[confluence]

I've made up my own law of selfish libertarianism - if you'll indulge me:

> It's only a liability or an entitlement until you yourself need it - then it's a fucking right.

For example being a young white male born into a middle class western family affords you the ability to state "all I need is contract law - everything else is just impinging on my rights and forcing me to take on obligations I don't appear to benefit from - I deserve what I earn."

No health problems + family and state support + faulty logic + short sightedness + sex/race advantages = libertarianism.

Contract law is no more a right than free health care is. But one definitely serves your self interests better. Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare.

The lense people should be looking through is that of the weakest in society - not having a geek hissy fit and fantasizing of going Galt because you feel others are holding you back.

If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear.

[jacquesm]

I do not subscribe to the libertarian point of view. I considered 'armoring' the post against this exact accusation but it was long enough as it was without that but I guess I should have seen it coming.

You make a mistake in that you think that I disagree with the actual laws, I do with some of them (specifically: the obligation to buy certain products or services without the right to negotiate) but on the whole I agree with the 'package' and it is write there for you to read.

Selfishness doesn't enter my book, I gave away plenty of goods and money in my life to people that needed my things more than I did (or made the case that they did). In fact, I probably gave away more than I'm left with, I wonder if you can make the same statement.

Yes, the weak should be protected from the strong and I'm weak in plenty of ways. But I have this curiosity about why things are the way they are and if we can do better than this.

[wissler]

I know it's hard not to respond, but all the OP offered was sneering sarcasm; he in fact has given nothing to respond to, and for that he should be on the defensive, not you. Given all the upvotes he got for a fact-devoid sarcastic sneer post, that tells you something unfortunate about HN.

[nacker]

Congratulations, you have just realized that you are owned by the Tax Farmers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67_imEHTPE

[yummyfajitas]

Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare.

Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you.

It's amusing that while mocking Rand, you make the exact same fallacy she makes in Atlas Shrugged: "anyone who disagrees with me must be evil and selfish, with no moral values."

If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear.

I'm constantly confused when those who oppose libertarianism bring up Somalia. What is the relevance?

[swombat]

Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you.

Individuals have no rights. Rights only exist within the context of a group. Without a group, you're not talking about rights, you're just talking about ability.

[wapper]

If that is true, then in a multicultural or multi-religion group no rights exist at all after time passes. Because in such a group the only possible rights would be lowest-common-denominator, which would decrease if new groups are added to the whole. The more different or antagonistic the new group, the more it has to decrease individual rights.

[eli_gottlieb]

If that is true, then in a multicultural or multi-religion group no rights exist at all after time passes.

Well... kind of, yeah. In real life, most multicultural regions have codes of "rights and freedoms" designed as workable compromises between the moral philosophies of the various cultures living there. Once such a code exists, it will usually be amended rather than scrapped, and new arrivals made to conform somewhat (because it has become a shared culture), but that is, in fact, how it works.

[jmcqk6]

Somalia is, or at least was, a land without a government. If libertarians or randians are correct, it should be a land flowing with milk and honey. Of course, this is not the case. At least, that is how the argument goes.

I'm a former libertarian of the anarcho-capatilist-rand flavor, and I think there are much better arguments against that stance than somalia.

[endersshadow]

Libertarianism is not anarchism, nor does it ever purport to be. In fact, libertarianism holds that a government should be in place, and that its job is to protect the rights (defined by libertarianism--most often, the Bill of Rights is pointed to) of its citizens.

[jmcqk6]

Libertarians do overlap quite a bit with anarcho-capatilism and randism. You might not define libertarianism that way, but many do. The best you might say is something like, 'libertarianism, as espoused by [X], hold that a government should be in place.' As a counter example, I can easily find self-identified libertarians who are anarchists.

edit: grammar and clarification.

[yummyfajitas]

Somalia was a land without a government for a very brief period. It now (and has, for many years) has several governments in different regions. Some are based on Sharia (or at least purport to be), others on Guurti (traditional clan-based government). None are or claim to be based on libertarian principles.

None of it's governments are recognized by the UN, but as far as I'm aware, no one claims that the mere withdrawal of UN recognition of a government leads to prosperity.

[jmcqk6]

>None are or claim to be based on libertarian principles.

I think part of the argument is that if libertarianism is so good / efficient / other desirable criteria, why don't societies naturally evolve into those societies?

Again, I don't think that this is the entire argument, or even a particular good one (in the case of somalia). I'm just pointing it out.

[gwern]

Libertarians have defended Somalia after people tried to use it as a reductio; quite explicitly, too, consider Leeson's "Better Off Stateless: Somalia Before and After" (http://peterleeson.com/better_off_stateless.pdf) which is pretty much what it sounds like. Hence, bringing up Somalia is perfectly fair.

[pi18n]

I was also told Somalia might be a good choice for me when I was arguing against widespread government surveillance.

It's a strawman used by the intellectually lazy to posit that anyone who disagrees with sprawling government that has its fingers in everything must necessarily prefer anarchy, a form of government of which they have a quantum of anecdotal evidence showing it is not ideal.

I didn't see the original essay as Randian, did you? I thought the argument was that these things aren't ideal and there's no way to opt out; in fact for some people there's no way to opt out of even their native country.

[confluence]

Rights don't exist for individuals period. Groups define rights not individuals. Groups do so in their own self interest which we must temper to protect the weak from the strong - to do otherwise merely leads to revolution or collapse. If you want those - have it at - somewhere else.

[Variance]

May I also add, in addition to the excellent rebuttals that other commenters have made to you, that you're making a false analogy between welfare and contract law by confusing positive and negative rights. Positive rights entitle people to something, while negative rights protect people from something. The ideals that most libertarian philosophies are based on maximize negative rights and minimize positive rights. This is based on the core insight that one person's positive rights can only ever come at the expense of another's negative rights. Also, strawman allusions to Somalia don't help this discourse.

[eli_gottlieb]

The problem being that libertarianism places a heavy emphasis on absolute private property, which is a positive right. It's my right to evict you by force from occupying an empty apartment in my building unless you pay me the rent I want.

Now, you can certainly argue coherently in favor of absolute private property (though I would argue back, extensively and in detail, against the absolutism), but to do so, you need to start by admitting that it's a positive right.

[snitko]

There's a meme among libertarians about people suggesting they go visit Somalia. Really, don't bring it up unless you're prepared to discuss it in detail.

[anonymoushn]

I would like to exercise my right to free healthcare. Which doctor do I enslave?

[eli_gottlieb]

Well, contract law and property-title enforcement. Take away private property and Mr. Libertarian isn't going to be so happy that people copied his program-code and took over his factory.

Hence why it's properly called proprietarianism: organizing society with private property as the prime principle.