Jon Stewart's 19 Tough Questions for Libertarians! Video response to Jon questions to Ron

I want to see a minarchist answer the questions.
 
Last edited:
Jon Stewart's 19 Questions To Libertarians

Sources: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-october-27-2011-andrew-napolitano and http://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/ltrg1/jon_stewarts_19_questions_to_libertarians/

What would be your best response to these questions and statements:
  1. Is government the antithesis of liberty?
  2. One of the things that enhances freedoms are roads. Infrastructure enhances freedom. A social safety net enhances freedom.
  3. What should we do with the losers that are picked by the free market?
  4. Do we live in a society or don't we? Are we a collective? Everybody's success is predicated on the hard work of all of us; nobody gets there on their own. Why should it be that the people who lose are hung out to dry? For a group that doesn't believe in evolution, it's awfully Darwinian.
  5. In a representative democracy, we are the government. We have work to do, and we have a business to run, and we have children to raise.. We elect you as our representatives to look after our interests within a democratic system.
  6. Is government inherently evil?
  7. Sometimes to protect the greater liberty you have to do things like form an army, or gather a group together to build a wall or levy.
  8. As soon as you've built an army, you've now said government isn't always inherently evil because we need it to help us sometimes, so now.. it's that old joke: Would you sleep with me for a million dollars? How about a dollar? -Who do you think I am?- We already decided who you are, now we're just negotiating.
  9. You say: government which governs least governments best. But that were the Articles of Confederation. We tried that for 8 years, it didn't work, and went to the Constitution.
  10. You give money to the IRS because you think they're gonna hire a bunch of people, that if your house catches on fire, will come there with water.
  11. Why is it that libertarians trust a corporation, in certain matters, more than they trust representatives that are accountable to voters? The idea that I would give up my liberty to an insurance company, as opposed to my representative, seems insane.
  12. Why is it that with competition, we have such difficulty with our health care system? ..and there arechoices within the educational system.
  13. Would you go back to 1890?
  14. If we didn't have government, we'd all be in hovercrafts, and nobody would have cancer, and broccoli would be ice-cream?
  15. Unregulated markets have been tried. The 80’s and the 90’s were the robber baron age. These regulations didn't come out of an interest in restricting liberty. What they did is came out of an interest in helping those that had been victimized by a system that they couldn't fight back against.
  16. Why do you think workers that worked in the mines unionized?
  17. Without the government there are no labor unions, because they would be smashed by Pinkerton agencies or people hired, or even sometimes the government.
  18. Would the free market have desegregated restaurants in the South, or would the free market have done away with miscegenation, if it had been allowed to? Would Marten Luther King have been less effective than the free market? Those laws sprung up out of a majority sense of, in that time, that blacks should not.. The free market there would not have supported integrated lunch counters.
  19. Government is necessary but must be held accountable for its decisions.
 
just finished watching. learned a few things. I've been meaning to listen more of Stefan's videos.
 
Did Jon write these questions after the interview and put them up just now or something? Or are these taken directly from the interview?
 
lucent said:
I want to see a minarchist answer the questions.
Click to expand...

I don't think Stefan was answering as "an anarchist" but rather from a philosophical and ethical perspective. He broke down the questions based on the meaning of words, not ideology. I think that's the biggest thing that people confuse about Stefan, they think he is an anarchist, when he is more of a philosopher.
 
No, I think a bunch of people on Reddit just rewrote them in a post.

Most of the questions made me facepalm myself. Hell, a bunch of them aren't even questions, but rather statements. Jon Stewart sounds like some kid in a high school civics class.

I liked Stefan Molyneux's response.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hhSsIpjtzY&feature=feedu

Very well thought out and reasoned answers based on philosophy and morality.
 
Last edited:
I guess it's encouraging in a sense that Jon Stewart is asking questions of libertarians, hoping to get some answers. He wouldn't do that if he wasn't somehow, deep down, interested in the ideas. I think maybe he's intrigued to the point where he really wants to explore the philosophy but is hindered by the same fears I used to have, back when I was a liberal.
 
BuddyRey said:
I guess it's encouraging in a sense that Jon Stewart is asking questions of libertarians, hoping to get some answers. He wouldn't do that if he wasn't somehow, deep down, interested in the ideas. I think maybe he's intrigued to the point where he really wants to explore the philosophy but is hindered by the same fears I used to have, back when I was a liberal.
Click to expand...

I dunno. Acknowledging the existence of libertarians and making horribly phrased and strawman fallacy filled questions is quite a large divide from being interested in libertarians. These sound like the ridiculous questions I would get asked constantly on other forums. I can see a bunch of liberals high-fiving each other digitally already and commenting on how brilliant Jon Stewart is and how stupid libertarians are.
 
BuddyRey said:
I guess it's encouraging in a sense that Jon Stewart is asking questions of libertarians, hoping to get some answers. He wouldn't do that if he wasn't somehow, deep down, interested in the ideas. I think maybe he's intrigued to the point where he really wants to explore the philosophy but is hindered by the same fears I used to have, back when I was a liberal.
Click to expand...

I think he said at the end of that interview that they seem to agree but they are coming at it from different angles and missing each other along the way. /very much paraphrasing
 
Question to Jon Stewart: Do you understand the Constitution and the Federalist Papers?
 
Adam Smith said:
This guy does a great job answering/countering Stewart's questions in two separate blog posts. Here's one: http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/breaking-down-jon-stewarts/662195

And here's the second: http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/jon-stewart-and-libertarianism/662849
Click to expand...

He does a good job, but I don't really understand his separation of the government and the State, both are really one and the same effectively. Why not separate the nation and the State? The nation being the physical geographic location where people reside.

I don't honestly see how you can ever really hold a politician accountable. You don't sign a contract with a politician. If Congressman Bob makes a campaign promise and breaks that promise there is nothing I can do to hold him accountable(inb4, "vote him out", the incumbency rate is 98%+). Yet, if I have a contract with a company or any kind of individual, if they break that contract, I can bring them to a civil court for breach of contract.
 
Those questions are addressed at libertarians. Stefan Molyneux, an anarchist, is the first to answer. Anarchists are not libertarians. Fail.
 
PaulConventionWV said:
Those questions are addressed at libertarians. Stefan Molyneux, an anarchist, is the first to answer. Anarchists are not libertarians. Fail.
Click to expand...

I think that "libertarian" is quite a vast spectrum.

Murray Rothbard, also known as Mr. Libertarian, as well as the author of "For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto" was a anarcho-capitalist.

Same with Lew Rockwell, who runs the most trafficked libertarian website on the internet I believe. Tom Woods as well, who is a pretty well known author.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

PAF
The Questions Crying Out for Answers
2
Replies
29
Views
3K
Swordsmyth
Swordsmyth
PAF
Javier Milei Versus the Antiwar Cause
Replies
7
Views
1K
Swordsmyth
Swordsmyth
PAF
A Rothbardian Dissection of Javier Milei
Replies
2
Views
2K
PAF
PAF
Occam's Banana
AZ - cops were called about a white suspect, so they beat & arrest a deaf black man
Replies
7
Views
2K
Brian4Liberty
Brian4Liberty
W
The Constitution's Unsung Hero: Congressman Matt Rosendale
Replies
1
Views
531
Swordsmyth
Swordsmyth
Back
Top