[smokeyj]

People are starving this very second. Instead of helping them you're sitting on your first world ass commenting on a forum. Does it not bother you they're dying and you can do something about it? Why are you so mean spirited and cold? I'd like to steal half of your property and donate it to the needy and less fortunate. So what if I steal your means of production? Sure, you'll also become poor and require my generous assistance - but that's welfare. Rinse and repeat.

[potatolicious]

> "So what if I steal your means of production? Sure, you'll also become poor"

This is such a huge straw man it may in fact spontaneously combust.

Your post is so full of mindless rhetoric, blatant exaggeration, and outright falsehood that I feel stupid for having responded to it.

If you would like to have a conversation about very important issues re: taxation, the duty of the individual (or lack thereof), and other such issues that are pertinent in our time, I would be glad to do so as soon as you are willing to talk without sounding like a raging manifesto.

Good night.

[smokeyj]

Why is my rhetoric so offensive, but not your own?

> It's intellectually dishonest and a cheap ploy to avoid saying "well, let them die".

Claiming libertarians are against welfare because they secretly enjoy watching poor people die is intellectually dishonest. If you can't see the irony in this..

[corwinstephen]

His point was that leaving assistance to charities is a safe way out of saying, "I'm not sure how to fix this problem right now, so I'd rather just not do anything." Again, you're taking his valid points and turning them into unfounded and extreme assumptions disguised as counter points. There's no way you could logically get from, "well, let them die" to "I take pleasure In watching poor people die" otherwise.

[smokeyj]

I don't agree with your interpretation. OP specifically mentioned that the libertarian position is fundamentally 'mean-spirited' and they disguise their mean-spirit with 'disingenuous reframing'. Does your interpretation fit that bill?

If your interpretation were correct, then it would still be wrong. Libertarians don't believe in 'not doing anything' -- which is clearly a disingenuous reframing of the libertarian position. Any one who knew the least bit about libertarianism would know that voluntary charity is absolutely ideal.

[philwelch]

In the immoral words of Paul Graham, "will you two please stop?" It's Christmas.

[j45]

Seriously. Instead of feeding this kind of a monster, I don't know why people don't do anything better with their energy.

The world fights over personal interpretations far more than over politics or religions. It's so much insecurity wrapped in ego obsessed with worshiping doubt so blindly to convert everyone to feed their own self-doubts instead of what might be possible.

[TeMPOraL]

immortal*?

[philwelch]

God dammit. Thanks. It's too late to edit and that's the worst typo ever.

[lostlogin]

How does the edit feature work? It sometimes seems to time be out faster than other times. I can understand locking down a comment such that retrospectively completely changing it doesn't occur, but I get caught too often as the hacker news app I use (and like despite this) lets you hit post when trying to scroll (and doesn't allow editing!) and editing via mobile safari is a chore.

[three14]

So there's no middle ground? Extreme libertarianism / survival of the fittest or you must try to help all 1.29 billion people in poverty?

[smokeyj]

Middle ground on what? Libertarians love charity. You should give until it hurts. I just don't believe in forcing you to give, and I don't think you should force me to give. Maybe I'm stuck in "treat others the way you want to be treated" mode. Do you have a better principle? How much welfare is enough? What's the objective? How is it measured?

Edit: I don't mean to sound like I'm attacking you, just genuinely curious about your first principles.

[three14]

I was only responding to your strawman. Still, if you want a specific example of welfare that everyone should be forced to pay even without an appeal to morality - emergency room treatment. Despite all the moral hazards, you want the service to be there, and you don't want to tell anyone, "well, you're bleeding to death, but you didn't think to pay for insurance and you have no money, so go die." It's no substitute to have it be a charity; then you'd have either no service or even more free riders. At least this way even those living paycheck to paycheck still contribute.

[smokeyj]

> Despite all the moral hazards, you want the service to be there, and you don't want to tell anyone, "well, you're bleeding to death, but you didn't think to pay for insurance and you have no money, so go die."

There's no doubt that this is an issue, but does it justify forcing people to donate? I like donating to entrepreneurs in poor countries to enable them to create a sustainable living. Why should anyone force me to give to a hospital rather than a cause that I see more fit? I just believe that finding voluntary solutions are better than coercive ones. That said, if I had a button to shutdown all welfare services to the poor - I wouldn't use it. That's not my idea of practical.

[infinite8s]

Do Libertarians believe that government is efficicient at providing anything? Why not voluntary contributions for other 'hazard of the commons' based goods, such defense, infrastructure , etc.

[MordinSolus]

Libertarian is a broad term. You have anarcho-capitalists, minarchists, libertarian socialists, etc. The least authoritarian, an-caps, do wish that everything was voluntarily. Then there those in America who I'll call practical libertarians who simply want to follow the U.S. Constitution more closely than has been done while still adhering to libertarian principles.

In this case, they believe that the federal government should be involved in defense and aiding interstate commerce (without abusing the terminology as has been done by Congress), and leave everything else, as the 10th amendment states, up to the state.

[smokeyj]

Libertarian ideology isn't a philosophy about government, rather a philosophy about how humans should interact. Libertarians believe that using coercive measures against people and their property is not acceptable behavior, regardless of the alleged intent. This goes towards mafias, gangs, cartels, you name it.

So to answer your question, I don't think an ideologically consistent libertarian would support government for any goods or service.

With that said, I think social safety nets are absolutely critical - and that voluntary solutions exist to the problems we face. The threat of force is never a tool in creating sustainable value.

[chill1]

Government is there to do the things that the individual citizens should not or will not do. The government is not there to "force" you to do things against your will; unless of course your will involves doing things directly at odds with the public good (murder, theft, etc.). If you equate taxes to "forcing" you to give, then you are clearly arguing from a staked out position that clearly misunderstands the things that the government does with your money.

[ifyoubuildit]

I'm not sure if the quotes are meant to address this, but there isn't really a choice when it comes to taxes. Doesn't that mean you are being forced? It seems to me the government -is- there to force you to do things... isn't that the whole point?