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Libertarians: How to Win Friends & Influence People
Libertarians: Please stop telling me I’m no better than the Left.
As for libertarians who don’t believe that, you need to call out your fellow travellers who go too far. In the past week I’ve been told by self-proclaimed libertarians that I don’t believe in property rights, that my belief in liberty is no better than Obama’s, and that I don’t really believe in individual rights in general.
I’ve grown weary of libertarians pretending their political philosophy is uniquely free of basic assumptions beyond “Do no harm,” or suggesting that everything can be built from there. Imposing the interpretations of “no harm” I’ve seen here would eliminate all local laws on such things as zoning, smoking in public, and the preservation of historic districts.
Not all conservatives want to use the point of a gun to control what consenting adults to in their own bedrooms. In fact, I’ve never seen a call for that on Ricochet. What I have seen libertarians call for is the use of the point of a federal gun to do away with local laws that libertarians don’t like.
So permit me gently to suggest, if you’re truly interested in winning converts, a different tactic.
Thanks to the posts of the past month, I am now less disposed to listen to self-proclaimed libertarians. Surely that’s not the goal. I get that we have differences. Perhaps we also have points of agreement. But insulting conservatives, and insinuating or outright saying we are no better than the progressives and leftists, is not a good strategy for figuring out where we might agree — or even winning us around.
Published in Domestic Policy, General, Religion & Philosophy
Not necessarily :-)
Now, my sample size is admittedly small, but the anarcho-capitalists I know are fairly friendly people, used to their “freakish” status, and used to being disagreed with, so less likely to rage out at folks who disagree with ’em. At some point, it just doesn’t pay to think of people who disagree with you as “worse people”.
[Redacted by commenter. Already been said]
To this entire thread, wow.
I’m OK, you’re OK.
I would agree with Mendel that we all have seen the “leftist” slurs thrown around by all sides. We should all remember that insulting people never wins them over to your side, and makes it harder to build coalitions for the things on which we all agree. There are a few here at Ricochet that tend to be the worst actors and instigators.
No one is forced to be a member of a social club. Opting out of society isn’t really a viable option.
I remember when Jimmy Carter held that position.
The other thing is that there are so few ACs that they’re not worth them amount of fretting that Conservatives on Ricochet tend to do about them.
And now he’s a member of Ricochet, if fact I think he wants to give me a hug. Go figure.
The first comment you complain about:
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If the shoe fits…
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So you’re charging that he called you Obama? And you offered the wording, he just concurred? Could this be any hollower? Are we approaching micro-aggression territory? I’m not sure even Obama would try to pull this.
Added: “Don’t step on my sand castle.”
“Why, you think I’m being an ass?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Mom, Jimmy called me an…”
If the shoe fits…
If you read the whole thread, I asked for clarification, using Obama as an example. The shoe fits reference was that clarification. I should have posted more of the exchange.
Would it be inappropriate to make a point regarding libertarian substance on a thread devoted to cataloging our bad manners?
If not, I feel compelled (despite having had this same discussion unfruitfully a number of times before) to point out what I feel safe to say would be the critical distinction any libertarian would draw between the two situations; that the rules of a club apply only on club property or in situations where all individuals involved have actively assented to them. Nothing similar can be said of even the smallest local government the edicts of which claim to govern activity occurring on private property within the boundaries of it’s jurisdiction, the owners of which property may or may not consider themselves members of a “political community.”
There is a difference between claiming that non-libertarian conservatives are opposed to private property and claiming that they often refuse to own up to their inconsistent application of the principle.
As an inconsistent conservative, I would argue that no ideology can be 100% consistent all the time. Real life is messy.
I am libertarian at the federal level, and rather communitarian at the very local level.
Gaius,
Since I ran out of characters, let me follow up with this:
I do not think that being inconsistent is a great sin. I do not think that because one idea does not have a clear limiting principle that it has to be thrown out. Age of Consent is one of those things. In fact, there are few things that are self-limiting, even what is defined as murder.
I doubt it matters much to the person whose property rights are suddenly abrogated whether it comes from the federal, state or local level. A dictator 1000 miles away is hardly less oppressive than 1000 dictators 1 mile away.
Neither do I. As someone who’s libertarianism falls ever so slightly short of the AnCap mark, I can’t claim to be a pure propertarian either. To put it more explicitly, there are certain instances in which I would advocate that the state engage in coercive action violating the private property rights of it’s citizens. (I would posit a limiting principle restricting this to only those actions necessary to preserve institutions which protect private property and individual rights, but that’s a topic for another thread.) In other words I’m willing to defend my positions while acknowledging that some of them cross an important moral and ideological line, rather than attempting to incorrectly analogize the state to voluntary social institutions. If I have a point, it’s only that I wish more conservatives would do likewise.
Agreed. Also, love the Avatar. Just don’t make any deals with any men dressed in black!
I don’ t disagree with that in principle. But, you can move away from the local rules to someplace else. Each person can find and live in the community the he wants to live in.
I can believe that, and I can still believe in property rights. It all depends on where you draw the line.
And yet the same rules don’t apply in reverse – one could easily move if ones neighbors house color so offended them as to be untenable. The difference is I wouldn’t throw someone in jail for it.
The an-caps on Ricochet are, like most Ricochetti, better ambassadors for their ideology than those found elsewhere on the internet. Interacting with them has improved my views of their ideas which I had had a low opinion of based on the an-caps I’d come across previously.
There are definitely an-caps that believe anyone who disagrees is a tyrant or too brainwashed to realize they’re a tyrant. I won’t say it’s most, but the feeling is common.
Yea verily. Political discussion would be a lot more productive if people understood this.
It is true that, at this point, their numbers are low enough that they aren’t going to have a major impact on politics or society. However, an-caps are over-represented on Ricochet (compared to society as a whole) and when they put their opinions out in the open, it’s expected they’ll receive criticism.
Did I just catch a Patriot reference?
I think I did. But in Mr. Howard’s defense, its 3,000 men trying to wield the power of one tyrant. Its not as easy to act in the uniformity as the power of one with one man than it is with any group of men. Elected representative government is far more considerate in terms of every position in the population than an Aristocracy is. In defense of the English, Parliament has far more power than the King and they are a representative government.
However, they are a group of nobles and not exactly considerate of many men not in their direct vicinity or not close to their rank. That is not to say there were no considerate Englishmen (Burke and Pitt stand as examples of good English PMs) but that an American Government of an elected representative body would most likely be more preferable to one that is not exactly elected and is not as considerate or responsive since it is 3,000 miles away.
If you make this distinction as well as the distinction between thinking it is best and thinking it is Constitutionally required and some other distinctions, then it’s possible to come up with dozens, nay scores of different varieties of libertarianism.
I bet there’d by 90 versions of libertarianism!
Someone should have already written a post about that.
Wait, I think I can fix this! Give me a second to go get my time machine. . . .
Ok, problem solved.
Oh, dear. Is that what libertarianism is about–about inviolable rights and not just about suspicion that government usually does a lousy job improving the ratio of good to bad in the world?
Well, maybe someone should have already written a post about 96 views that have something to do with libertarianism, but most of which aren’t really libertarianism.
Don’t worry, I can take care of that problem too. Hang on a sec. . . . .
Ok, problem solved.
For a post about being civil, that seems kinda snarky.
Are you talking to me? It sure wasn’t meant to be snarky. (Definitely a bit silly.)
If it really does look snarky I am definitely open to the possibility of editing or redacting the whole thing.
There was content there, communicated in a strange manner: that it matters somewhat how libertarianism is defined and that there are various versions of it available (or, depending on how it’s defined, various versions of quasi-libertarianism).
I was , and it seemed so. Hard to detect tone in writing.
Experience leads me to believe snark is an inherent hazard when trying to talk civility :-)
Augustine-(Reposted from your other thread, two can play this game.) I think part of the problem you’re running into by trying to differentiate between levels of government when it comes to libertarianism is that actual libertarianism does not distinguish between federal, state, and local government. The fact that our constitutional order properly limits the federal government to a scope which is fairly compatible with libertarianism does not necessarily mean that those who support the correct interpretation of the Constitution are in any sense libertarian, particularly when they have profoundly unlibertarian views about the role of state and local government.
Libertarianism is about what the state, at any level, can legitimately due to its citizens. If your support for a limited federal government is based on nothing more than constitutional fidelity, you aren’t any type of libertarian. It would be much more accurate to call yourself a constitutional conservative.
The fact is that the current political landscape is such that constitutional conservatives and libertarians have a great deal of common ground as the most important issues of the day relate to the overreach of the federal government (it also helps that the Constitution is heavily influenced by the classical liberal ideals of the nation’s founders), but the political alliance between constitutional conservatives and libertarians is one more of convenience than of ideological affinity.
Well, just let me know (either of you) if you think the appearance of snark is an issue. I can cut the text there and replace it with two boring bullet points.
Yeah. We noticed.