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Notes -
Can you conceive a scenario where unrestricted immigration could lead to severe problems?
Personally, I’m a law and order libertarian. America’s past success with immigration at scale is not guaranteed to continue.
Yes, I can also conceive and witness problems caused by unregulated relationships. Does it change my position? Not really an inch on either issue.
Are you an anarcho-capitalist?
“Relationships” in the personal sense and the issues of immigration, including citizenship, are not really the same. In a better world, the whole world would be open borders (enforced by the one world government, of course) and the lamb would lay down next to the lion.
It’s not about the government being competent at it. Competent compared to what? It’s that it’s a situation where there’s no better alternative, similar to the related issue of national defense.
But then I’m a (bad) libertarian who thinks seat belt laws are justified on utilitarian grounds.
Are you against tobacco and alcohol? If not, is it a cost-benefit situation with very specific numbers and math, or something unique to seatbelts? The right to not wear a seatbelt is a natural consequence of self-ownership.
I’m a utilitarian libertarian, not deontological. Seat belt laws are easily justified on a cost/benefit basis.
Restricting/taxing things with known severe downsides like alcohol and tobacco is also easily justified, though the details are much more complicated than mandating seat belts. Of late, I think broad legalization of digital sports gambling is a pretty bad idea.
Externalities and tradeoffs are real and ought to be addressed, in other words, and that sometimes necessitates government intervention and curtailing liberty.
Please do so -- what is the net cost to you of increased traffic fatalities? (in a libertarian society if possible, but I guess that's hard mode -- even in today's US I think you will have a tough time)
It’s higher than the net cost of seat belts and a compliance regime.
Having more severe injuries and deaths from auto accidents, that are preventable by seat belts, is so obviously a bad thing for any given individual and society at large due to increased medical spending and decreased tax revenue alone.
There are so many bad cases of government intervention and so it’s always a shame to see a clearly good one get opposed.
You are wrong about the medical spending -- in a libertarian society this would be a personal matter, and in the real world the medical savings from all the additional (mostly) young people who die in crashes rather than getting old and sick far outweighs the additional burden from those who might choose not to wear a seatbelt and incur somewhat more serious injuries than they otherwise would. Same goes for excessive tobacco and drinking.
The second claim is more interesting -- if you think that society has a right to maximize tax revenue from individual citizens, it sounds like government should be able to direct people's labour however it deems optimal, on utilitarian grounds? I'd probably argue against this on the basis of the track record of planned economies in general, but in any case it sounds diametrically opposed to any form of libertarianism (or even anarchism) that I'm familiar with?
I think he is wrong about net tax revenue as well. Something like 60% of Americans receive more in transfers than they pay in taxes over their lifetimes, i.e. they are a net drain on government revenue. Plus, I would wager that lower income people are more likely to not wear seatbelts (and drive less safe cars in general) which would skew this even further.
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