tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post2206704626096165478..comments2024-03-22T17:35:52.045-04:00Comments on Extra Thoughts: Force and Fraud refutedLydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-29905061959963222992013-07-02T11:29:26.384-04:002013-07-02T11:29:26.384-04:00Good post. I usually like to make the point that n...Good post. I usually like to make the point that no person in America (or anywhere) has unqualified rights. To be truly Libertarian, you would have to believe that your right to follow your impulses is not qualified by any other consideration, when, in fact your rights are always qualified by how your actions affect the forward motion and quality of life of other citizens. You may have the right to pursue a driver's license, but you do not have the right to drive until you prove to the state that you understand how to drive. Once you become the operator of a vehicle, you do not have the right to drive the streets without obeying the stoplights and signs. There are responsibilities which, in theory, thwart you right to do what you please. As you pointed out somewhere above, there has been a colossal overreach by the government in an attempt to protect people from themselves and baby the whiners who don't like when their toes get stepped on - at which point the idea that their rights have been infringed upon is a useful excuse for government control. A balance must always be maintained between these things, but maintaining a representative republic is an art form that can only be properly practiced by educated and reasonable men and women. Those days are gone however.<br />Finally, your comment -<br /><br />"Finally, I think this "force and fraud" stuff gets brought up by fake libertarians who are actually leftists, and then conscientious conservatives feel stymied by it if they haven't answered it decisively already in their own minds. A liberal who accepts a kajillion business, environmental, and animal rights laws, and would even want to see more, a liberal who endorses Obamacare, of all things, will nonetheless start talking like a pious libertarian the moment one starts discussing a law against, say, prostitution or pornography."<br />And Bill's comment - "Last time I looked (or didn't look) this was legal in the People's Republic of San Francisco. Which confirms my theory that libertarianism is merely leftism in the fetal stage. Their objection to laws against porn and prostitution I offer as confirmation."<br /><br />are spot-on. I encounter these arguments all the time.<br />Gina M. Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13829629413121806106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-70578884427012988072013-07-02T09:00:48.535-04:002013-07-02T09:00:48.535-04:00I should have been clearer about cutting off one&#...I should have been clearer about cutting off one's own arm. I was envisaging a case in which one just did it for the heck of it or perhaps because one had that crazy disorder where people "feel disassociated" from their limbs. The idea wasn't so much that you could be punished as that you could be stopped. If something is, in every sense of the word, completely legal, then nobody can stop you from doing it, not even the police.<br /><br />The funny thing is that if you bring up the walking around nude example to most newbie libertarians, you'll get this, "Oh brother, of course I didn't mean that" response. Perhaps they'd respond that they aren't talking about some special parade or something, if one brought up the gay pride parades. Who knows what they would say about that. But they usually will try to say that they don't mean that someone should be able to walk nude down just any street or that people should be able to go and have public sex in the middle of the mall.<br /><br />Now, I suppose you could have a die-hard who really would bite the bullet on all of my examples. I've never met one, but it's not impossible. I don't think the philosophy, if we can dignify it by that name, would have even the minor appeal it does have, especially not to a certain type of "young turk" conservative, if one were supposed to bite the bullet on all those things.<br /><br />Usually it starts out as a somewhat thoughtless reaction to big government--really big government. Big government that is arresting Amish people for selling unpasteurized milk to the neighbors. And so on and so forth.<br /><br />Occasionally it gets going as a reaction to being raised in the religious right. The idea being (I saw this in the recent FB exchange) that if one doesn't "appeal to the Bible," perhaps only laws against force and fraud can be defended in the secular realm. (Considering that secularists are usually in favor of a lot more government than Christian conservatives, that's a pretty ironic idea, but there you have it.) <br /><br />It can become an ideology that will cause someone to bite any bullet, but it doesn't start like that.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-13939910216760992092013-07-01T23:33:10.905-04:002013-07-01T23:33:10.905-04:00--deliberately cutting off your own arm with a cha...<i>--deliberately cutting off your own arm with a chainsaw.</i><br /><br />How about a pocketknife? I saw a documentary on TV in which some guy chose to cut off part of his arm which had gotten caught between some boulders out in the desert mountains. Of course, he didn't do it for fun. It was do or die.<br /><br /><i>-walking around entirely nude in public</i><br /><br />Last time I looked (or didn't look) this was legal in the People's Republic of San Francisco. Which confirms my theory that libertarianism is merely leftism in the fetal stage. Their objection to laws against porn and prostitution I offer as confirmation.<br /><br /><i>having sex in public</i><br /><br />Further confirmation: we already do this by proxy, with the legally unhindered, ubiquitious access to porn on TV and the internet. <br /><br />William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.com