y ago
  A billionaire's opinion should not count more than any other random person's opinion. Genuinely believing something is good on the part of a billionaire has no bearing on whether or not their vote should count once per human or once per dollar.
- quickthrowman 6y ago
  Why should we listen to someone who probably doesn’t ever open their own mail or pay a bill or send a package regarding the postal service? They don’t have to deal with the change they’re advocating for, they have the resources to actually change things. > Dangerous path there, buddy. Their opinion should count as much as any regular person. I’m not arguing for silencing anyone, merely limiting their outsized influence. I should’ve clarified this in my original post. How would privatizing the mail help the poor? I’m curious.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    Why should we listen to you? Most people don’t experience the change they advocate for. Removing money from politics is a good thing but I’m wary of outright saying certain people don’t matter. That doesn’t lead anywhere good.
    - quickthrowman 6y ago
      I’m arguing in favor of keeping mail delivery under the USPS because it’s one of the few functional democratic government services available. The government uses the USPS to send out many notices, payments, census forms, and so on. It’s a small miracle that one can place a postcard in a mailbox anywhere in the US and have it delivered to almost any address (some areas have mail service at a post office instead of home delivery). The utility of this service being available to everyone for the same price regardless of location is more valuable than any increased competition created by removing the USPS monopoly on first-class letters. I’m arguing in favor of a system that everyone can access for a low cost, a service one could rightly consider essential. Why should you should listen to me (or any other poster in this thread arguing in favor of keeping the status quo postal system) instead of the Koch brothers? I take the needs of everyone into consideration when formulating my argument instead of ideological or profit motives. Do you think it would be beneficial to the nation to saddle poor rural people with mail rates 10-50x what they are now when we have a perfectly functional system? I don’t, because it screws over the least fortunate to benefit.. who? It literally does not affect me if I have to pay .55 to mail a letter, but someone living on $700/mo that needs to use the private mail to mail a $10 letter will absolutely notice. Why destroy a functional and equitable system just so rich people in cities can pay less for postage? It’s not practical or fair. I also clarified my position on the influence of billionaires and their opinions: They shouldn’t be ignored completely, but they should not be allowed to have the massive outsized influence they currently enjoy. Their opinion should count no more or less than anyone else.

pizza 6y ago

They can have all the opinions they want. Ultimately, a handful of billionaires' opinions and lobbying efforts should not be enough to destroy public institutions.

mindcrime 6y ago

I don't share that view, but i do think that there is a fraction of hardcore liberterians that truly believe we'd be better of without many of the government-founded services such as libraries, schools etc. Just to be clear, we don't have any problem with schools or libraries. We just think the model of having governments collect taxes and then pay for those things is broken. In consequentialist terms, it's broken because it removes competition from the equation, and competition generally leads to progressively improving products and services, and/or lower cost goods and services. In deontological terms, it's broken because taxation is theft.

djur 6y ago
In deontological terms, taxation is not theft, because theft is the unlawful taking of property, and taxation is lawful. To argue otherwise requires a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the state, and most people are not going to accept that premise, which is why libertarian rhetoric in practice tends to rely on casuistic arguments about waste-fraud-and-abuse, red tape, and so on.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Even the libertarian theoretical argument for the illegitimacy of the state depends on a mode of analysis that is incompatible with with things that US libertarians advocate for in practice, such as private property.
- mindcrime 6y ago
  and taxation is lawful. And that notion is what many of us reject. To argue otherwise requires a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the state Not exactly, although plenty of Libertarians do reject the legitimacy of the State out of hand. I find the issue to be more nuanced than that. If you hold, as Bastiat did, that "the law" (aka "the State") can be something like - but no more than - the "collective extension to our individual right to self defense" and that no mere aggregation of individuals can have a right to do anything that a single individual doesn't have a right to do, then you can conceptualize a State that does things like, say, protecting private property, but which can't lawfully require payment of taxes. All of that said, I didn't come here to write pages and pages on political theory. There are entire books that treat this entire topic much better than I could. I'd refer anybody who is interested in this to The Law [2]by Bastiat, as well as the works of Lysander Spooner[2] among others. [1]: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner

jeromegv 6y ago

In theory yes, they should be allowed for their opinion. However their hold on society is much bigger than the 1 vote they are allowed. With their billions, they can contribute to elect and influence politicians. So while the view to destroy the USPS is well funded, what about the small business or lower income people that rely on USPS as an affordable and needed service (in the middle of a pandemic no less)? Who can they lobby? They just have 1 vote and not billions. So while in theory I agree with your premise that they are allowed to lobby for whatever they want, the reality is that their influence on society is way overboard and should be limited (limited political contributions!).

sparkling 6y ago
100% with you on limited political contributions and other forms of kickbacks

0xddd 6y ago

Sure, but with the amount of wealth and power that they have, it goes beyond lobbying. If there were any sense of the other side getting equal bargaining power, maybe people would be less upset.

Avicebron 6y ago
I agree, and I will add that once someone's net worth and exaggerated power are quite apparent, there should be some serious oversight if they are utilizing their money to vote like a block of x billion people. I think there should be more oversight at the government level as well...but the government isn't just one person's opinion.

harimau777 6y ago

This is tough because I don't want to straw man them, but I'm not sure I've ever heard a hardcore libertarian really argue that their policies would be better for the whole of society. Generally it seems like they think that minimal government leads to better results in a social Darwinism or "get rid of the parasites" sense. I've also never really seen them seriously recon with the question of what you do with people who cannot compete, and at some point I feel like that crosses the line into intellectual negligence. Again, I don't want to try to demonize the other side and I really wish I could think of a good example, but I really cannot.

buttcoinslol 6y ago
> I've also never really seen them seriously recon with the question of what you do with people who cannot compete, and at some point I feel like that crosses the line into intellectual negligence. It absolutely is intellectual negligence, and there's nothing wrong with pointing it out. The standard answer trotted out is "charity" which is disingenuous at best, and completely impractical at worst. There's nothing wrong with pointing out the logical flaws of people who secretly wish they were feudal lords or a pater familias in Ancient Rome, and wildly overestimate what their position or level of success in a theoretical 'Libertarian Society' would be.

coliveira 6y ago

Of course they can have whatever opinion they want. But what demonstrate the big danger of billionaires is that they have the resources to fund any number of think tanks, lobbyists, ONGs, TV shows, newspapers, and what not to sway legislation to their particular, minority view.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

specialist 6y ago

Billionaires and governments are natural enemies. Why would I care about Koch's views towards government? Would I ask Harvey Weinstein about sexual assault and harassment? Would I ask a creationist about evolution? Would I ask a pro-lifer about women's reproductive rights? Would I ask an Iowan farmer about agricultural subsidies? Would I ask Coca Cola about diabetes? Would I ask a reality TV star about presidential powers? Would I ask Rupert Murdock about journalism? Would I ask The Sinclair Group about media consolidation? Would I ask a white supremacist about race relations? Would I ask members of John Birch Society about voting rights? Would I ask members of The Federalist Society about balance of powers?