Salon Hit Piece: Libertarianism is for petulant children

[IDefendThePlatform]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]As much as libertarians boast of having a “political movement” gaining in popularity, “you’re not the boss of me” does not even rise to the most elementary level of politics. Aristotle translated “politics” into meaning “the things concerning the polis,” referring to the city, or in other words, the community. Confucius connected politics with ethics, and his ethics are attached to communal service with a moral system based on empathy. A political program, like that from the right, that eliminates empathy, and denies the collective, is anti-political.[/FONT]

This is ridiculous. Libertarians are not against "city" "community" "empathy" "morality" "ethics" "service" or any other baloney accusation. We're against violence. Period.
I'm genuinely curious if the author is aware that these things can exist without coercion or if he/she is being intentionally obtuse.

 

[Weston White]

Personally, I always find it morally dangerous to even dare considering the political sophistries of men actually dumb enough to take their family with them to a damned war-torn nation—and all just so that they might write a sophomoric hit piece!

 

[Anti Federalist]

We have yet to stop our own political rhetoric to address the basic question about what kind of place and in what type of society we want to live.

I want to live in a place where you do not have the moral or legal authority to stick a government gun in my face and demand that I do what you say to try and produce an outcome that you want in society.

Piss. Off.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Personally, I always find it morally dangerous to even dare considering the political sophistries of men actually dumb enough to take their family with them to a damned war-torn nation—and all just so that they might write a sophomoric hit piece!

It's bullshit.

War Torn?

I have friends and shipmates from Honduras, it's less dangerous than a stroll through New Orleans or Chicago.

Not to mention that Honduras is suffering from over century of "progressive" US tomfuckery and intervention and invasions and coups.

 

[Anti Federalist]

I took a van trip across the country, starting in Copan (where there are must-see Mayan ruins), across to the Caribbean Sea to a ferry that took my family to Roatan Island. The trip from Copan to the coast took a full six hours, and we had two flat tires. The word “treacherous” is inadequate—a better description is “post-apocalyptic.” We did not see one speed limit sign in hundreds of kilometers. Not one. People drive around each other on the right and left and in every manner possible. The road was clogged with horses, scooters and bicycles. People traveled in every conceivable manner along the crumbling arterial. Few cars have license plates, and one taxi driver told me that the private company responsible for making them went bankrupt. Instead of traffic stops, there are military check points every so often. The roads seemed more dangerous to me than the gang violence.

Oh, the horror.

And I'll bet any amount of money that those military checkpoints wouldn't strap you down and take your blood, like ones here in the land of the phree.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

You can reason with a person, you cannot reason with a pathology - which is what this kind of leftism is (pathology, mental illness, cognitive impairment). It's fundamentally irrational: not just in the sense that the argument stated is logically invalid, but - more deeply - it exhibits a lack of interest in truth. Basically, I think these people have lost the ability to distinguish between reality and fiction and/or they no longer care about that distinction.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

You can reason with a person, you cannot reason with a pathology

Just let reality do your reasoning for you. We have the truth. Our ideas are clearly and demonstrably better. Our ideas work. Theirs, not so much. Things that don't work tend to eventually go away.

How many people could you convince of the benefits of ubiquitous computing in the 1950s? How many people could you convince to come join you and build a microwave, or even a washing machine, back 500 years ago? People would fight you tooth and nail, and anyone you did manage to come join your washing machine construction project they would try to pressure into abandoning you, because, after all, that guy's crazy! They just don't see it.

Let us follow the example of another petulant child: Galileo Galilei. He didn't worry and fret "well, maybe my ideas will be successful and catch on and become fashionable, or maybe they won't. Oh dear, here's another blistering blog piece from ThePope.com calling me names, whatever will I do?" He knew he was right. He stood up for the right. And he was right. Period. He won and all his opponents lost.

Libertarianism is true. It works. It's the future of humanity. That's it. The Salons of this world are forgettable nothing nobodies and once libertarianism is a fait accompli they will forget they were ever opposed to it.

 

[AuH20]

You can reason with a person, you cannot reason with a pathology - which is what this kind of leftism is (pathology, mental illness, cognitive impairment). It's fundamentally irrational: not just in the sense that the argument stated is logically invalid, but - more deeply - it exhibits a lack of interest in truth. Basically, I think these people have lost the ability to distinguish between reality and fiction and/or they no longer care about that distinction.

Some mean well but I equate it to a really nasty form of social OCD. Once they accomplish one goal, they move onto the next and then the next, until ultimately they are involved in nearly every microscopic facet of everyone's lives. Their alleged grievances can never truly be addressed and we're left to live in the carnage.

 

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

It would be funny if it wasn't so stupid. These proglodytes are the status quo. Every narrative embraced by the mainstream is on the left, corporations lobby for favorable regulation and subsidy and every "right wing" politician has to bow to the altar of progressivism in some way. These people have won, completely and utterly, yet they still see the world as right wing, their enemies as enforcers of status quo policies, and progressives as the enemy of a rightist reactionary society (I wish).

I myself criticize libertarians for being so "individualist" that they oppose community action far too much, but that is not an endorsement of the state. A massive beaureacracy in Washington is not the community, authoritarian control of resources by politicians is not communitarianism. Salon is one of the dumbest websites around, and even smart liberals see their game is idiotic these days.

 

[A Son of Liberty]

We have yet to stop our own political rhetoric to address the basic question about what kind of place and in what type of society we want to live.

I want to live in a place where you do not have the moral or legal authority to stick a government gun in my face and demand that I do what you say to try and produce an outcome that you want in society.

Piss. Off.

"WE" who? These people never start at the actual beginning; they build their entire argument completely without foundation. There is no such thing as "we" in the way the author uses it. "We" will never arrive at the answer to his supposedly basic question of what kind of society "we" want to live in, because "we" will never reach anything close enough to consensus for it to actually mean anything. And there is nothing surprising or wrong with that. What "we" are then left with is the realization that "we" all should be left to live our lives as "we" see fit, without imposing upon others through force or coercion.

Were he more honest, the author would admit that what he means by "we" is, "people who agree with me". That particular "we" will then impose their particular idea of society upon the rest of us through the unprovoked implementation of force. Those who disagree with him are of course "wrong", according to what objective standard they will never say, naturally.

And I'm the petulant child. Right.

 

[otherone]

"WE" who? These people never start at the actual beginning; they build their entire argument completely without foundation. There is no such thing as "we" in the way the author uses it.

"We" is such an awesome word, politically speaking. It's only real purpose is in identifying "they" (with "they" being understood as the future occupants of FEMA camps).
Thread goes full Godwin in five. four. three...