Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Top 10 Reasons Libertarians Aren't Nice to You - Christopher Cantwell

Part of the reason you're still a minarchist, I think, is because you don't yet have enough experience with anarchism to understand that the bolded statement is false. Anarchists understand that perfectly well, and some of it (for example, the perfectibility part) they understand better than conservatives.

But it'll come. If you don't dig it out yourself, it'll soon be forced on you--you and a whole host of other people. My prediction is that you'll be one of the ones who's open enough to receive it, while a large number of others just whimper and wring their hands in cognitively-dissonant irrationality.

Barak, your hubris knows no bounds.

Anarchism is not a subset of libertarianism it is its antithesis.

Libertarians say people may do whatever they want so long as they don�t infringe on others� right to the same. This is self-evidently just.

Anarchists say people may do whatever they want including the denial of others� right to the same. This is self-evidently immoral.

But, Barak, the good news for you is that Anarchism is the condition that�s been on earth everywhere since the Fall. I�ve read many times of how you contend that people will band together for their own self-protection and self-interest to include your high school days of beating up the out of tune band member. And that is the human condition. But guess what? Every government (which you obviously loath) is an application of that. When people band together to affect others� behavior it may go by many names, such as band, gang, organization, �our thing�, club, etc., but one of these names is �government�.

That�s right, Barak, baby, you�re living the dream! Every government that�s ever existed is simply an application your beloved anarchism in action.

But, there is a distinction between them. The governments that put rules in place to allow self-determination (i.e., libertarianism) to exist are just.

The governments that prey upon their members and deny them this right or allow their members to do so to other members unabated (i.e. anarchism) are immoral.

Hawkeye advocates the former and you advocate the later.

What a bunch of worthless drivel. I love the "I can't teach you economics in 140 characters or less"...this from a group who doesn't understand there are two separate types of economics; micro & macro.

And they're "so smart" that they just completely ditch macro and apply simplistic microeconomics to everything, dumbing it down so they can preach their vision to the mental midgets they associate with.

Don't get me wrong, I'd vote for a Libertarian WAY before I'd vote for a Democrat or Republican. But pure Libertarian politics is pretty flawed in several areas. I agree with the Libertarians on most social issues, and on more political issues than the other two parties. But their view of economics is simplistic, childish, and completely ignores the lessons of history.

Under discussion is the principle of libertarianism, not the party. Conservatism mimics it while Liberalism mimics anarchy. By voting for neither you endorse the later.

Says the party man. That's the most worn out BS line in the history of politics; and it's complete bull-sheitt!

Why do I not vote for either. Because BOTH are heading precisely in the wrong direction, and will un-do this nation. I have come to this realization and I want to be able to look my kids in the eye and tell them that I stopped the madness; that I wasn't a part of it.

When you KNOW that neither party is the right choice, how moral is it to choose what you consider the lesser of two evils? Who would you rather have kill your family, an axe murderer or a delusional who smother's them all in their sleep? The end result is the same.

Where are the glowing examples of anarchy? People fear it so much they will choose tyranny over it. As Madison said, people are not angels.

There are amazing examples of murderous Marxism because people will even tolerate that for a while. Anarchy, no.

The irony of this is that my leanings are libertarian, just not to the point of reality denial.

Someone has blown too much smoke up the little monkey's butt.

If I remember correctly, barak, you see yourself as a Christian. If so, how can you be in denial about human nature and that the Bible teaches that God gives good government as a blessing? Romans 13

Yah, I figured somebody would say something like that. But it's true: government and liberty are fundamentally incompatible, and once you've been able to divorce yourself from the appropriate childhood indoctrinations--which isn't easy--the conclusions are difficult to avoid.

And it's also true that anarchists understand the imperfectibility of humanity better than conservatives do. Conservatives believe that humans are perfectible enough to be trusted with the rule (however limited in theory) of other humans; anarchists believe they're not.

It's unfortunate that that causes offense; I wish it didn't. But there we are.

Okay, that's a fascinating assertion. Here you had my undivided attention.


But here's where it became evident that you have no idea what you're talking about...so I stopped reading. Sorry. It's that Item 7 again.

Anarchy works very well on a very small scale. Government happens as things grow larger and people quite predictably become less honest as they get less personal to others.

And I'd love to meet an An-Cap who has actually taken and passed a macro-economics class. If they have taken such a class with anything even remotely approaching an open mind, and still advocate An-Cap, then I'm just speechless...I just can't wrap my head around that kind of ignorance.

We understand that Keynesians believe there are two separate types of economics. Keynes had to come up with two separate types because otherwise he would not have been able to get anybody to accept his wild-eyed theories that plainly claimed exactly the opposite of what everyone knew to be the case from personal experience.

"Ah, yes, I understand that it seems to you as though you can never spend your way out of debt; but that's because you only have experience with microeconomics. Up in our sophisticated ivory towers, we professional economists have been to Oppositeland and brought back the theory of macroeconomics that explains how you can do it. Don't worry about the details; it's much too advanced for the likes of you."

With only a little injustice, you could probably sum up the work of Ludwig von Mises in the statement, "It's all microeconomics."

And that's one of the reasons I like the Austrian School: it makes a whole lot more intuitive sense than the Keynesian School or the Chicago School with their constant appeals to special revelation.


Big-L Libertarians are about as libertarian as big-R Republicans are conservative. I'm not interested in defending them. But small-L libertarianism doesn't include social issues, and it really has only one political issue: the Non-Aggression Principle.


Austrian economics is indeed very simple; that's one of its major attractions. And no, Austrians don't ignore the lessons of history: they merely have different interpretations of them than you do.

For example, you know the boom-bust business cycle that Keynesians relegate to superstition and "animal spirits" and such? Austrians know how it happens, why it happens, and even approximately when it will happen. That's why Peter Schiff has been so successful in predicting the economy over the past ten or fifteen years.

+1

Actually, God gave government as a curse and a punishment, not a blessing. See I Samuel 8.

Ah, the old nanny-nanny-boo-boo school of debate, the classic mark of someone unable to defend their position.

Actually, it's socialism that works very well--better than anything else we know--on a small scale. Even the most outspoken capitalists in the world acknowledge this by running their own families on a socialist model.

As groups grow larger and people can get away with more dishonesty, socialism becomes unworkable and you have to turn to capitalism. And to get the full benefits of capitalism, you have to eliminate government: government distorts capitalism and makes it less efficient.

The complexity of centralizing a population of size N is proportional to N squared. Government becomes less workable (and rapidly so), not more, as the population increases.


That's like saying you'd like to meet a cosmologist who has taken and passed a Copernican-astronomy course. Austrian economists look at Keynesian macroeconomists the way you look at witch doctors hooting and dancing around bonfires.

Pretty much made my point.

It's funny how you're right on this, and every major economist in the world is wrong. What's more, most every nation in the world is wrong.

If one person tells you you're drunk; that's an opinion. If 10 people tell you you're drunk; you ought to hand someone your keys.

It's not a debate. Before you can debate you need a position. You don't have a position; you have an incoherent pile of inaccuracies. My lunch hour is nearly over; I have better things to do. Go educate yourself and c'mon back. Here's something that's simple and clear: For a New Liberty, by Murray Rothbard. (Free, full-text PDF. Will you read it? Will you even look at it? Let me write down my prediction. Okay, there.)

Yet most EVERY nation in the world abandons the completely "free" markets as abuses pile up and the "market" is unable to "self-correct". It fails EVERY TIME on the large scale. You know it does...you're just more interested in winning arguments to validate your pre-conceived notions.

Well CLEARLY...that's why after a decade of de-regulation in the '80's much like we de-regulated in the '90's, Austrian banks rapidly re-regulated in 1996...you know, because it worked so well.

I'll give you that economics in Austria are FAR better than those here in the US. But Austrian economics are a good light-year away from An-Cap. Their markets are regulated, and it all works because their regulators actually regulate...rather than jump in bed with the banks like ours do.

You won't read my short post but you want me to look up and read some treatise of your choosing? Quite the narcissist, you are.

Maybe libertarians aren't nice to people is because they'RE azzholes by thEIR nature. ThERE , I said it.