3 ms·

> I'm generally pretty libertarian, but I'm all for throwing the book at these guys. To me that seems perfectly in line with being libertarian. One of the leg

> I'm generally pretty libertarian, but I'm all for throwing the book at these guys. To me that seems perfectly in line with being libertarian. One of the legitimate roles of the government is protecting people from violence by other people. Libertarians are not anarchists.

cogman10 5mo ago
Not to my understanding. Libertarian protections are from my understanding all about the quantifiable damages that were done by any given action. They don't usually go beyond that. That's why most libertarians would be in favor of blowing asbestos insulation with the thought that "well, eventually the mesothelioma victims will sue which will stop the practice". You couldn't preemptively sue, however, as you don't have any damage you could demonstrate until after the cancer starts. There might be flavors of libertarians that aren't that way but it's my understanding that environmental protections is one of the weaker aspects of the libertarian mindset. Especially since it simply doesn't account for "all the damage is done and the people that did the damage are now gone".
- JoshTriplett 5mo ago
  (Most) libertarians still support addressing externalities. One common libertarian solution for something unproven would be "it's your job to purchase insurance for this new way of doing things, and convince an actuary that it's safe; the insurance premiums will stop you from taking risks with unproven technologies without appropriate precautions/testing/etc".
  - cogman10 5mo ago
    > (Most) libertarians still support addressing externalities. Not really. They support it in terms of individual responsibility and not as a government role. > The standard libertarian solution for something unproven would be "it's your job to purchase insurance for this new way of doing things" No libertarian I'm aware of would force someone to purchase insurance. But it also does not address the externalities problem. We have in this thread an example of an externality that doesn't have a solution. Rolling coal does small amounts of damage. An insurance agent would be happy to insure someone with a modded car that rolls coal because there isn't going to be a claim related to it. The same is true for any CO2 emitting activity. The damage is an externality that builds up with very small individual acts. I know of no way this would be addressed with libertarian philosophy (grant for me that man-made climate change is real and a problem if you want to argue against this).
    - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
      > Not really. They support it in terms of individual responsibility and not as a government role. To a libertarian, a major part of the government's job is to enforce contracts and property rights. Externalities are mass infringements on other people's property rights, that need to either be avoided or appropriately compensated. Emitting CO2 does damage to a common good everyone has an interest in. > No libertarian I'm aware of would force someone to purchase insurance. I didn't say the government would force them to. (Though some smaller-scale voluntary association might well do so.)
      - cogman10 5mo ago
        The problem you'll have in a libertarian framework is who can bring a claim against who for CO2 emissions and for how much? Like, let's say I have a slam dunk case that my $1000 tree died due to climate change. I have the receipts, documentation, everything (unrealistic as it is). How would I go around recovering the damages I'm owed? Who would figure out that "Ted there who drove to work for the last 20 years contributed $0.0001 of your damages. The concrete plant over there contributed $0.001. The coal plant $0.01". I'll also point out you did not address the rolling coal problem.
        JoshTriplett 5mo ago
        It is not impossible, in a libertarian framework, to have appropriate court cases to establish standard collective rates and trading frameworks for CO2 emission limits. And that does solve the problem of individual vehicle emissions, as well.
- rootusrootus 5mo ago
  > environmental protections is one of the weaker aspects That is probably why we are not on the same page here. I'm thinking in terms of the actual harm. Someone rolling coal near me is causing violence to me. The damage to the environment is more difficult to quantify, and that is not the angle I would approach it from.
- iamnothere 5mo ago
  You are perhaps confusing libertarians with anarcho-capitalists. Ancaps are a subset of libertarians. I think among other right-wing libertarian varieties there is a broader spectrum of beliefs, and left-wing libertarians generally would not support anything that pollutes the commons (although they would disagree about the best means of preventing such pollution).
  - cogman10 5mo ago
    Left libertarians, while they exist, are definitely a minority opinion. But I'd say that they also don't have a good solution to this problem as it requires more centralized enforcement to really make a difference. A tribal council shunning the polluter or even ejecting them from the community isn't likely to result in them stopping their behavior. Not unless a huge portion of the world adopts that government (which is unlikely).
    - iamnothere 5mo ago
      Minarchists (both left and right), Georgists (“geolibertarians”), and centrist Niskanen “liberaltarians” are often given a libertarian label, and none are strictly opposed to a degree of government intervention to defend fundamental rights including the preservation of natural resources. It’s often agreed among these groups that common resources (like clean air and large bodies of water) should be defended against spoilage, as nobody can “own” these resources. With the exception of the Niskanen group, it’s true that none of these groups have much of an effect on policy in recent decades, but I’d argue that’s more of a consequence of our governmental structure shutting out those with libertarian views except when it’s in the service of increasing the wealth of the already wealthy. There’s a large segment of the population that desires less control/intervention imposed on the Everyman, versus the Randian view that centers on freedom of action for wealthy industrialists. You can see this group present in any discussion about Flock, or digital ID, or age verification. Or problems related to copyright (an artificial government-granted monopoly). These people just aren’t well-organized and don’t have any political power. Their only representation comes from mavericks like Massie and Wyden, who often get marginalized by their parties, or outsider influencers like Louis Rossman. The group I just mentioned (libertarian populists, perhaps?) is less likely to care about regulations on big intangible things like corporations, large-scale economic activity, or highways, and more likely to care about regulations that affect average individuals, very small businesses (especially self-employed or contractors), or small groups like hobbyists. They see many regulations as benefiting key Red or Blue donor groups at their expense, and it’s often hard to argue with that!
- hedora 5mo ago
  You're describing Corporatist Libertarians. Traditional Libertarians: No organization (government or otherwise) should be large enough or powerful enough to infringe on anyone's liberties. Corporatist Libertarians: No government should be powerful enough to infringe on the liberties of corporations. Corporatism has taken over about 50% of the Democrat, Republican and Libertarian parties. They're what people usually mean when they say "moderate" in the US, and why no branches of the federal government have an approval rating above 33%. It's also why things are going downhill so fast: It doesn't matter which party is in power, even if they've got a filibuster proof majority and all three branches in their pocket. Their corporate faction will still be powerful enough to block progressive and populist legislation.
  - triceratops 5mo ago
    > Traditional Libertarians: No organization (government or otherwise) should be large enough or powerful enough to infringe on anyone's liberties. But how?
    - hedora 5mo ago
      One easy way: Limit the size of organizations + governments, and ban border control. Don't like San Francisco? Move to LA or Sac, and you get a completely different government. Don't like Meta or Fox News? No worries, they would have been broken up at 1% their current size.
      - vel0city 5mo ago
        But one or two people and petty cash can be enough to infringe on the rights of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.
        hedora 5mo ago
        That's 3-7 orders of magnitude less than what the current resident of the white house has achieved, depending on how you count. Also, in your scenario, a half dozen or so people could probably take care of the one or two problematic people. There's also a lot of common law around what "cannot infringe on others rights" means, going back 100's of years. My right to infringe on your rights is not included in the set of rights that phrases like that refer to.
KennyBlanken 5mo ago
Libertarians consider anyone doing things they don't like to be anarchists, and anything they do, to be "freedom." You ever notice that areas with very high libertarian numbers tend to have lots of problems with illegal dumping, and lots of people who think registering and insuring their vehicle is optional?
- rootusrootus 5mo ago
  I would say that libertarians come in many flavors. And many of them are not big-L libertarians. > You ever notice [...] No. It may be true, but I would like to see evidence rather than conjecture. I have seen plenty of trashy areas that I would not associate with a high concentration of political libertarians. I would agree that there is an entire flavor of libertarian who, for example, felt like they must not wear masks during the pandemic because they were being told by the government to wear them. My position on that version of libertarianism is in line with Penn Jillete's. I.e. https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/je34ya/penn_jillette_on_masks_and_libertarianism/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/je34ya/penn_ji...
- pattrn 5mo ago
  I've lived in the most libertarian state in the country for the majority of my life. I've never noticed any illegal dumping, and I've never heard any libertarians call anyone an anarchist (maybe once?). If anything, it's the non-libertarians that call libertarians anarchists. On what are you basing your opinions?
andrepd 5mo ago
You're right that's what it should be, as me and my kid's right not to get trampled to death beneath a 2m hood clearly trumps your "right" to drive a 4-ton machine at unsafe speeds wherever you please. But sadly that's not how most "libertarians" think.

cogman10 5mo ago

Not to my understanding. Libertarian protections are from my understanding all about the quantifiable damages that were done by any given action. They don't usually go beyond that. That's why most libertarians would be in favor of blowing asbestos insulation with the thought that "well, eventually the mesothelioma victims will sue which will stop the practice". You couldn't preemptively sue, however, as you don't have any damage you could demonstrate until after the cancer starts. There might be flavors of libertarians that aren't that way but it's my understanding that environmental protections is one of the weaker aspects of the libertarian mindset. Especially since it simply doesn't account for "all the damage is done and the people that did the damage are now gone".

JoshTriplett 5mo ago
(Most) libertarians still support addressing externalities. One common libertarian solution for something unproven would be "it's your job to purchase insurance for this new way of doing things, and convince an actuary that it's safe; the insurance premiums will stop you from taking risks with unproven technologies without appropriate precautions/testing/etc".
- cogman10 5mo ago
  > (Most) libertarians still support addressing externalities. Not really. They support it in terms of individual responsibility and not as a government role. > The standard libertarian solution for something unproven would be "it's your job to purchase insurance for this new way of doing things" No libertarian I'm aware of would force someone to purchase insurance. But it also does not address the externalities problem. We have in this thread an example of an externality that doesn't have a solution. Rolling coal does small amounts of damage. An insurance agent would be happy to insure someone with a modded car that rolls coal because there isn't going to be a claim related to it. The same is true for any CO2 emitting activity. The damage is an externality that builds up with very small individual acts. I know of no way this would be addressed with libertarian philosophy (grant for me that man-made climate change is real and a problem if you want to argue against this).
  - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
    > Not really. They support it in terms of individual responsibility and not as a government role. To a libertarian, a major part of the government's job is to enforce contracts and property rights. Externalities are mass infringements on other people's property rights, that need to either be avoided or appropriately compensated. Emitting CO2 does damage to a common good everyone has an interest in. > No libertarian I'm aware of would force someone to purchase insurance. I didn't say the government would force them to. (Though some smaller-scale voluntary association might well do so.)
    - cogman10 5mo ago
      The problem you'll have in a libertarian framework is who can bring a claim against who for CO2 emissions and for how much? Like, let's say I have a slam dunk case that my $1000 tree died due to climate change. I have the receipts, documentation, everything (unrealistic as it is). How would I go around recovering the damages I'm owed? Who would figure out that "Ted there who drove to work for the last 20 years contributed $0.0001 of your damages. The concrete plant over there contributed $0.001. The coal plant $0.01". I'll also point out you did not address the rolling coal problem.
      - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
        It is not impossible, in a libertarian framework, to have appropriate court cases to establish standard collective rates and trading frameworks for CO2 emission limits. And that does solve the problem of individual vehicle emissions, as well.
rootusrootus 5mo ago
> environmental protections is one of the weaker aspects That is probably why we are not on the same page here. I'm thinking in terms of the actual harm. Someone rolling coal near me is causing violence to me. The damage to the environment is more difficult to quantify, and that is not the angle I would approach it from.
iamnothere 5mo ago
You are perhaps confusing libertarians with anarcho-capitalists. Ancaps are a subset of libertarians. I think among other right-wing libertarian varieties there is a broader spectrum of beliefs, and left-wing libertarians generally would not support anything that pollutes the commons (although they would disagree about the best means of preventing such pollution).
- cogman10 5mo ago
  Left libertarians, while they exist, are definitely a minority opinion. But I'd say that they also don't have a good solution to this problem as it requires more centralized enforcement to really make a difference. A tribal council shunning the polluter or even ejecting them from the community isn't likely to result in them stopping their behavior. Not unless a huge portion of the world adopts that government (which is unlikely).
  - iamnothere 5mo ago
    Minarchists (both left and right), Georgists (“geolibertarians”), and centrist Niskanen “liberaltarians” are often given a libertarian label, and none are strictly opposed to a degree of government intervention to defend fundamental rights including the preservation of natural resources. It’s often agreed among these groups that common resources (like clean air and large bodies of water) should be defended against spoilage, as nobody can “own” these resources. With the exception of the Niskanen group, it’s true that none of these groups have much of an effect on policy in recent decades, but I’d argue that’s more of a consequence of our governmental structure shutting out those with libertarian views except when it’s in the service of increasing the wealth of the already wealthy. There’s a large segment of the population that desires less control/intervention imposed on the Everyman, versus the Randian view that centers on freedom of action for wealthy industrialists. You can see this group present in any discussion about Flock, or digital ID, or age verification. Or problems related to copyright (an artificial government-granted monopoly). These people just aren’t well-organized and don’t have any political power. Their only representation comes from mavericks like Massie and Wyden, who often get marginalized by their parties, or outsider influencers like Louis Rossman. The group I just mentioned (libertarian populists, perhaps?) is less likely to care about regulations on big intangible things like corporations, large-scale economic activity, or highways, and more likely to care about regulations that affect average individuals, very small businesses (especially self-employed or contractors), or small groups like hobbyists. They see many regulations as benefiting key Red or Blue donor groups at their expense, and it’s often hard to argue with that!
hedora 5mo ago
You're describing Corporatist Libertarians. Traditional Libertarians: No organization (government or otherwise) should be large enough or powerful enough to infringe on anyone's liberties. Corporatist Libertarians: No government should be powerful enough to infringe on the liberties of corporations. Corporatism has taken over about 50% of the Democrat, Republican and Libertarian parties. They're what people usually mean when they say "moderate" in the US, and why no branches of the federal government have an approval rating above 33%. It's also why things are going downhill so fast: It doesn't matter which party is in power, even if they've got a filibuster proof majority and all three branches in their pocket. Their corporate faction will still be powerful enough to block progressive and populist legislation.
- triceratops 5mo ago
  > Traditional Libertarians: No organization (government or otherwise) should be large enough or powerful enough to infringe on anyone's liberties. But how?
  - hedora 5mo ago
    One easy way: Limit the size of organizations + governments, and ban border control. Don't like San Francisco? Move to LA or Sac, and you get a completely different government. Don't like Meta or Fox News? No worries, they would have been broken up at 1% their current size.
    - vel0city 5mo ago
      But one or two people and petty cash can be enough to infringe on the rights of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.
      - hedora 5mo ago
        That's 3-7 orders of magnitude less than what the current resident of the white house has achieved, depending on how you count. Also, in your scenario, a half dozen or so people could probably take care of the one or two problematic people. There's also a lot of common law around what "cannot infringe on others rights" means, going back 100's of years. My right to infringe on your rights is not included in the set of rights that phrases like that refer to.

KennyBlanken 5mo ago

Libertarians consider anyone doing things they don't like to be anarchists, and anything they do, to be "freedom." You ever notice that areas with very high libertarian numbers tend to have lots of problems with illegal dumping, and lots of people who think registering and insuring their vehicle is optional?

rootusrootus 5mo ago
I would say that libertarians come in many flavors. And many of them are not big-L libertarians. > You ever notice [...] No. It may be true, but I would like to see evidence rather than conjecture. I have seen plenty of trashy areas that I would not associate with a high concentration of political libertarians. I would agree that there is an entire flavor of libertarian who, for example, felt like they must not wear masks during the pandemic because they were being told by the government to wear them. My position on that version of libertarianism is in line with Penn Jillete's. I.e. https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/je34ya/penn_jillette_on_masks_and_libertarianism/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/je34ya/penn_ji...
pattrn 5mo ago
I've lived in the most libertarian state in the country for the majority of my life. I've never noticed any illegal dumping, and I've never heard any libertarians call anyone an anarchist (maybe once?). If anything, it's the non-libertarians that call libertarians anarchists. On what are you basing your opinions?

andrepd 5mo ago

You're right that's what it should be, as me and my kid's right not to get trampled to death beneath a 2m hood clearly trumps your "right" to drive a 4-ton machine at unsafe speeds wherever you please. But sadly that's not how most "libertarians" think.