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I started writing a long answer from a libertarian perspective after being triggered by the surface level argument people always make using the stupid ass LP as a stick to beat the long and storied tradition of liberty, but then I figured you wouldn't get it and it'd sound like any and all explanation from the libertarian point of view.
So let me try to answer in a way someone who bit the bullet of Moralism and isn't afraid to just say they want to make society a certain way, would understand.
The problem with just doing what you want, is that you, like all other humans before you, are fucking stupid and will fuck this up. I would too. Anybody given power always does because they're not God. It's just a question of time. Sure you may get a few lucky strokes for a while, get a Caesar or two in there, have a ruling class that is actually well meaning, competent, and lucky for a bit, but it won't last.
Any regime, forever, by the very jealous nature of power, is always crawling towards the worst possible totalitarianism and the inevitable collapse that goes with it. This is just the nature of things, like the seasons, breathing and all other such cycles.
Since living in totalitarian societies is real bad even if you agree with the founding principles not to mention unsustainable, we should try to avoid this. There isn't much that can be done against nature, but lovers of freedom have devised some ways of medicating some of the problem.
Though the growth of Power is a ratchet, you can still slow it down. Fight every battle, make the bastard pay for every millimeter of redtape, every camera in your home, every license and registration. This is the fight you and all other Boromirs of your kind are always perplexed by.
Why make these abstract and complex systems of rights and moral justification to not touch the Ring of Power? Why not just use it against Sauron, then chuck it in Mt. Doom and call it a day? These are all bullshit justifications that aren't real anyways.
Well because we know once you pick it up, you're not putting it down unless you die. So the big complications are supposed to act as a giant neon sign warning saying THIS IS THE DANGEROUS RING OF POWER DO NOT TOUCH. And yeah sure it's annoying and inconvenient, sure it means some evil will be permitted that needn't be, and sure it is no permanent solution. But its less horrible than whatever you'll become if you touch the Ring.
You may say this is all ultimately futile because someone will eventually take it and fuck us all over, you may even say that if you don't pick it up somebody worse might. You're right of course, but it's also the Ring calling to you. Don't listen. Remember that it only obeys its one master. You won't be doing what's right with Power, you'll be doing what's right for Power. And like everybody else with a vision, you and it will be destroyed and replaced with the only thing Power ever does: grow more of itself.
Freedom has only ever existed as an oversight, a crack in the pavement of sovereignty, a "liberty" to be rescinded in the future. It is also vital to all that is human, beautiful and true, and that's why me and my ilk fight for it, and against you and all others who have designs on society despite being fated to lose.
Some dream of chucking the ring in a volcano and designing societies that do not contain coercion. I assume these would better fit your idea of a positive vision. But I've seen too many fail to believe in these Utopian dreams of transcendance. All we can do is fight, right now and right there, against the pull of the abyss.
I very much enjoyed this and found your argument captivating, but as a Boromir, sometimes the communists are raping the nuns and emptying the prisons and you have to fight. Not taking the ring is the worse choice. But again as a principle and a standard two thumbs up
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This would be an extremely salient critique if I wasn't in a thread with Libertarian minded people talking about limiting the liberty of others because they happen to not like and not believe in the thing others are doing with their own liberty.
The LP is not a stick I am hitting Libertarians with because it's a silly group filled with people on the spectrum. I mentioned it precisely because those people, the most looney left-Libertarians, are the only ones standing by the principles. The King of Gondor is dancing naked on stage to protest government corruption, foaming at the mouth at the mere insinuation that people need take a test to drive a car. And he is a legitimate noble king. Far more so now than ever before as the 'respectable' and 'sensible' or 'adult' Libertarians walk back on their oath to liberty above all to protest trannies and drag queens.
I would say Libertarianism is futile because eventually Libertarians realize they don't want to live in a society filled with things they don't like. They actually want nice things. A nice society, like described by Hoppe. Some might even recognize, on some level, though it is a stretch, that just because they like smoking weed doesn't mean it's good for a free market economy to actively promote it to children like it's soda. In fact soda might be just as bad or even worse, I mean, look at the obesity rates...
Libertarians, like others, see expressions and assertions of morals that are too alien to them as inherently hostile. And as they grow in a world where the consequences of freedom start encroaching on other sensibilities they hold alongside liberty, they start moving away from liberty towards something else. Sure, it takes them more time than others, as they value liberty more than others. But it's just a matter of degree. And when the existence and free expression of moral aliens manages to sufficiently push society to a place so foreign and abnormal to Libertarian sensibilities that they balk at the notion that these people be free then there is no difference between a Libertarian and a person who wanted to nip this in the bud long before it got this out of hand.
You can go quite a long way (indeed, in some cases further than I'd like to go) into attempting to disassemble LGBTQI without doing anything that technically breaks libertine principles.
banning LGBTQI rhetoric from being taught in public schools: this doesn't technically infringe anyone's freedom of speech in the usual libertine construction. The teachers can still say it, they just can't say it on the clock and still get paid (free contract - they're employed by the State, and the State can set conditions of what is and is not their job), and they are entirely free to pick another career or find another - private - employer who will pay them to teach kids LGBTQI. (If you want to go the galaxy-brain libertine position on this, you could also just disestablish schools.)
removing gay marriage: marriage is a social construct, not a physical action; you have no liberty right to society agreeing with your idea. Fucking is a physical action, and it's against liberty to ban that, but since unmarried sex is legal that's not relevant. Similar reasoning applies to legal transition.
defunding transition therapy: it's against liberty to ban cosmetic surgery, but it's up to society what society pays for.
removing pronoun policies: these are anti-libertine in the first place; you can call yourself what you like, but whether other people go along with it is, in a place with free speech, their decision (free contract prevents you from stamping these out when it's a private actor with no public funding imposing it, though; see above).
These examples still feature a Libertarian infringing on the rights of others, just by using the state as a medium.
Why should it be the libertarian that gets their way with regards to what a teacher can and can't say? If the teacher wants to espouse LGBT stuff why not let them? Isn't that more freedom for the teacher? Why should they, the teachers, be the ones who have to live under a society that stifles their speech if they want to keep their job?
I know libertarians can justify whatever they want to justify. As Hoppe did most eloquently when he advocated for the physical removal of those who violate a hypothetical covenant made between people who want to maintain some sort of society they like. The point I am making is that a libertarian loses any and all moral highground as soon as they stoop to this level. Suddenly their notions of freedom are no greater than mine. They want to live in a society of a certain flavor.
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The difference between you and Hoppe is that he doesn't want a monopoly on what a good society is. The Taliban and Californians get to live in their own little hellholes they made for themselves if they want to. And we only bomb them to a crisp if they fuck with us, none of this civilizing crap, no interference. I don't trust you to have the same restraint. Like the Californians you wouldn't want to leave people alone if you can "help" them.
So instead of rotating between the two clichés of "you said they'd be no rules but here you are enforcing rules" and "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds", which are both completely discarding what libs actually believe in, maybe explain to me how you freely nipping things in the bud doesn't turn tyrannical.
Hoppe does want a monopoly on what a good society is in the society he lives in, even in a Libertarian utopia. He wants the ability to freely associate with those who agree with him and freely disassociate from those who don't. To the end of ostracizing those he does not like from his society and protecting his society from those that would harm it. He does not want to live with the 'undesirables' or subject himself to their whim and suffer through whatever affronts to his moral sensibilities that their twisted minds can come up with after they've been afforded the freedom to do so.
You trusting him more than me to not have that ball roll into some kind of totalitarian foreign policy is completely irrelevant to my stated views. If that's all you have I am very content with saying you don't have much. Because I am not asking for something radically different from Hoppe. I just want the thing formalized in plain English instead of squeezing it out through Libertarian priors.
I assume my preferred views wont lead to "tyranny" for the same reason Libertarians assume theirs wont lead to "tyranny".
Really it comes down to a simple question.
Do you guarantee exit rights? And if so, how?
That's the difference between you and him. And I think it's significant.
The same way Libertarians "guarantee" anything. By making stuff up on internet forums.
I believe my principles and my vision for the future will lead to good just like Libertarians believe about theirs. The thinly veiled insinuations that I don't sufficiently share your values or hold the correct ones in high enough regard to be trusted is, to not labour a point, asinine.
To some degree you're right, promises from the sovereign are inherently easy to break. But I don't think asking for cryptographic guarantees that you can't seize my assets and institutional control or something is unreasonable or difficult these days.
Or if we want to remain within the realm of making shit up, a base culture and custom of limited government goes a long way. Made up religions like libertarianism actually have important concrete effects.
I guess another way of asking that question is how do I know you're not going to pull a Stalin? Most non-anarchist, even of the absolute monarchist kind, have an answer to that question. And when they don't, like the Italian street brawlers, it's not encouraging.
Libertarianism is not averse to massive power disparities and the problems inherent to those don't vanish just because you allege yourself to be ideologically principled. Having an 'answer' like we are playing a political game of top trumps is just an exercise in self delusion. How do I know you are not going to pull a Stalin?
To make it simple, if your promise to your outgroup is that you wont harm or disadvantage them then you are a liar. And if you believe anyone to be above the track record of human nature, be that a faith in yourself or your ingroup, you are not a serious person.
Of course it is. But delusions are necessary. Power is magic after all.
These statements are true and unobjectionable. But you may as well say God does not exist.
What I think you're missing is that the lie is not just necessary, it's righteous. And in many ways it's more true than the cynicism a rational analysis of politics must confine itself to.
Political formulas and how believable they is important. Endlessly pointing out that they're ultimately all bullshit is infantile postmodernism. If you want to be more than a thug with a gun, you need something to believe in. Even the aforementioned italian brawlers understood that, if too late to make a good religion.
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Just to steel man the libertarians, I’ve always appreciated that unlike almost every other political party, they actually live by their principles. They aren’t just in favor of liberty and government non-interference when it suits them. They’re in favor of letting people do as they please even when they hate the choices being made. Other parties don’t tend to do that and their bases tend to make excuses for why it’s necessary to sell out their stated beliefs and principles.
I tend to lean libertarian in some ways, I don’t think the government should be able to police much of adult consenting behavior. The government exists to prevent fraud, abuse, and crimes. It doesn’t exist to rescue you from your bad decisions, nor to prevent you from making bad decisions. It doesn’t even exist to provide a retirement. On the other hand, I don’t think that means you can’t make reasonable laws, you can require information be provided, you can create strong civil codes that forbid fraud, and allow for strong tort law.
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