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They're only possible to dismiss as "distracting political questions" if you buy into a political framework that sees personal freedom as the default, and excep
by OkayPhysicist 3y ago
They're only possible to dismiss as "distracting political questions" if you buy into a political framework that sees personal freedom as the default, and exceptions requiring justification. If you instead frame the neutral state as "Everybody does the exact best thing", with personal freedom being the exception requiring justification, it leads to an entirely different worldview. And then that side of reasoning fractalizes based around what the exact best thing is.
Applying libertarian (left or right) axioms when trying to understand the reasoning of authoritarians simply does not work.
- catlover76 3y agoI think there is a fairly reasonable argument to be made that they are distracting because there are more pressing practical problems facing society, such as climate change, national security concerns, etc.
- psychphysic 3y agoI am quite surprised by how in the last 20 years libertarian has become a dirty word.
- jfengel 3y agoI have found that people adopting the term "libertarian" is commonly associated with attitudes like "I get to do what I want to do, and the rest of you are on your own." Such people often seem to make common cause with authoritarians: they'll sacrifice other people's liberties in order to ensure their own. This is not my understanding of libertarian philosophy, but I've heard many self-described libertarians seeming to endorse it. I believe that's why "libertarian" has become a dirty word, to the many people who would find themselves worse off in a world that has lots of liberty for a specific set of people, but less for many others.