My Problem With Libertarians...
Me, I'm as confused as Rob Long is about SOPA. That's why, earlier today, I thought I'd find out more in the modern way. I Tweeted:
Should I be for or against this SOPA thing? I'm agnostic, in the way I once briefly was about Julian Assange...
Here were some of the replies:
depends whether you're 'agnostic' about corruption
Well, if you're for it, you're going to have to stop calling yourself a libertarian. If that helps.
AGAINST! Jesus, James - get a grip!
So I conceded that I was probably against SOPA but wondered what might be done to protect intellectual property rights.
Here were some of the replies:
If enforcing property rights on the Internet troubles you, why not use Obama's 'Kill-Switch' and shut the whole thing down.
Read this: http://ip.cream.org/ and never take question begging nonsense like "intellectual property" at face value again
We don't? Intellectual property rights, are not a natural but a state created right (and thus not one at all).
Can you see what troubled me about these responses? I felt like a nature rambler, out for a nice country walk who'd curiously - and without malice - prodded something with his stick only to realize it was full of irritable hornets.
OK - maybe Twitter was the wrong place to go asking; yes, I accept the limitations of the 140-word medium; sure Twitter lends itself to snarkiness.
Nevertheless, there was something in the shrillness, the impatience, the dogmatism, the God-you're-so-stupid-if-you-can't-see... of those responses which was disturbingly familiar. I've encountered the same thing whenever I've written a blog post mildly criticizing - or failing to give sufficient mention to - Ron Paul; and also when I first expressed my doubts (quite justified, as it turned out) about the appalling Julian Assange. And what I blame here is the surprising prickliness and intolerance of libertarians.
Being of a libertarian persuasion myself I find this rather depressing. I yield to no man in my loathing of the overweening state and I have taken a great deal of flak from liberal-leftists for expressing this loathing in my usual sensitive, subtle way. I believe in liberty. Darn it - I believe in the legalization of drugs. Yet still, I find myself being lectured by self-styled libertarians that I'm not a proper libertarian because I don't share, say, Ron Paul's foreign policy views or because I believe that creatives should somehow be paid for their ideas rather than having them ripped off willy-nilly for the greater good of "freedom of information". This tendency is not just tedious and annoying but also self-destructive. If libertarians are going to bring skeptics round to their position, surely a bit less shrillness, finger-wagging and irritability is in order, and a bit more charm and patient explanation. I know this can be difficult in a world where cultural Marxism holds sway. But you know what: not all of us have the time to spend our every waking hour reading Reason or boning up on obscure essays like this one on The Libertarian Case On Intellectual Property Rights.
Maybe it's time libertarians lightened up a bit, chilled out, smoked a bit more weed. After all, isn't that kind of the point?
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May '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
Ever hear of a company called MediaBay? A few years ago they bet big on audio books and old time radio. They purchased the rights to a lot of old radio broadcasts and aggressively went after hobbyists who posted mp3s on the internet after years of trading cassettes and CDs through the mail.
They accomplished two things: 1) alienated their best possible customers and killed the hobby and 2) took a lot of historical stuff and locked it away forever.
Needless to say, they also lost their shirts. At one time their stock trade at $6.04/share. Now you can get it for a cent.
Sep '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
There is a right, but it is a monopoly priviledge granted in law, not a natural right to one's properties governed by the laws of scarcity (ie, physical goods, land, etc; as I said above, rivalrous interests--if you have it I don't).
A fair discussion can't be had until it is honest, and anyone conflating copying a music file with stealing your car is being dishonest.
Once we get beyond that, it is a simple discussion of three parts:
1) What is the best way to fund the advancement of the arts and sciences?
2) If it is copyright, what is a fair amount of time for an artist to earn fair remuneration for their works?
3) What is the best way to enforce these rights in law so the artist can actually collect their monopoly earnings?
However, you'll notice that the latter two parts require a level of economic wisdom and management that is antithetical to the theory of limited government by imperfect humans that underlies the Founding.
Sep '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
There is a right, but it is a monopoly priviledge granted in law, not a natural right to one's properties governed by the laws of scarcity (ie, physical goods, land, etc; as I said above, rivalrous interests--if you have it I don't).
A fair discussion can't be had until it is honest, and anyone conflating copying a music file with stealing your car is being dishonest.
Once we get beyond that, it is a simple discussion of three parts:
1) What is the best way to fund the advancement of the arts and sciences?
2) If it is copyright, what is a fair amount of time for an artist to earn fair remuneration for their works?
3) What is the best way to enforce these rights in law so the artist can actually collect their monopoly earnings?
However, you'll notice that the latter two parts require a level of economic wisdom and management that is antithetical to the theory of limited government by imperfect humans that underlies the Founding.
Sep '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
There is a right, but it is a monopoly priviledge granted in law, not a natural right to one's properties governed by the laws of scarcity (ie, physical goods, land: rivalrous interests--if you have it I don't).
A fair discussion can't be had until it is honest, and anyone conflating copying a music file with stealing your car is being dishonest.
Once we get beyond that, it is a simple discussion of three parts:
1) What is the best way to fund the advancement of the arts and sciences?
2) If it is copyright, what is a fair amount of time for an artist to earn fair remuneration for their works?
3) What is the best way to enforce these rights in law so the artist can actually collect their monopoly earnings?
However, you'll notice that the latter two parts require a level of economic wisdom and management that is antithetical to the theory of limited government by imperfect men that underlies the Founding.
Edited on January 19, 2012 at 10:48pmDec '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
Jeff Younger: I'm a libertarian-conservative like Delingpole. I disagree with him about intellectual property. I think people can't own ideas.
What's totalitarian about that? Or is all this just an example of the irresponsible rhetoric Mr. Delingpole mentioned, but on the other side? · 2 hours ago
Edited 2 hours ago
Jeff - Copyright law does not grant anyone the ownership of an idea, it provides protection only to the particular expression of ideas. Black letter law per the US Copyright Office: “Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, …” Google “what does copyright protect” for a quick, non-controversial primer. Cordially, Tom
Dec '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
James, I think you unfairly tar libertarians with this post. Real libertarians support property rights, including intellectual property.
The people you're hearing from are probably just ignorant youths, who have no concept of the primacy of property rights and who have grown up in the Internet era, where they've simply gotten accustomed to stealing intellectual property and want to continue to do so.
Don't blame libertarians. Blame Sean Parker, the founder of Napster.
Nov '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
Rather than address the SOPA & copyright patent issues (which are already being beaten to death in another thread), I'd just like to look at the main point of the James' note, which seems to be:
James Delingpole: .... And what I blame here is the surprising prickliness and intolerance of libertarians.
.....
Maybe it's time libertarians lightened up a bit, chilled out, smoked a bit more weed. After all, isn't that kind of the point? · · 2 hours ago
James - twitter can be fun, but never take it too seriously. When you start getting tons of flak, just ask yourself who has time to post endlessly on twitter? Or any other social media, for that matter. Personally I find the higher the posting rate, the less likelihood of usable content. High rate commenters tend to be those no one listens to anyway, which is why they are confined to social media in the first place, and why they tend to be unpleasant and unconstructive. It's the same on all sides - left, right, center - and it is by no means confined to libertarians.
Nov '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
In response to the original post:
It's Twitter, what do you expect?
Mar '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
emory king
So I can own what I produce with my back i.e. labor but can't own what I produce with my brain i.e. IP. Interesting. · 3 hours ago
One of the arguments from the "free everything" crowd that so steams me is the notion that if something is easy to steal... like making digital copies... then it should be legal to do so. That's a bit like declaring "Hey, if you'rlock isn't strong enough, then the burglar should keep whatever he likes".
Edited on January 20, 2012 at 12:23amMar '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
I don't think it's totalitarian... at least not yet... so much as it's a form of bratty anarchism, with the impulse to "burn it all down, man!". Think Tyler Durden at the end of Fight Club. That's increasingly the mentality of libertarians. Libertarians are NOT the same kind of people they were in the70's and 80's. They've very visibly moved into to the left and in anarchist/minarchist directions.
Mar '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
John Walker: .
Copyright is a balance, and the present regime seems way out of equilibrium. ·
Even defenders of copyright and IP would usually agree with you on that. That's not the issue right now, though. The issue is this ridiculous notion that copyright is an affront to freedom and any means of enforcing it is Hitler all over again. Looking at (screaming) arguments from the web the past couple of days, you'd think the Gestapo was busting into Anne Frank's attic. It's related to the same silly mindset that gave us Occupy Wall Street. There were problems with both bills and they should be sent back to be hammered out, but this "end of the Internet" stuff was just nonsense.
Mar '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
I agree with some of the others: If you're expecting reasonable responses on Twitter, you're better off trying to walk from England to Iceland without getting your feet wet.
As for libertarians, I suspect that part of their snarkiness comes from them being the red-headed stepchild of American politics. They can go on all the family vacations but they have to keep somebody else's last name. So, they have a bit of an inferiority complex.
In addition, no matter how much arguing they've done over the years, they're numbers haven't increased to the point that they've made a dent in any large election. Yet, they still think they're so dang smart. So, when they respond to you, James, I'm sure they're thinking they need to respond but they also think you're below them. So, they're short and sarcastic.
Finally, part of their bad attitude, I believe, comes from the fact that other political movements and politicians--Tea Party, Nader, Perot--came out of nowhere and had more influence than any Libertarian candidate, even though that Party has been around for much longer. Two cents . . .
Edited on January 20, 2012 at 12:52amNov '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
On a somewhat related note, I saw that Megaupload has been shut down by the Feds. It was one of the major sites for handling the ClimateGate files.
Apr '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
Jeff Younger: I'm a libertarian-conservative like Delingpole. I disagree with him about intellectual property. I think people can't own ideas.
What's totalitarian about that? Or is all this just an example of the irresponsible rhetoric Mr. Delingpole mentioned, but on the other side? · 5 hours ago
Edited 5 hours ago
Assuming you were replying to Blue, I think that he meant the urge to exclude others. ie. not that libertarians were opposing or supporting IP in a totalitarian manner, but that they were attacking opponents in a totalitarian manner.
To my mind, most of the behavior exhibited by libertarians comes down to their being a fringe movement that defines itself by its losses. Libertarian organizations that allow themselves successes (the NRA, for instance) tend to play better with others.
Jun '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
Gee, that's weird -- I liked the hornets imagery.
May '10
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
At the risk of echoing Demaratus and Nobody's Perfect:
My chief gripe with the current bills is that they display the typical, ham-fisted, overweening approach to a problem which betrays the appalling ignorance of the legislators concerning the realities of how, in this particular case, the Internet is engineered and is designed to operate, and the practical realities of how companies must do business there. I got my fill of this kind of nonsense when working for BellSouth/AT&T: regulators proposing some truly unimplementable and completely impracticable rules because they were so completely detached from the engineering realities of the situation at hand.
That is what I believe is happening with SOPA/PIPA: these bills place the onus to vet or validate content primarily on the owners of websites, for example. This will probably have the unfortunate consequence of shutting them down. The unintended consequences of these bills are what bothered me. Yes, intellectual property must be protected. No, SOPA/PIPA are not the right way to do it.
Oct '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
James, I'm confident that if you read through the day's posts on intellectual property, you'll see one group calling the other socialists, totalitarians, juveniles, and thieves, and it isn't the libertarians. I'm a libertarian and an intellectual property attorney, and if I come off as uncivil when discussing IP it's because I'm frustrated that you cannot have an honest argument with many conservatives who have made up their mind on this matter. There have been many moderate positions advanced on the role of IP as a government created and 3rd-party-enforced policy, but they've been met with heel-dragging, ear-plugging, and name-calling.
Oct '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
Nobody's Perfect: James, I think you unfairly tar libertarians with this post. Real libertarians support property rights, including intellectual property.
The people you're hearing from are probably just ignorant youths, who have no concept of the primacy of property rights and who have grown up in the Internet era, where they've simply gotten accustomed to stealing intellectual property and want to continue to do so.
The primacy of property rights? I wouldn't include IP in there, NP. Traditional property rights relating to using tangible property go back a long way. IP is a restriction, granted by the government and enforced by a third party, on those traditional rights of property use. There may be a good reason for it, but it's an empirical policy reason, rather than an established and ordered reason as in tangible property.
Edited on January 20, 2012 at 6:00amOct '11
Re: My Problem With Libertarians...
Back in 96' I was barely a teenager and considered myself libertarian, that is until I watched the Libertarian convention on TV that year and quickly reverted to conservative. It wasn't that I disagreed with them philosophically, it's just that the diehard, true-blue libertarians have never met a hill they wouldn't happily die on. When you talk about priorities and political strategies their eyes tend to glaze over and then they start suspecting you of apostasy.
Secondly, as a content provider There's no reason for me to continue to create things if I can't own them and control them throughout my lifetime. Oh yeah I'd still tinker, but it would never be truly ambitious or distributed- What would be the point? I'll go find something else to do- like get a government job, or become a lawyer- or a government lawyer or some other job where I'm not producing free content for the entitled masses. If you don't own what you create there's no real reason to put much effort into it, most of the artists I know agree with me.
Edited on January 20, 2012 at 7:56am