How Conservative Are Libertarians?

[Ocean Seal]

Somedays I wonder as to how conservative they really are. I find that even the patronizing concern that conservatives have for society is somewhat more comforting than the absurd self-righteousness that libertarians have. For example:

Interviewer: How do you feel about weed.
Libertarian: I love it and love to smoke it. It's great and I should be allowed to do whatever I want.
Interviewer: How do you feel about hard drugs.
Libertarian: I don't do it, and anyone who does it is a fucking idiot.
Interviewer: But are they free to do it?
Libertarian:
I've so often seen the "it's their life and their body" argument. Of interest, both a liberal and a libertarian would make the same argument. The difference? When the user's life goes to crap due to abuse of certain highly addictive and debilitating drugs, a liberal expects me to pay for the damage. A libertarian leaves those who make consistently poor decisions to their own devices. So which of those two lines of thought best fits your way of thinking on this problem, Josh? When you make the "their body" argument, be prepared to also finish the thought. (This is an actual quote from the interwebs)
Interviewer: Don't you expect that in living in a society we should take care of those who get hurt.
Libertarian: Fuck them they choose that. Everyone who is poor choses to be poor. Everyone who is a drug addict choose to try drugs.
Interviewer: What about programs to help people cope with their addiction and prevent overdoses.
Libertarian: Not with my tax dollars. Let the Church handle it.
Interviewer: You do realize that the hush-hush aspect of the church often makes problems worse, and that it might not be sufficient to cover these problems.
Libertarian: Private charity. You do know that rich people are better people than poor people because they give more money to charity right.
Interviewer: I didn't really ask you that.
Libertarian: But you did because you are a socialist conspirator, and I genuinely don't think you understand how grateful you should be to the rich. They create jobs, you know.
Interviewer: We aren't talking about that. We are talking about drug addiction.
Libertarian: But poor people are immoral, so they do drugs, and deserve the punishments of that.

TL;DR
I really think that libertarians remind me of early puritans or very strict Hindus who believe that its necessary for people to suffer for their mistakes (even when those mistakes don't hurt anyone but themselves). They make it an issue of principle to make sure that the poor and desolate suffer. Too much, to little? What do you guys think?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Did someone actualy say those things?

[Raúl Duke]

A lot of claims the Libertarians make are faulty, the only problem is that they're pervasive in the political discourse particularly in the US and are presented as "common sense."

For example, poor people don't choose to be poor. It's so absurd people actually believe this statement to make any sense.

The rich people may give more money if you buy the money in an isolated context. But when it comes to proportion of income, the poorer brackets tend to give more in proportion to their income than the rich.

Also the whole "job creator" stuff is silly yet another thing that is prevalent in the US political discourse. Consumer spending creates jobs, since more demand requires more labor to produce the supply to meet it. Some weird idea that appeasing the rich with tax cuts and subsidizes is just capitalist mysticism.


But poor people are immoral, so they do drugs, and deserve the punishments of that.:huh:

I feel there's an assumption hidden in this statement. A value-statement. Is poverty "immoral," thus poor people who "choose" it are bad people? It just sounds whacko, unfortunately some people think along these lines (particularly those who read Rand). But that assumptions falls apart when it becomes apparent that poverty is a condition thrust upon individuals due to the "relations in capitalism." Also, that kind of selfish morality is seen as self-serving and "immoral" by most people anyway, libertarians have little real traction IRL. They and their ideology are nothing more than useful dupes for the elites. They share the whole "one man is an island" kind of view of the world.

There's a problem though that libertarians are not exactly a universal group per se, although they have similar if not the same conclusions. So their arguments and assumptions take many shades, and most have selfish connotations.


Did someone actualy say those things?

It's actually not surprising. That kind of sentiment is pervasive in certain particular segments of the US population.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

It's actually not surprising. That kind of sentiment is pervasive in certain particular segments of the US population.

Do those people have mental issues? What kind of troubled, insane, demented, halucinating mind would think something like that is true!?

He has obviously never lived in a crisis country.

[Marxaveli]

I find it humorous that American society calls itself "exceptional", yet it is one of the most politically and socially organized backwards nations in the world - and the libertarian ideology is a reflection of this. We are one of the most idealistic, anti-science, anti-reason/rationality, and anti-human cultures in the world. Quite frankly, I find the whole thing repulsive.

[Red Commissar]

Do those people have mental issues? What kind of troubled, insane, demented, halucinating mind would think something like that is true!?

He has obviously never lived in a crisis country.

I don't think the sentiment is unique to the US- the whole "well we shouldn't be expected to go out of our way to help them since it was their choice" is something that comes up a lot in other parts of the world, especially when right-wing populism starts to rear its ugly face towards immigrants and welfare leeches. It may not be as pronounced or widespread, but it exists everywhere.

Even if this guy doesn't live in some fairly stable suburb like most of them do, the same sentiment is common enough in areas that are experiencing economic depression. The view that the rich drive society is tied into neoliberal belief, trickle-down/supply-side economics, and to interfere with that is doom. This view has been embraced internationally to varying degrees, but we're routinely told of the danger of overtaxing the rich in economic academia, or they'll leave the country and businesses go with them.

As for OP, it really depends on the type of libertarian when it comes to their conservative views. There are some libertarians who while fetishizing about the power of markets, do have concern for society and feel that their solutions are the way to resolve them. They are spouting parts of what is classical liberalism which is pretty much enshrined in liberal democracies now, though they think it got corrupted by big business. Amusingly, there's been a trend among their type to refer to this as corporatism, saying it's no longer any form of their capitalism (of course, corporatism is much more than that and is still capitalism, just by another name) and that they only want to break that apart and bring it back to their idealized form.

Then there's the odd type of libertarian that has emerged in the past 10 years or so, a mixture of angry ex-Republican that isn't as anal about people's choices but does not want to have any obligations to society, a pathological hatred of the poor and underclass because they "chose" to be that way, and a marrying of objectivist beliefs in to their worldview. It is particularly from the latter you get views nearing sociopathic levels with callous disregard and contempt for people who don't fit into their rosy view of the everyman entrepreneur, especially if they're from the lower levels of society.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Libertarianism only ever spouts such garbage. I learned long ago to try my best and ignore such people. Their views are indicative of a person who literally has no idea on how the world economic system really is and must live in this dualism to justify their historically incorrect views.

Just yesterday, on my Facebook page, a liberal and a libertarian were arguing, it went something like this...

Liberal: "What do you think will happen when you throw the entire economy into the hands of people who really don't give half a shit about your welfare as long as they profit? The 1920's when we had the epidemic of wage slavery and child labor is a perfect example of how Libertarian society works; unregulated, unsafe, and unfit to live in."

Libertarian: "I like economic fallacies too. Not only that, it's fun to simplify history to make those fallacies seem legit."

Liberal: "You're right, the 1920's sweatshops never existed, child labor was never an issue, workers rights were always respected, the 40-hour workweek has always been around, and minimum wage was thought up by employers who endorsed it rather than fighting tooth-and-nail against it. Thousands didn't die because of unsafe conditions, around half being child casualties, and the rich didn't use their already abundant resources to squash almost all resistance so that they could get even richer while mistreating everyone.

No, none of that happened, the hundreds upon hundreds of pictures are false, and bringing it up is nothing more than a fallacy."

Libertarian: "Let's address this one point at a time

1. Sweat shops never existed, child labor was never an issue

Sweatshops as compared to long, hard labor on a family farm? The only reason that we can look back and scoff at those sorts of conditions is because the market under capitalism has organized resources and labor in such a way that we can afford extensive safety systems and for children to not have to work. The history of the world is replete with widespread child labor. It wasn't until industrialization and capitalism had taken root and was the fundamental economic structure that parents didn't have to depend in part on their children to bring home enough for survival.

2. Workers rights were always respected

Property rights are human rights. It was only when governments monopolized the ability to enforce (and in most cases, NOT enforce) contracts that rights violations became intolerable. I am for extending to everyone the right to negotiate a contract with another individual or group. If the worker and the capitalist negotiate a contract, it should be upheld on both ends, or dissolved under the terms negotiated.

3. The 40-hour workweek has always been around

No it hasn't. Once again, it was capitalism as an economic structure that organized labor and resources in such a way that people didn't necessarily have to work more than 40 hours. And funny enough, I bet you most greedy capitalists work more than 40 hours a week. Furthermore, laws of supply and demand can help to explain how many hours a person ends up working.

4. Minimum wage

Oh, you mean that thing that leaves us with a minimum 5% unemployment rate? Again...simple laws of supply and demand can help to explain why minimum wage is asinine. Some jobs aren't worth 7.25 an hour. The complex economic calculations of individual actors reflect the demand for a particular job. The salary for that job reflects the demand for the job and supply of labor. Furthermore, the government's printing press inflates away minimum wage. Congrats! You passed a minimum wage law! Now we're going to reduce the real value of the dollar so that minimum wage means nothing.

5. Thousands didn't die because of unsafe conditions, around half being child casualties

See: farm life before industrialization

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Let me just wrap this up by saying that what we don't have is a libertarian capitalism. We have state capitalist, where the government chooses the fat cats and the fat cats choose their cronies to manage their pseudo-monopolies.

I am in no way defending the current system. It's a monstrous distortion of capitalism and we DO NOT have free markets. The government, as the one institution with a monopoly of "legitimate" force is to blame. The government is where power (coercion) exists in society. Modern corporations would not be able to exist without government power. Monopolies would not form without government power. The only reason we enjoy many conveniences that exist today is because freedom miraculously still breathes through tiny holes that the state has left for it."

:laugh:

I didn't bother to respond. I do not log onto FB to argue with dipshits.

[Raúl Duke]

I am for extending to everyone the right to negotiate a contract with another individual or group. If the worker and the capitalist negotiate a contract, it should be upheld on both ends, or dissolved under the terms negotiated.Libertarians like to talk a lot about contracts and such...

But are generally against unions as a "racket" and do not care much over union labor contracts. Some use fallacious double-standard arguments to back up the anti-union aspect of libetarianism. While this particular one may not, but many libertarians do. Also there's the issue of power/force/violence. The only way for unions to be able to propose and maintain favorable labor contracts is by using "force" which to libertarians are considered "coercive, negative" yet are blind to the inherent "violence/coerciveness" of capitalism.

[Ocean Seal]

Did someone actualy say those things?
No just the part in quotes.