There have been a number of thoughts from various libertarians and libertarian groups that I thought I would bring to your attention. These thoughts are often completely non-sensical, and totally ignore reality. The fact that this community is growing just amazes me, because you’d think that anybody of any intellect would realize how dip-shit crazy some of these ideas are. So, for the lulz, we are going to look at a few of these comments, and pwn them to death. Not just because they are easy targets (which they are), but because people need to learn a little. It’ll help them in the long run. That said, here goes.
If people can’t run their own lives, why should a bunch of people (government) be able to run all our lives?
Ugh. The level of ignorance on so many levels that has been displayed here is just astounding. So, let’s tackle this question bit by bit. First, people can run their own lives. People do it every day. The poor, ironically, are usually very good at running their lives, because they have to be. People like my best friend, Emily. She is dirt-poor and she is excellent at running her life. She is keeping herself afloat while being a full-time college student. She has no loans, a steady job, but can’t get many hours with it. She lives with her parents, and from time to time, has had to help them, even though she literally cannot afford it. So, it’s a blatant lie that people can’t run their own lives. They do it every single day.
But the libertarian crowd makes arguments like this ALL the time! Some of them are like a pull-toy with it. And for those who make this argument, in my experience, they are almost exclusively making it at people like me, liberals. Whenever I talk about things like universal health care, taxing the rich, the welfare state (which works, by the way), or anything like that, they jump to this line like rednecks to beer.
I don’t actually think it is the government’s job to run our lives. That’s a Republican line. When people like Rick Santorum talk about how they want to legislate our behavior, like getting rid of internet porn, getting rid of women’s right to choose what happens to their bodies, or get rid of all gay marriage, then they are trying to do what the libertarians think that we want. What do I believe?
I believe that the role of the government is to provide for its people. Not to run our lives, but to give us the capacity to run our own. I want the government to give me roads, hospitals, fire departments, medical care, a police force (though one that actually tries to help its people would be nice), all parts of infrastructure, including job opportunities. These are things that I cannot easily provide for myself. That is what I view the function of government as. It’s pretty simple.
I could also get into the logical fallacy of how this is basically the same as saying – if a single person can’t make a rocket that could get to the moon, how could a group of them do it? It’s a really stupid question. Simple as that. This argument has absolutely NO weight whatsoever. The libertarian crowd should get rid of it. Post haste.
Another question I mean to attack is one that follows a poster that you can see to your right. As you can see, it’s a pretty good question, and one that America needs to be asking itself right now because we are a country who is not demanding NEARLY as much we should be from the rich. But this question is just plain gold -
How about because no one has the right to tell you how much money you can make? What the heck happened to belief in the freedom of choice amongst liberals? Seriously!
First off, how is this poster about the freedom of choice? At all? I mean, think about it. It is merely asking why the conservatives, led by the rich, are calling 150,000,000 Americans lazy, while they don’t do their part.
Next, we aren’t telling them that they can’t make money. Far from it. We are merely saying that the richest 1% shouldn’t be all pissy about an increase in their taxes. I am a liberal, so as you can imagine, when the issue of the Bush Tax Cuts came up, I immediately supported letting the fall. But I am different in that I wanted ALL the tax cuts to go. The middle class wouldn’t have even felt it in any significant way. It is only the rich who would have noticed a difference. Restore taxes to what they were under Clinton. That left this country with a surplus, that a retarded Texas man decided to completely destroy by sending American into two pointless wars that make the Middle East hate us more, not less.
We aren’t saying the rich can’t make money. We are merely saying that they should have to pay their fare share. Is that asking too much?
If we simply had a free market, everything would turn out okay!
Riddle me this – name ONE country, currently existing, that has little to no government involvement of any kind in their economy, that is doing well. You can’t do it. The reason is simple – because it doesn’t exist. The countries that are doing the best right now, ironically enough, are almost universally the countries with a great deal of government involvement.
Here’s a universal truism – the welfare state works. It is working for Britain. It is working for France. It is working for Germany. It is working for Canada. It is working for Japan. All of these nations have a very large social safety net for their people, and they are doing incredibly well. The reason America is turning to shit is largely because of our unbelievably high military spending, our stupid and pointless war against drugs, and the fact that we have a horrible safety net, with a patchwork health care system that leaves millions out in the cold and with nothing.
There hasn’t been a time when there there has never been any government involvement in any significant way to what was happening in the economy. Before democracy, we had autocrasy, and that certainly didn’t. But to libertarians – name me one instance of a country right now with VERY small amount of influence of the country’s activities that is prospering. The fact is that it doesn’t happen.
Oh yeah, things were so bad before the government started holding everyone’s hand.
Well…yeah. They were really bad. The invention of the social safety net was the smartest thing that this country has done. I think I have already covered this. But again, this argument is just as bad as the one at the top. The government is holding your hand, it’s giving you options. Just that. Giving you the tools you need, and can’t provide for yourself. For those who want to say that a person can make their options, you clearly don’t get that equal merit doesn’t always mean equal gain. In fact, these terms have little to do with one-another. A person can bust their ass and get nowhere in life. My best friend is a great example. She works herself to death, and I worry about her, but she is still just a stiff, trying to survive.
Government assistance, it works. It could use some reform in this country, no doubt. There are people who could use it. But yeah, it works. Now, I’m not saying there are no good arguments for several libertarian ideas. These are just ones that I see as stupid beyond belief.
Until next time, a quote,
“There is something in the mind of libertarians, that they are living in such a fantasy world, that the idea of empirical data, they scoff at!” -Sam Seder, Rich Libertarian Bankers Whine That They’re Not Rich Enough
Peace out,
Maverick
What do you make of libertarian anti-capitalists like Charles Johnson who argue that those services are made more difficult to come by because of government intervention? To quote Johnson, for example, “consensual social organizations that had made health care accessible to the poor and elderly had already been rubbed out by government in the decades prior. Once again, an example of government breaking your legs, then handing you crutches, and telling you, ‘See, without me you couldn’t even walk!’ ”
He seems to be saying that those other goods and services — often because of the collusion between businesses, other special interests, and government — are made more expensive and difficult to come by than they otherwise would in a less hampered market economy.
Yeah, maybe I’ll do another post about my problems with the idea of a libertarian anti-capitalist, because those terms seems to be anti-thetical to one-another. But these services would not exist if the government didn’t provide them. Big business cares about one thing, and one thing only – money. If there isn’t a significant final budget in it for them, they won’t do anything. And if we privatized all services, then there wouldn’t be a middle class. There would a feudal class, and their lords. Or in this case, they’ll be called “Corporate Executives.”
Isn’t Johnson’s point that voluntarily funded social services were being provided? That is, until they were “deliberately dismantled by politically-driven campaigns — coordinated mainly by establishment medical guilds, using their power over government licensure of practitioners as their primary means of enforcement — to drive them out.”
I guess that depends. But either way, maybe you can help me understand how that relates to the point made by anti-capitalists like Johnson who argue that social services were being provided by non-profit grassroots social networks.
“Non-profit grassroots social networks?” Such as? You’re really going to have to put this term into context, because on the surface, this seems like just words thrown together to sound intelligent. Also, the other quote that you cite sounds like ramble. If one is going to make an argument that there are secretive, nefarious organizations that did…what, exactly? This Johnson fellow sounds very much like most libertarian writers. Milton Friedman was much the same with his “free market” arguments. Write smart, say little. Both of these examples seem to be of that persuasion. Evidence is needed, along with context. But that’s just my thought.
I am thinking of fraternal lodges (or mutual aid societies), wildcat labor unions, consumer unions and cooperatives, trade associations and such.
I do not think there was anything secretive about it, and they acted in the public interest, of course. The concern they were addressing at the time was that health care prices were too low. Well, they sure fixe that.
One culprit was the American Medical Association, which used its monopoly privilege of granting occupational licenses by threatening to revoke the status of so-called lodge doctors, who signed contracts with fraternal societies to provide medical services. Lodge members could receive a year’s worth of medical services for a day’s wage. As you can imagine, establishment doctors and corporate insurance firms were not too pleased about that.
Well, that does put things more into perspective. It also reaffirms my belief that we need universal health care. But as far as I can see, these kinds of groups don’t come out in large numbers to help people as I have said the role of government is. Johnson’s argument sounds a lot like Ron Paul’s argument for people without health care. He said that they could get help from such groups, and churches, and stuff like that. Well, as we found out, that doesn’t work. But here’s a query to you – how would one gain entrance into these fraternal lodges? Would it allow unlimited membership? What about the poor who couldn’t pay their price? For me, if it doesn’t, then it’s no better than the patchwork system we already have in play. In my mind – health care is for everyone, or no one. The libertarian argument is selfish. “Why should we give to them if they aren’t working for it?!” I hear that like a crybaby calling for his mother. The true tragedy of libertarianism – it’s all about the self, and totally negates the whole.
We are on the same page. I think a secondary concern libertarians like myself are addressing is what would be the most suitable means for achieving that end. But foremost, I am concerned with why health care is so damn expensive in the first place. I think that is where libertarians and liberals can collaborate to address the artificial scarcity in the health care industry. If it helps, I have an overview of a study by Kevin Carson that touches on that last point.
That is probably my fault for leaving that impression. Left-libertarians like Johnson might hold that mutual aid would likely be the primary means of funding a social safety net in a free society. Right-libertarian like Paul might hold that private charity would be the predominant means of funding a safety net, with mutual aid playing an important role and local government charity acting as a temporary last resort.
I guess it would depend on the lodge. I know they were used more commonly by immigrants and minorities, according to David Beito’s book “From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State.”
They were as popular as they were because they kept prices low. It was a common practice for lodges to elect their doctors, so members had some means of keeping their costs down. Even still, member of the Ladies Friends of Faith, a black female fraternity, never dropped coverage on anyone willing to explain why could not afford to pay their dues. They would either extend the time for payment or ask for collections for those in more desperate need. The only members dropped were those who did not explain why there were behind in their dues.
I can understand you feel that way. I do not see that there is necessarily a conflict between the rightly understood interests of an individual and the community, and you might agree. My take is that a community is composed of individuals, so improving the vitality of individuals necessarily improves the vitality of their communities. So what improves the vitality of individuals? I think that at minimum, it means respecting the “moral space” (or autonomy) of the members of the that community.
That is I probably have to contribute, so thanks for the interesting post and discussion.
I enjoy this conversation with you. You keep things in a very level way. I have also enjoyed this. You raise good points, and as a liberal, I will say up front that I don’t know the perfect way to run things. I don’t know if there is one. But these kinds of discussions are important, and if there is a right way, I figure it is right in the middle of all ways.
Have a good one.
Peace out,
Lucien
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