[sausman]

Democratic government: Shitty and selfish people electing shitty and selfish people to initiate violence against shitty and selfish people and their property.

Libertarianism: Shitty and selfish people not condoning the use of violence against shitty and selfish people and their property.

[vacri]

I wish libertarians would stop their crusade to redefine the word 'violence'. It waters down the word and will eventually make it meaningless if their version catches on.

[alecbenzer]

They're using the same definition as everyone else. People find these allusions to violence odd because the "violence" in governments is fairly far-removed, but this is why libertarians bring it up: to remind/reinforce that this is what's going on behind the scenes.

two relevant videos:

George Ought to Help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs

You Can Always Leave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fasTSY-dB-s

[vacri]

The use of 'violence' in this context is as stupid as saying a bartender calling 'Last drinks!' is being violent.

After all, if you stick around and don't comply with the request to leave the bar, the bouncers and then the police will get involved.

[alecbenzer]

You cite an example of enforcing private property rights. And you're right, violence is used to enforce private property rights.

I'll admit some libertarians might use "violence" to indicate "badness" a little too readily and/or implicitly in these kinds of analogies (because they likely would be okay with violence to enforce property rights), but both thinks are fundamentally enforced with violence.

This admission doesn't make the analogies meaningless. Eg, a libertarian might say "I'm okay with using violence to enforce property rights, but I'm not okay with using violence to do [other thing]".

[vacri]

Why is it okay to use violence (libertarian definition of) to protect private property rights, but not to protect public property rights? To take a concept from a libertarian elsewhere in the thread: why is the private individual 'magic' and the public not?

This is the irony of libertarianism: "Freedom for everyone, but I get to keep all my goodies!". It's not actually freedom for everyone; it enshrines privilege with the people who already have a lot of wealth. It works against levelling the playing field and against people advancing by merit. If you're born into wealth, you're protected by libertarianism - you'll get better schooling, better networking, better secret-handshake memberships. If you're born into poverty, libertarianism handwaves and mutters something about charity (which is always amusing, because private charities have never amounted to anything like public welfare), but really doesn't care about helping you improve yourself, giving you the tools to become wealthier. The poor don't have private property, so libertarianism flips them the finger. If the poor get shafted by someone's actions, the libertarian answer is "take them to (the skeletal remains of) the court system", something which the poor cannot leverage at all. Factory spewing toxic smoke into your house? Take them to court... oh, you can't afford a lawyer, or at least one that stands a chance. Pity - there are no regulations on air pollution, because that curtails 'freedom' and is 'big government' and so the supposed answer instead is 'take them to court'.

I watched your second video. It's funny that the creator gave libertarianism a great loophole: "Oh, wars of conquest make it alright if the losers have all been killed". It's basically hand-waving away the indicated moral issues about taking things by force and translated means "I get to keep my stuff". It's a bad video full of leading statements and bad assumptions, though it does have nice production values. The entire video frames libertarianism as a mechanism to keep your material goods all to yourself - unsurprising, really, since this is what really underpins the philosophy.

Fundamentally, libertarianism is about people who want to maintain their social privileges and wealth, and not actually about fair opportunity. It's an incredibly selfish philosophy, but it's wrapped in attractive-sounding rhetoric. In any case, to answer the libertarian question "Why should I help anyone else at all?"(paraphrased, but ridiculously clear on every discussion regarding tax), the answer is basically "Because you're human, and humans are social animals that rely on each other; they are not self-sufficient without extreme effort".

[alecbenzer]

> violence (libertarian definition of)

As I said, this is not a special definition of violence.

> Why is it okay to use violence (libertarian definition of) to protect private property rights, but not to protect public property rights?

This follows from the libertarian view of rights. People own themselves and the product of their labor and have rights to trade voluntarily. Public property rights (not sure exactly what you're referring to by that, but guessing) tend to conflict with private property rights.

> It's not actually freedom for everyone;

Whether or not what follows this is relevant/worth discussing, I'm not sure what any of it has to do with libertarianism not being freedom for everyone. From a glance it sounds like a mix of interesting (but common) discussion points and straw-men. I'll respond if I have some time later.

[lurkinggrue]

I do get sick of every argument boiling down to "Gun to the head" corrosion.

I do wonder if they were forced to eat broccoli too much as a kid as that is the parents holding a gun to their kids heads.

[f3llowtraveler]

If violence weren't central, why would people even care to argue about it in the first place?

[MCRed]

Libertarians are using the word violence correctly.

If a person rapes, murders, beats, stabs, uses force or otherwise is violent against another person, then libertarians would call that "violence".

Statists seem to believe that all of the above is not "violence" when done by a government or an agent of the government.

It seems that by definition the Statists are watering down the word violence.

Why is it wrong to molest a child... unless you're in an Airport and wearing a TSA uniform?

Because government is somehow magical, right?

Please.

[vacri]

I must have missed government agents raping people. Is that a regular occurrence where you are? Because I don't think you have to be libertarian to be against that sort of behaviour. I certainly haven't heard of anyone being raped because they didn't pay their tax.

In any case, if that's your definition of violence, then libertarians are actually anarchists - there can be zero law or tax at all, because as soon as you don't feel like complying, any enforcement becomes 'violence', since ultimately, at the end of the chain, it has to be enforced physically. Unenforceable laws and zero taxes = anarchy. And anarchy is not particularly workable above the level of hunter-gatherers and nomads.

I pay my taxes, various kinds, gladly and without a hint of violence anywhere. As does almost everyone (perhaps a few are resigned rather than glad, but still no violence). It's only when you refuse to pay that a chain of events begins which eventually ends up with you being manhandled by government agents, and then only if you're continuing to physically resist. At that point you can call 'violence', but before then, you're just speaking nonsense.

Edit: Also, you might just find it isn't just libertarians who have a problem with minors and TSA pat-downs. You don't have to classify that as 'violence' to have a problem with it. You say governments aren't magical. I'm saying the word 'violence' is not magical. Something doesn't have to be considered violence to be wrong.

[MCRed]

So, wait, a mugger points a gun at you and demands your money. You give him your wallet and he runs off. Your argument seems to be that since he ran off without shooting you, no violence was involved?

> I certainly haven't heard of anyone being raped because they didn't pay their tax.

Oh really? IF you don't pay tax you go to jail. What happens in jail? Do you know the statistics on rape investigations in jail? Well, lets put it this way- they basically don't bother to investigate, and consider it part of the punishment.

Libertarians believe the initiation of force is immoral. Many of them are anarchists because, yes, it is quite hard for a government to exist without initiating force given the definition of government is basically "the mafia that conquered and rules a geographic region." But still there are many libertarians who support the idea of a voluntary government.

>And anarchy is not particularly workable

Prove it.

>without a hint of violence anywhere

Oh really? But you just made the threat of violence quite clear:

>In any case, if that's your definition of violence, then libertarians are actually anarchists - there can be zero law or tax at all, because as soon as you don't feel like complying, any enforcement becomes 'violence', since ultimately, at the end of the chain, it has to be enforced physically.

So, which is it. Are you paying taxes under the threat of "physical enforcement" aka violence? Or are you free to not pay your taxes?

Are you free to not be mugged?

>Something doesn't have to be considered violence to be wrong.

Not the point. Initiating violence against the innocent is wrong.

We point this out to force people like you to admit that you want to do violence against innocent people to pay for things that you value but that you don't want to pay for yourself (what you call taxes.)

By the way, given that Democrats voted for Obama and Obama is the one who signed the legislation that has the TSA molesting children, and the Republicans have done nothing to oppose it, yes, you DO have to be libertarian to claim to oppose the TSA. Otherwise what should we believe? It's not y our fault that this government whose violence you endorse is using it in way you don't approve of? Did you vote for Obama the second time? If so, you endorsed the TSA molestation regime.

[vacri]

you DO have to be libertarian to claim to oppose the TSA. blah blah Obama blah blah

No I don't, because I'm not fucking American^. You're so wound up in this story of yours that you've got blinders on, and can't see the outside world. You're so proud of this 'third way' that libertarians think they've got the lock on, when my country has multipolar politics, as do several others. In my country, Australia, there are two major political blocs (and one of those is itself made of two blocs), but the balance of power is currently held by small parties and independent politicians. So fuck you, fuck you very, very hard for trying to imply that I endorse TSA pat-downs, characterised by you as 'molestation' to make it sound like I was a sex offender by association. I should probably note that at this point in my life, I feel far more abused by libertarians than by the tax department, despite libertarians prattling on about not doing harm to others.

You're so proud that your libertarianism is the 'only' alternative (in your eyes), because if you're not Republican or Democratic, you have to be libertarian? Fuck, Australia considered itself a member of "Third Way" politics[1] decades ago, and that 'third way' is not 'libertarian'. Have you even seen Germany, which has no political parties strong enough to rule in their own right, so they have to form coalitions to get a majority?

All throughout your diatribe you're using simplistic concepts and overdramatised demonisation (like tax = street muggings), which you consider 'inescapable logic' or somesuch. The simple, plastic, PlayMobile philosophy you peddle is directly offensive (you're not a libertarian? then you condone rape!) and has no understanding of political nuance or necessity.

So, I leave you with this: If you hate government as much as you say you do, then move to Vanuatu. Good weather, happy people, no tax at all (unless you're a landlord). Less than a thousand police, and they also double as the army. Tiny government. It's exactly what libertarians say they want, and yet few seem to want to move there - they seem to much prefer the infrastructure bought by taxes. So, you don't want to pay for anything that you're not going to use yourself? Then put your money where your mouth is and move to Vanuatu, instead of implying that people who disagree with you are child molestors.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way

^Edit: I don't have anything against the US, I'm just pissed off at being associated with child molestors just because I disagree with libertarians.

[steanne]

their crusade is going less well than you fear: i'd never heard of it until this thread.

[MCRed]

The striesand effect at work. Most leftists have only heard of Atlas Shrugged because of the constant bashing it gets in the mouthpieces of the left.

I wonder how many of them have, rather than burning the book, decided to read it and think about it for themselves?

Cause if you do-- you would no longer be a leftist.

[eevilspock]

Oh I read it. And it made a lot of sense, when I was 15.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

~John Rogers

[steanne]

i did read it. ...and several other of her books. good stories, but that's all.

[sausman]

Are my descriptions inaccurate?

[MCRed]

No, but they are uncomfortable, hence the down votes. Alas, this is not a site with high intellectual integrity.

[forgotpasswd3x]

Yeah, that's the reason. /s

[colanderman]

If I'm Libertarian by that definition, what external disincentive does a non-Libertarian have not to forcibly take my land/home/car/etc.?

[MCRed]

Your firearm. They are quite effective.

The definition of libertarian: People who believe the initiation of force is immoral.

Thus, those trying to forcibly take your property are initiating force. Nothing about that being immoral precludes you from defending yourself or your property.

[colanderman]

How is this different from the traditional role of government? When – with the exception of violations of civil liberties (which we probably agree are unethical) – does the government initiate force against those who are not, by consensus of the population, harming others?

That is, what is your definition of "harm" which is broad enough to cover, say, non-violent theft (as my example) and incarceration, but narrow enough to exclude, say, polluting a river? (Or choose another example where you think the government overreaches.)

Further questions:

If I am Libertarian and sovereign me believe polluting a river harms me, so I shoot you; does that give you or your family, who does not believe polluting a river to be harm/violence, the Libertarian-moral standing to shoot me? i.e. do we settle this Hatfield and McCoy style? Would the winners be those with the biggest guns, or do Libertarians, in an attempt to belay further violence, put things to a vote and only initiate force against those who go against the vote?

If I am Libertarian, but am infirm and thus unable to properly defend myself, is it Libertarian-moral to outsource my force-initiation to an outside group? If so, how do the services this group provide differ materially from the services the executive branch of the government provides? If not, what is my recourse; should I die because I am physically weak?