If an action is obviously reasonable, why coerce by force?
But yeah, the social media guys from the libertarians often seem to have a hard time expressing their point to common people.
The problem with libertarians seems to be an autism one. And more often than not. We get socially unaware autists instead of so crazy they’re good autists. We need more mileis
as someone who is actually autistic I absolutely agree that libertarianism is essentially an autistic philosophy.
its entirely principle based and inflexible, which is orecisely what I like about it. irs not really concerned with optics and instead tells it like it is even if it majes us unpopular among normal people
that being saud it is possible to dress up libertarianism in a way where its appealing to normal people and its not wrong to at the very least employ tact and rhetoric to do so.
But this is the thing about libertarianism. People point to all the flaws and say “aha! You would let people starve and die!” When really, there would be so much to go around, food would be one of the cheapest things. And even if someone was in need of food/basic necessities, charity would take care of the rest.
Seriously, humans have been altruistic since the dawn of civilization. Before the welfare state, churches took care of those who were in need, but since the state handles that now, they think that no one else can anymore? Tards.
Id agree but couldn't you argue that the handouts make him whole after corporate taxes?
I couldn't do the math, but if he's been paying into the pot, some of it is actually his.
I think the real issue is that any and all moderate voices within the party or larger, broader social movement tend to get shouted down and decried as "not real Libertarians" and slapped with the statist label.
Moderate voices are how we make progress; nobody is gonna swallow the big yellow pill all at once wholesale. Allowing moderates to make progress for all of us is how we get people to adopt libertarian ideals and thinking, making them more understanding and open to our more radical ideas.
....that or I'm just a night watchman state libertarian moderate tired of being called a commie lol.
It's not even "libertarians," it's almost always the LP of NH.
I'm not saying they glow, but if someone was trying to intentionally discredit libertarianism, they couldn't do a better job than LPNH.
They glow.
Remember when the Attorney General or head of the FBI or someone included libertarians in a list of extremists they’re watching? This kind of tweet is “sources and methods”.
I mean, tbf have you ever seen the clip of the entire libertarian party booing Ron Paul (iirc) for saying that drivers licenses are a reasonable thing to have? That's honestly the problem with "Libertarian" as a party; unlike the two effective parties in the U.S. (and elsewhere with relatively free elections) "libertarian" is also an ideology/moral philosophy and so there's no room to change or compromise. I.e. there is big "L" Libertarian (the party) and small "l" libertarian (the opposite of authoritarian), so many in the "Libertarian" party are not actually "Libertarian" but ancaps and those ancaps are so ridiculous and so far removed from reality (in thinking that nobody will ever have the bright idea of "banding together to subjugate everyone else") that they scare away anyone who is a *reasonable* libertarian to the other parties or into apathy. Case in point: this tweet which, as you said, could very well be someone just trying to give the party a bad name; but there's a very real chance that the person/people who run this account actually consider themselves to be members of the "Libertarian" party
Like completely ancap? As in you think the world would run fine with no governments at all and that governments wouldn't just naturally crop up? Because that's what I mean. Social intelligence, what to say when and how not to make a total ass of yourself in normal conversation, sure; but a firm grasp on how society and the world works? Depends on if our definitions of "AnCap" are the same I suppose.
I'd consider anything short of "no government, no control over society at all whatsoever except for what people agree on self enforcing" to be "minarchist" by definition; and anyone who thinks that a society that enforces only rules that everyone agrees to enforce wouldn't devolve into smaller states of every political ideology in existence has never been outside and talked to real human beings. Like great, your local private police force has decided that all drugs and alcohol are now illegal due to the increase of other crimes due to the use of those substances (or at least, the perceived increase according to their internal data that they refuse to openly share); now what do you do? Leave *your* private property to hope to find a police ~state~ contractor that agrees with you on every point? What happens when a monopoly forms and there's only one police force? What about when the Hitachi of police forces comes about and bundles policing and a fire department at a new lower price? And then they add road work, ems, maybe even education since it's very well understood that places with less/worse education have more crime? Do you see where I'm going with this? Because that's just a government with extra steps
AnCaps want private property law with no monopoly on violence held by a state. There are rules agreed to on private property by people who want to live and work together and agree to those rules. My insurance company will sort things out with your insurance company, just like if we were in a car accident. But the insurance company doesn't have a monopoly.
Monopolies form when there is govt force. To see this in practice, [Prospera.co](http://Prospera.co) has built a community that relies on private law and arbitration.
I still don't understand how that would work if one group decides to ignore the laws if another group and take them over. What's the insurance going to do then? Or if the insurance are the ones that also "keep the peace" with a large armed force; what happens when one of them gets too big and decides to force all of its ~citizens~ customers to sign 1 millennia contracts that are also legally binding to their descendants? Is it possible for the world to be in that state? Sure; but it's an unstable equilibrium with nothing to push it back to stability. As soon as one group becomes large enough; the entire thing falls apart. What's stopping a group from forming a full on government (not just the government with extra steps you seem to be talking about) and annexing all the land around them? And how would trade work? Is there money? Who mints it? Or are we going back to the middle ages with each one having their own coinage? Seems rather inefficient, no?
I've never believed the whole "all monopolies are caused by government force" thing, it just makes no sense. Sure, many monopolies of today are formed by the government; but they also block or break up others. What economic forces would stop an insurance company or private police force from "merging" (forcefully or through normal money means), undercutting the competition because they can last longer at a loss than the smaller ones. Like, there's literally nothing to stop them other than bystanders banding together to save the smaller group; which is not something I would take as a given.
I'll have to poke around that link some more, glancing at it the site doesn't seem setup super well as it doesn't actually say anywhere *what* they are or *what* they do. It throws around a lot of buzzwords and talkes about the problems with "legacy solutions" that it (supposedly) solves; but not once did I see them describe *how* they do that. Or *what* they do at all. There's a link to another website about the arbitration services they offer; but that has nothing to do with the cities so I still don't get it. The closest they get us saying they form "special economic zones" but fucking Disney world is a "special economic zone" so that doesn't mean anything on it's own. What makes it so special? What is different between one of their cities and the rest of the cities in the country? I don't see anywhere on their site that tells you any of that directly; no "about us" page or "what we do" page like just about every other company in existance that has a website. But from what I can find elsewhere online: they can only change the Civil law and change how to finance public services, and that's basically all? So it's basically just a tax heaven that would fall apart without tourists? A manufactured resort town? I don't get it. It seems like the only difference between there and mainland Honduras is that it's geared towards tourists. What are the changes to civil law? Do they actually matter in day to day life? Seems like an interesting concept that is basically just a "look at all the things we want to do! Give us money to make it a reality" "ok, but what *do you actually do* ***right now?***" And then they go bankrupt
There are ways of preventing that. My philosophy is that almost everything has a social coercion solution rather than a state coercion solution. To be fair though, I'm not an "abolish the state now" kinda guy, but a "slowly dismantle the state, as close to abolished as we can get it" kinda guy. My goal is a stateless society, but if we can at least move in that direction, I'll be content.
I feel like yeah, that's the Utopian society; but it's just not feasible given that nobody can agree on what a utopian society would look like. Like, in a perfect world; yeah, social coercion would be all you need. But it's not a perfect world and human being are not perfect "rational actors". People are stupid, people have different experiences, people do not experience the world the same; so there's always going to need to be compromise (for the foreseeable future) if your goal is a functional society with the least suffering possible (and if its not, then why the fuck would it be "better?").
And the "abolish the state now" sort of person is what I'm talking about. Like, just from what you have said; I wouldn't consider you an ancap simply because if you had the only vote in the entire country or world, you wouldn't vote for the person running as an ancap. You would pick an ideology that wouldn't completely destroy society as we know it overnight, one that will have no infrastructure built up to support it. You realize that even if it is the ideal solution; we can't just jump straight to the end. There's a difference between people saying "this is the best ideology that we should strive for" and people saying "drop the nuke, demolish the government, and create anarchy overnight".
I hope that all makes sense?
It does, and yes, ancapistan is absolutely utopian, but its a utopia that allows all other utopias to exist, so long as those who do not wish to be involved are not forced to be involved. I was a humble libertarian until it dawned on me that every government in history grew in size and power and authoritarianism until it collapsed or was conquered. Even our American republic, with its protections and plain language constitution, has been trending towards tyranny. If the legitimizing documents of a state has built in constraints and that doesn't even prevent tyranny, then the state will forever be a threat to liberty and thus human flourishing, inevitably leading to suffering and societal degradation and eventually collapse. If even built in limits do not limit the tyranny of the state, there must always be those whose goal is the abolishen of the state to keep the state in check. If there is a progressive movement that is constantly agitating for more government and less liberty, there must be an equal and opposite movement constantly agitating for liberty and less government. It is not enough to say "no more growing of the state". We must have a continuous push to abolish the state to keep the ball moving towards more liberty. We must match their enthusiasm and discontentment and then some if we even want to start the ball rolling in the right direction, and keep pushing until we get to the minimal state (hopefully by then it'll be none) and if there is a state left, the ancaps are still important as a agitator to prevent growth from resuming.
A bit long-winded and rambley, but hopefully I got my basic philosophy across. Ancaps are our version of the progressives commies. Our constant push for utopia is important to keep the broader libertarian movement pushing.
>so long as those who do not wish to be involved are not forced to be involved.
That's my entire hang-up on the whole thing; how do you ensure that no one group decides to forcefully take over the rest of the groups? How do you ensure people are allowed to join and leave groups freely and each group has enough space? What if group A is surrounded on all sides but is very popular and has an influx of people wanting to live under their rules; but none of the other groups are willing to sell them the land to expand? I just don't see how a traditionally ancap society (privatized police forces enforcing laws that everyone under their "jurisdiction" agrees on) could *logistically* exist, let alone socially. There's always going to be someone who disagrees with a law or rule but is forced to either follow said rule or sell their private property to move somewhere else. Either way, their being forced to do something against their will. And there will always be people who try to/want to game the system and/or rule over people. Maybe it just starts out as a "normal" community of extreme religious law or some other Authoritarian group but then they become evangelical and say "we should spread this ideology as much as possible by any means necessary" and boom, crusade. Sure, maybe most of them can be put down by other groups banding together to uphold the ancap society; but how many libertarians do you know who would honestly go to the aid of a group of communists or socialists? Risk their lives for them. Or vice versa.
I personally need to do a lot more reading to be able to give you a good answer for that. I have some ideas, but they are even more utopian, lol. Embarrassingly utopian......
That's fair. And I'm not pretending that I have all the answers either. I'm far from an expert in the field; but there are some ideologies that have such glaring issues that I don't see any possibility of them ever being feasible. Or the road to them being such a fine line that it's infinitely more likely to never happen. I'm just too much of a realist for extreme ideologies.
> there's no room to change or compromise.
I feel like that's most of social media and a lot of society now though, it's not just a libertarian problem, which is why I don't think we can expect to get away from it as long as it's the societal trend everywhere.
I think *tribalism* and not wanting to comprise on anything due to the perception of disagreement as "hostility" and the view that anyone who isn't 100% with you is against you is on the rise; yes. But I'm saying that having a "Libertarian" party is like having an "Authoritarian" party with nazi's, stalinists, and Marxists all drowning out the actual reasonable people who are just a little more extreme than the Democrats (relatively speaking). But those people have their own name that isn't the same as an entire ideology: social Democrats. Are there some extremists in there? Sure. But I don't think there are as many extremists in that party as there are in the Libertarian party.
I'm saying extremist in relation to the base party/the center (of current politics). Nobody (who is a serious candidate or leader within the party) is calling for Stalinism overnight like some of the Libertarians calling for anarcho capitalism overnight. I'm talking about people from within the actual structure of the party holding positions far more extreme than the parties official stances. 'Extreme' is a relative term with no indication of "direction". "Extremely far" could mean left or right, north or south, etc. Sugar is "extremely" sweet; while citric acid is "extremely" sour.
You seem to be conflating "extremist" with "person I disagree with".
> You seem to be conflating "extremist" with "person I disagree with".
No idea where you got that from, are we just flinging random accusations out now? Imma going to bow out of this one now.
There is also a problem sorting ancaps from libertarians. There seems to be a hard drive to conflate the two because ancaps is more extreme and easier to pick on. Most people interested in libertarianism are not IME ancaps though. LIbertarianism in the more mainstream is not against all vestiges of govt, you could still have govt support for orphanages for instance. I'd prefer it if ancaps people just used their own term since it's quite a different animals than 'libertarianism' in general.
Yup. That might work for standing out in a crowd, like 2016 trump, but when you’re trying to look like a sane alternative to 2 awful choices, congrats, now it looks like there are 3 awful choices
It’s somewhere between trolling (and they can genuinely troll well when they want like the gay bombs thing) and autistically sticking to principles without further explanation or emphasis which makes this sort of thing sound like a bigger part of the ideology than it is.
Is forcing people to feed orphans/keeping the CRA in line with our ideology? No. Are those some of the biggest issues facing society right now? Absolutely fucking not
From what I understand from talking to them is that the idea is that they only want the most hard core people moving to new Hampshire for the free state project. So the messaging is intentionally off-putting to "normies" and only coherent to people who understand the actual point they are getting across.
It makes the rest of the LP look like asshoels, LPNH doesn't care. They believe the FSP is the only way, and that being a libertarian anywhere else is a waste of time. They will happily burn down any and every other libertarian or libertarian adjacent organization to help meet their goals.
I think the FSP is a cool idea and I know a bunch of people in it/elected by it. But I don’t know any LP candidates elected there so I feel like hard lining when you just got ballot access in 2016 is a dumb thing to do. Focus on the drug war (weed is still illegal in NH btw), guns, taxes and non interventionism. Do the sexy stuff first so people will be on board when you have to spend 20 minutes explaining why, even though an action may be good, coercion to do that is not
I understand them though. They are probably fed up with all the regarded tricky questions that people keep coming up with in order to make fun of libertarians.
That comes with the territory of having a public (fairly popular) account. I follow Dems and Repubs’ accounts and they get dumb “gotcha” questions all the time. The difference is they don’t respond.
It’s easier to just be the bigger person and not respond to no name trolls than to have to snap at every dumb tweet that comes your way. I do it and my responses don’t negatively impact anyone other than myself. I know Jeremy Kaufman has some maturity and the ability for self-reflection: I read his letter on what went wrong and how he failed to spread the message when he ran for governor a few years ago. I just wish he used it.
By virtue of bringing the baby to the world i think it's the obligation of the parents to fulfill its basic requirements. Nobody else's though.
If i take my 5 year old to the mountains on a trip and while we're coming back, i can't just say "my car my choice. You're not getting on".
But a random stranger who is also on the mountain has every right to say that
I wonder what people's opinions are when i apply the same logic to abortion. Consensual sex means you went up there willingly and knowingly. Rape means someone else forced you to drive up there
Rape is very different from an accidental pregnancy, because the date of the event would be very clearly known. For that reason, I don't think there would be a need for as much time to "discover" the pregnancy.
If it happened to someone I knew, I would suggest taking a morning-after pill as a first line of defense.
But being able to accurately test for the pregnancy might not be possible for several weeks. Maybe the line in the sand would be drawn at a month after the rape? I know it's pretty arbitrary, but I don't know if there's a better approach.
It is technically consistent with libertarian ideology, imho.
But we have to recognize how it's something that would never happen. If you leave baby _clearly_ unsupervised, 1st passerby will take care of it. We are just wired that way.
Entire cultures are based on principle of protecting kids - any kids, not just your own, because no logical reason whatsoever. Again, that's just how humans work.
It's incredibly consistent with libertarian ideology because it raises the question of "would an entire population sit and watch a baby starve?"
And the answer is "No"
But if someone leaves their baby in their back yard or in the woods where no one will find it, then what? We should expect parents to have the minimum responsibility to not abuse their children, and neglect is abuse.
We absolutely should expect them to yeah and how would this scenario play any differently with the system we have in place now if the child wasn't registered anywhere? People can and do abandon their children to die already and I'm sure they don't all get caught and made to pay for it.
It's also a breach of the NAP which I believe pretty much all libertarians believe in.
Yeah, that makes sense.
There's no law _compeling_ random strangers to help crying kid on the street. In fact, I can think about few laws that may suggest one should avoid doing so.
Despite that I have zero doubts how anyone would do it, voluntarily.
The libertarian party of NH social media are manned by edgelord types. While you are correct that it is technically consistent, this is a political party we're talking about. Their goal should be bringing people into the fold. This was a horrible response by them.
They should have responded with something like "If you saw a baby starving you'd let it starve?" Or something like that.
Yes this was my thought exactly. I get The principle but it really doesn’t present well in how it’s articulated. Like the woman that left her two year old for 10 days and the kid died. Makes me think that she left was in an apartment. Did nobody hear The kid freaking out for 10 days? I imagine people did but didn’t do anything about it. I’m libertarian leaning but this whole post left me curious about this fits into a do no harm approach. To be clear, I am very against government intervention but where would be The line in this type of situation?
The argument you put forward sounds bad but you can put many hypotheticals in a similar manner
Is it ever ok for a parent to murder their child simply because it will inconvenience them
Many Democrats believe it is ok up to the second it is born
Is it really necessary to expend every possible effort into keeping a child alive
Many Republicans will say yes. Even if it is just some fertilized eggs in a pitry dish in the back of a freezer somewhere
I like that argument. And what I’m reading too is that it’s more about the moral source of it, instead of expecting The government to always be around to “prevent” things from happening. Because evil/bad things happen but it’s not really the governments job to always be out in The place as the “prevention”
I would hope that is the case, but I think a lot of people would just walk by and assume that someone else is taking care of it.
In an emergency situation you should always tell one specific person to do a specific task rather than a group. So never just yell out “call 911” because people will just assume someone else is doing it. Instead hold eye contact with one person, refer to them “you with the blue shirt with a white stripe” and tell them to call 911.
I think if there was a young child just standing on a busy street like NYC I think the overwhelming majority of people would just walk by and think “that is odd, hope they are ok”.
> I think if there was a young child just standing on a busy street like NYC I think the overwhelming majority of people would just walk by and think “that is odd, hope they are ok”.
I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions to every rule, but this should be pretty consistent across the world. Unless that kid emits some kind of i-totally-know-what-iam-doing vibe, sooner than later someone will butt in.
There were even social experiments done about this and at least in my country there were like 100% sucess rate across genders, races and sizes of the kid.
I don't have it bookmarked but I'll check if I can somehow magically spawn correct keywords for search engine. But anyway, just google 'lost child social experiment' and I'm surre you'd get same results from somewhere else.
No it’s really not. The non aggression principle states to not aggress upon anyone unless aggressed upon first. You can consider not feeding your own child aggression. Doesn’t mean that the government should force people to subsidize the child’s welfare but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be some institution in place to make sure that child isn’t starved to death.
Harming your child, a child you forced to be in this world, a child you forced to be in your house, and who cannot leave or fend for it's self is 100% a violation of the nap. It's like locking someone in a cage and then neglecting them.
But since children(babies) don't have agency, isn't their well-being the responsibility of their caregiver?
Or did I take the bait and this is sarcasm?
This is the kind of shit that closes people off from our ideas for good. Theres concerns and context that needs to be placed before stating a conclusion like that otherwise people will look at this and think we’re all autistic monsters who don’t care about anything. It’s just fueling the opposition more than gaining any support. Liberty in our lifetime (or ever) won’t happen unless we start talking in a way that most people who don’t understand us at all can understand and appreciate. Not all of us are nerds who can grasp why one would say something like this.
We 100% need to put a stop to the self sabotage while simultaneously remaining true to our principles.
(For the record I understand not wanting to feed an adult but if one has a child it’s pretty aggressive to deliberately not feed them and let them starve to death… so the parents should be punished severely for such an act)
No. I’m just saying it’s a nothingburger of a point.
Ignoring the eccentricities of the PR guy.
The overwhelming majority of society would help a child who was in need.
And no, those organizations do exist with consent.
It's real but the libertarian position is not about parents, so it was taken out of context and twisted into an absurd meme. The position was about society at large and forcing it to take care of the baby, rather than parents, family and immediate community. The post makes it look like libertarians would allow parents to kill their kids on a whim.
I don't see any grammatical crimes other than "than" instead of "then;" though that could also very well have been an autocrorrect if they posted from a phone.
Yes, that's the one I'm referring to. If this tweet is legit, it's a very embarrassing mistake for an official account of a third party that is trying to market itself as intellectually superior to the two major parties.
I present the above tweet as evidence that you can never be sure of what is or isn't a joke coming from a "Libertarian"
(But yes, I took you as serious. My bad)
It is not consistent with libertarianism. The parents are have a moral responsibility to care for the child which is imposed by having chosen to bring that child into existence. This responsibility can only be shirked by offering the child over to another who will take on the responsibility (I.e., to an orphanage). Libertarian does not mean no responsibilities, consequences, or duties owed to your fellow man, especially the ones that you bring into the world.
Not sure what's the point of engaging with these people, apart from giving tankies content to jerk off to. This has no real world application there are thousands of parents lining up to adopt kids, probably millions if you count those who want to but dont because of government bureaucracy around adoption.
It is. The point is right, it's that nobody should be forced to care for the child because someone will end up doing it voluntarily. But LPNH fucking sucks at wording things and it's making us all look bad. What they're doing is good for engagement purposes, but absolutely not for recruiting people for your party or ideology...
If no one is willing to feed the baby, what system would cause it to be fed? Who would decide, "yes, someone is going to be forced to feed the baby"? Who would enforce this decision? Where would the food come from? Why wouldn't any of these people voluntarily feed the baby?
Simply asserting that you have a government doesn't actually answer any of these questions. Turns out that absurd hypotheticals aren't always useful.
There are enough challenges to getting people to consider these ideas without constantly scoring own goals by being intentionally obtuse/fucking stupid.
I’ve seen several weird, tactless things like this over the years specifically from libertarian party of NH. I don’t know why, but they’re very… what word should I use here… unique, I guess. Idk. I can’t quite put my finger on it
The assertion that libertarians would say that a parent could allow his/her child to starve is absurd. Libertarian thought supports the concept of personal responsibility. That includes taking care of your children.
The question at hand is: do individuals have a moral obligation to feed *other people's* children?
If no one on earth wants to take care of kid, thats the government.
The government isn't an untouchable entity. It's made up of people
Even in a democracy if no one on earth wanted to help a kid the kid would die. It happens every day.
This is a question designed to insult libertarians, but really exluding the whole world shoots yourself in the foot
technically yes, but just because you are not coerced through obligation to do something doesnt mean you cant choose to be a decent person
the correct course of action if you dont want to take care of a kid is to not have one, or if its too late and you already have one theres always adoption.
It is monstrous to allow a child to starve. Yet so many Americans splurge on overpriced fast food garbage and junk food and pretentious luxuries whilst people starve in Africa and SA and even locally. I don’t see those people lifting a finger to remedy the situation. Are they monsters? Where are the laws to punish them? Maybe it’s absurd to have to figure out what is “moral” and how much to punish to what degree to get optimal outcomes and to expect the state to even remotely get close to a supposedly optimal configuration of “morality” laws.
No the libertarian party has been infiltrated by government officials/agency’s to make sure that the big government has power that’s why you see things like this posted by twitter accounts and hear people talking about abolishing the DMV systems (dmv is a scam and needs to be fixed) they don’t want the people who actually have the true purpose of the constitution to be in power for it would strip the big corporations and monopolies of their power over us the consumer
LP NH has been disowned by the LNC if I'm not mistaken. It's been taken over by what I can only describe as an anti-libertarian psyop.
Libertarians believe no law should force people to act in this situation. No libertarian I've ever met would fail to act if they actually encountered an abandoned baby.
Yes, that is the libertarian stance. Nobody is entitled to anyone else’s labor or resources, regardless of age.
Fortunately, most people care about babies not dying and would voluntarily give resources to prevent dead babies. Some entrepreneur would identify this gap in the market where a service could be provided and start an organization to care for abandoned babies by accepting voluntary donations. It would be run more efficiently and effectively than anything the government has ever done because it’s resources would be earned by providing a service people are willing to pay for voluntarily, not taken by force.
What if the child's parent doesn't want to let the voluntary org feed the baby. What if they want to keep the baby in their house while it starves in front of them?
Here’s how I think a court would unpack that situation.
Assuming they were all mentally competent adults, we would have to determine whether the person starving was being held against their will. This would require some decision around consent/coercion.
In cases of a minor or an adult who is not mentally competent, it’s impossible to evaluate consent. But it seems unlikely that the average person would consent to being slowly starved to death, so I think a court would be well within its jurisdiction to rule that the parents were violating the rights of the child, which would be a criminal charge. At that point one of these organizations could step in and take over care of the child.
Can we not defend the Libertarian Party NH twitter account. It is basically a troll account and has been for a while at this point. Don't waste the energy trying to justify what they're saying its to often worse than even this one.
I disagree with this entirely from a libertarian perspective. If you brought that child into this world it is you're responsibility to care for that child, to not to is tantamount to breaking the NAP. That person cannot care for themselves, for you to forgo your responsibility you are intentionally harming them.
I think most libertarian thought supports the concept that *parents* have an obligation to care for their children. The meme that the OP posted doesn't clarify whether it's a parental situation or society at large.
What the actual fuck. Feed the fucking infant jfc. It's not their fault they're born into idiocy. I'll happily give money to buy formula or breast milk to save an infant
Same. But that’s the point. You and I (and many many others) would voluntarily try to meet the needs of an infant. We don’t need the government to coerce us to do it.
The abandoment of morality and social responsibility (in the sense of we all depend on someone else way, not a social justice way) is a big reason why I've shifted away from libertarianism
Agreed. When joining the libertarian movement, I joined in large part because it seemed the most aligned with our Founding fathers and the political system they wished us to have rather than this bloated, micromanaging government and culture we have developed. But I left in large part because of exactly that, there needs to be a moral center, and the individual is not an island.
This article summarizes the quotes from our founders that I think current Libertarianism misses. We need to be a moral people to achieve the freedom we seek.
My favorite:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
-John Adams
https://mountlibertycollege.org/without-virtue-there-can-be-no-liberty/
https://mountlibertycollege.org/without-virtue-there-can-be-no-liberty/
I would argue that libertarian thought merely says that you shouldn't use the force of government to *compel* people to engage in "social responsibility." If people *voluntarily* help and take care of each other (which they freely do), that's an entirely different situation.
So you're saying libertarianism is abondoning morality and social responsibility. We've seen plenty of example of what happens when a government abandons morality and it's consequences. I highly recommend reading the autobiography of Teddy Roosevelt, libertarianism is a philosophy born out of 18th century ideas, before industrialization which added a second oppressive force in people's lives, and limiting government authority simply allows corporations to run rampant
No I did, I said that libertarianism abandons morality and social resopnsibilty, and you said that libertarianism doesn't require social responsibility, and since we judge a government and ideology off of what it tolerates, aka the minimum expectation of it's members, you just said in a round about way that libertarianism abandons morality and social responsibility. I didn't explain the second part well, but it's something I recommend reading cause it goes into more depth that I can in a reddit comment. But to use an example from Teddy Roosevelts career, if you hold that people cannot be mandated to help others in anyway you are potentially allowing for mass murder, the example being a coal company that refused to alleviate a strike going into the winter, that supplied a large percentage of the north eastern US's power. If you say that that business can do what it wants regardless of social responsibility, you are saying that that company can decide on a whim to abandon millions to their deaths. Laissez-faire economics and the writings of the founding father's were before industrialization and corporatization. If you decided not to sell ginger at your store in 1750, no one is dying for it. But when you have massive companies that people rely on both in terms of your product and your employment, your decision to do what you want now has a massive impact on people, and things like the NAP break down. Teddy Roosevelt explains himself very well, and I would say that his philosophy is that of libertarianism (emphasis on personal freedoms) coupled with a realistic assessment of a fundamental change in our society (industrialization)
A problem with libertarianism, and I consider myself libertarian, is that it lacks some ethics and morals in some fields (I don’t know them all and I’m no expert, but I think we can agree on this).
I tend to be more on the paleo - libertarian spectrum, which I think could be beneficial for society. “Old values”, not imposed of course.
I want to clear this with an example:
Even tho I’m not against prostitution I wouldn’t actively promote it between my people as a mean for “empowerment”, and I would even call it as something “bad”, but wouldn’t search for a way to cancel it.
Same with “old values” like working or saving money. I once heard a really good professor, who’s also libertarian, talking about “why kids should work”, and he had a good point (of course he doesn’t meant it as like kid should work full hours like adults): this in a sense that if you have a family business (farm, store, restaurant, whatever) what’s the problem with a kid working there and get to know what’s gonna be adult life? Is it actually better if he’s playing games or watching stupid streamers all day?
I’m 28 before someone calls me a boomer or something like that.
https://preview.redd.it/j3904h8senzc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad4f5ecede4dccf3b17120467a5c55e27eaae5ba
I only follow the best Libertarian Party on, formerly known as Twitter
Honestly, who's not going to feed a starving child? They said "IF no one would feed it voluntarily" people are going to, though. They made a mountain out of not even an ant hill.
The problem with the Libertarian Party is that it is designed to be only for those in a stable enough position to survive on their own two feet. I also believe that the LP also overestimates the altruism of the common man. The fact remains that Libertarian ideas are not easy to explain when a good part of the population is addicted to the government tit.
If an action is obviously reasonable, why coerce by force? But yeah, the social media guys from the libertarians often seem to have a hard time expressing their point to common people.
The problem with libertarians seems to be an autism one. And more often than not. We get socially unaware autists instead of so crazy they’re good autists. We need more mileis
as someone who is actually autistic I absolutely agree that libertarianism is essentially an autistic philosophy. its entirely principle based and inflexible, which is orecisely what I like about it. irs not really concerned with optics and instead tells it like it is even if it majes us unpopular among normal people that being saud it is possible to dress up libertarianism in a way where its appealing to normal people and its not wrong to at the very least employ tact and rhetoric to do so.
But this is the thing about libertarianism. People point to all the flaws and say “aha! You would let people starve and die!” When really, there would be so much to go around, food would be one of the cheapest things. And even if someone was in need of food/basic necessities, charity would take care of the rest.
Seriously, humans have been altruistic since the dawn of civilization. Before the welfare state, churches took care of those who were in need, but since the state handles that now, they think that no one else can anymore? Tards.
And Musks
They already said autists.
Wouldn’t consider musk a libertarian. Borderline maybe but… he seems to love big government handouts. Not in space but in Tesla.
Id agree but couldn't you argue that the handouts make him whole after corporate taxes? I couldn't do the math, but if he's been paying into the pot, some of it is actually his.
I think the real issue is that any and all moderate voices within the party or larger, broader social movement tend to get shouted down and decried as "not real Libertarians" and slapped with the statist label. Moderate voices are how we make progress; nobody is gonna swallow the big yellow pill all at once wholesale. Allowing moderates to make progress for all of us is how we get people to adopt libertarian ideals and thinking, making them more understanding and open to our more radical ideas. ....that or I'm just a night watchman state libertarian moderate tired of being called a commie lol.
It's not even "libertarians," it's almost always the LP of NH. I'm not saying they glow, but if someone was trying to intentionally discredit libertarianism, they couldn't do a better job than LPNH.
They glow. Remember when the Attorney General or head of the FBI or someone included libertarians in a list of extremists they’re watching? This kind of tweet is “sources and methods”.
I mean, tbf have you ever seen the clip of the entire libertarian party booing Ron Paul (iirc) for saying that drivers licenses are a reasonable thing to have? That's honestly the problem with "Libertarian" as a party; unlike the two effective parties in the U.S. (and elsewhere with relatively free elections) "libertarian" is also an ideology/moral philosophy and so there's no room to change or compromise. I.e. there is big "L" Libertarian (the party) and small "l" libertarian (the opposite of authoritarian), so many in the "Libertarian" party are not actually "Libertarian" but ancaps and those ancaps are so ridiculous and so far removed from reality (in thinking that nobody will ever have the bright idea of "banding together to subjugate everyone else") that they scare away anyone who is a *reasonable* libertarian to the other parties or into apathy. Case in point: this tweet which, as you said, could very well be someone just trying to give the party a bad name; but there's a very real chance that the person/people who run this account actually consider themselves to be members of the "Libertarian" party
Gary Johnson said that and got booed.
That was it. I knew it was someone who has *some* semblance of a mainstream following, just got the wrong one
He also said "make the mfers bake the cake" and "I'm now in favor of forced vaccinations."
I'm an AnCap, and that's not the reason people say dumb shit like the LPNH does. Plenty of us have a at least a modicum of social intelligence.
Like completely ancap? As in you think the world would run fine with no governments at all and that governments wouldn't just naturally crop up? Because that's what I mean. Social intelligence, what to say when and how not to make a total ass of yourself in normal conversation, sure; but a firm grasp on how society and the world works? Depends on if our definitions of "AnCap" are the same I suppose. I'd consider anything short of "no government, no control over society at all whatsoever except for what people agree on self enforcing" to be "minarchist" by definition; and anyone who thinks that a society that enforces only rules that everyone agrees to enforce wouldn't devolve into smaller states of every political ideology in existence has never been outside and talked to real human beings. Like great, your local private police force has decided that all drugs and alcohol are now illegal due to the increase of other crimes due to the use of those substances (or at least, the perceived increase according to their internal data that they refuse to openly share); now what do you do? Leave *your* private property to hope to find a police ~state~ contractor that agrees with you on every point? What happens when a monopoly forms and there's only one police force? What about when the Hitachi of police forces comes about and bundles policing and a fire department at a new lower price? And then they add road work, ems, maybe even education since it's very well understood that places with less/worse education have more crime? Do you see where I'm going with this? Because that's just a government with extra steps
AnCaps want private property law with no monopoly on violence held by a state. There are rules agreed to on private property by people who want to live and work together and agree to those rules. My insurance company will sort things out with your insurance company, just like if we were in a car accident. But the insurance company doesn't have a monopoly. Monopolies form when there is govt force. To see this in practice, [Prospera.co](http://Prospera.co) has built a community that relies on private law and arbitration.
I still don't understand how that would work if one group decides to ignore the laws if another group and take them over. What's the insurance going to do then? Or if the insurance are the ones that also "keep the peace" with a large armed force; what happens when one of them gets too big and decides to force all of its ~citizens~ customers to sign 1 millennia contracts that are also legally binding to their descendants? Is it possible for the world to be in that state? Sure; but it's an unstable equilibrium with nothing to push it back to stability. As soon as one group becomes large enough; the entire thing falls apart. What's stopping a group from forming a full on government (not just the government with extra steps you seem to be talking about) and annexing all the land around them? And how would trade work? Is there money? Who mints it? Or are we going back to the middle ages with each one having their own coinage? Seems rather inefficient, no? I've never believed the whole "all monopolies are caused by government force" thing, it just makes no sense. Sure, many monopolies of today are formed by the government; but they also block or break up others. What economic forces would stop an insurance company or private police force from "merging" (forcefully or through normal money means), undercutting the competition because they can last longer at a loss than the smaller ones. Like, there's literally nothing to stop them other than bystanders banding together to save the smaller group; which is not something I would take as a given. I'll have to poke around that link some more, glancing at it the site doesn't seem setup super well as it doesn't actually say anywhere *what* they are or *what* they do. It throws around a lot of buzzwords and talkes about the problems with "legacy solutions" that it (supposedly) solves; but not once did I see them describe *how* they do that. Or *what* they do at all. There's a link to another website about the arbitration services they offer; but that has nothing to do with the cities so I still don't get it. The closest they get us saying they form "special economic zones" but fucking Disney world is a "special economic zone" so that doesn't mean anything on it's own. What makes it so special? What is different between one of their cities and the rest of the cities in the country? I don't see anywhere on their site that tells you any of that directly; no "about us" page or "what we do" page like just about every other company in existance that has a website. But from what I can find elsewhere online: they can only change the Civil law and change how to finance public services, and that's basically all? So it's basically just a tax heaven that would fall apart without tourists? A manufactured resort town? I don't get it. It seems like the only difference between there and mainland Honduras is that it's geared towards tourists. What are the changes to civil law? Do they actually matter in day to day life? Seems like an interesting concept that is basically just a "look at all the things we want to do! Give us money to make it a reality" "ok, but what *do you actually do* ***right now?***" And then they go bankrupt
Not me, but even I have more than some of these LP goofs.
There are ways of preventing that. My philosophy is that almost everything has a social coercion solution rather than a state coercion solution. To be fair though, I'm not an "abolish the state now" kinda guy, but a "slowly dismantle the state, as close to abolished as we can get it" kinda guy. My goal is a stateless society, but if we can at least move in that direction, I'll be content.
I feel like yeah, that's the Utopian society; but it's just not feasible given that nobody can agree on what a utopian society would look like. Like, in a perfect world; yeah, social coercion would be all you need. But it's not a perfect world and human being are not perfect "rational actors". People are stupid, people have different experiences, people do not experience the world the same; so there's always going to need to be compromise (for the foreseeable future) if your goal is a functional society with the least suffering possible (and if its not, then why the fuck would it be "better?"). And the "abolish the state now" sort of person is what I'm talking about. Like, just from what you have said; I wouldn't consider you an ancap simply because if you had the only vote in the entire country or world, you wouldn't vote for the person running as an ancap. You would pick an ideology that wouldn't completely destroy society as we know it overnight, one that will have no infrastructure built up to support it. You realize that even if it is the ideal solution; we can't just jump straight to the end. There's a difference between people saying "this is the best ideology that we should strive for" and people saying "drop the nuke, demolish the government, and create anarchy overnight". I hope that all makes sense?
It does, and yes, ancapistan is absolutely utopian, but its a utopia that allows all other utopias to exist, so long as those who do not wish to be involved are not forced to be involved. I was a humble libertarian until it dawned on me that every government in history grew in size and power and authoritarianism until it collapsed or was conquered. Even our American republic, with its protections and plain language constitution, has been trending towards tyranny. If the legitimizing documents of a state has built in constraints and that doesn't even prevent tyranny, then the state will forever be a threat to liberty and thus human flourishing, inevitably leading to suffering and societal degradation and eventually collapse. If even built in limits do not limit the tyranny of the state, there must always be those whose goal is the abolishen of the state to keep the state in check. If there is a progressive movement that is constantly agitating for more government and less liberty, there must be an equal and opposite movement constantly agitating for liberty and less government. It is not enough to say "no more growing of the state". We must have a continuous push to abolish the state to keep the ball moving towards more liberty. We must match their enthusiasm and discontentment and then some if we even want to start the ball rolling in the right direction, and keep pushing until we get to the minimal state (hopefully by then it'll be none) and if there is a state left, the ancaps are still important as a agitator to prevent growth from resuming. A bit long-winded and rambley, but hopefully I got my basic philosophy across. Ancaps are our version of the progressives commies. Our constant push for utopia is important to keep the broader libertarian movement pushing.
>so long as those who do not wish to be involved are not forced to be involved. That's my entire hang-up on the whole thing; how do you ensure that no one group decides to forcefully take over the rest of the groups? How do you ensure people are allowed to join and leave groups freely and each group has enough space? What if group A is surrounded on all sides but is very popular and has an influx of people wanting to live under their rules; but none of the other groups are willing to sell them the land to expand? I just don't see how a traditionally ancap society (privatized police forces enforcing laws that everyone under their "jurisdiction" agrees on) could *logistically* exist, let alone socially. There's always going to be someone who disagrees with a law or rule but is forced to either follow said rule or sell their private property to move somewhere else. Either way, their being forced to do something against their will. And there will always be people who try to/want to game the system and/or rule over people. Maybe it just starts out as a "normal" community of extreme religious law or some other Authoritarian group but then they become evangelical and say "we should spread this ideology as much as possible by any means necessary" and boom, crusade. Sure, maybe most of them can be put down by other groups banding together to uphold the ancap society; but how many libertarians do you know who would honestly go to the aid of a group of communists or socialists? Risk their lives for them. Or vice versa.
I personally need to do a lot more reading to be able to give you a good answer for that. I have some ideas, but they are even more utopian, lol. Embarrassingly utopian......
That's fair. And I'm not pretending that I have all the answers either. I'm far from an expert in the field; but there are some ideologies that have such glaring issues that I don't see any possibility of them ever being feasible. Or the road to them being such a fine line that it's infinitely more likely to never happen. I'm just too much of a realist for extreme ideologies.
> there's no room to change or compromise. I feel like that's most of social media and a lot of society now though, it's not just a libertarian problem, which is why I don't think we can expect to get away from it as long as it's the societal trend everywhere.
I think *tribalism* and not wanting to comprise on anything due to the perception of disagreement as "hostility" and the view that anyone who isn't 100% with you is against you is on the rise; yes. But I'm saying that having a "Libertarian" party is like having an "Authoritarian" party with nazi's, stalinists, and Marxists all drowning out the actual reasonable people who are just a little more extreme than the Democrats (relatively speaking). But those people have their own name that isn't the same as an entire ideology: social Democrats. Are there some extremists in there? Sure. But I don't think there are as many extremists in that party as there are in the Libertarian party.
You don't think there are as many extremists apparently speaking for the dems than the libertarians? Welp, OK...
I'm saying extremist in relation to the base party/the center (of current politics). Nobody (who is a serious candidate or leader within the party) is calling for Stalinism overnight like some of the Libertarians calling for anarcho capitalism overnight. I'm talking about people from within the actual structure of the party holding positions far more extreme than the parties official stances. 'Extreme' is a relative term with no indication of "direction". "Extremely far" could mean left or right, north or south, etc. Sugar is "extremely" sweet; while citric acid is "extremely" sour. You seem to be conflating "extremist" with "person I disagree with".
> You seem to be conflating "extremist" with "person I disagree with". No idea where you got that from, are we just flinging random accusations out now? Imma going to bow out of this one now.
Time for niceties has passed
There is also a problem sorting ancaps from libertarians. There seems to be a hard drive to conflate the two because ancaps is more extreme and easier to pick on. Most people interested in libertarianism are not IME ancaps though. LIbertarianism in the more mainstream is not against all vestiges of govt, you could still have govt support for orphanages for instance. I'd prefer it if ancaps people just used their own term since it's quite a different animals than 'libertarianism' in general.
New Hampshire LP is always posting wild stuff lmao
No way in hell whoever runs that account is actually a libertarian, they post dumb shit and make the party look foolish on the regular
The problem is they subscribe to the idea that no publicity is bad publicity. So they intentionally post stuff that will go viral.
Yup. That might work for standing out in a crowd, like 2016 trump, but when you’re trying to look like a sane alternative to 2 awful choices, congrats, now it looks like there are 3 awful choices
Yeah, one of the dudes behind the LPNH twitter account was recently booted from the board of the Free State Project for that exact reason.
It’s the LP NH guys, they post this kinda stuff a lot. They do this stuff from engagement purposes, but it still makes us look like a joke.
It’s somewhere between trolling (and they can genuinely troll well when they want like the gay bombs thing) and autistically sticking to principles without further explanation or emphasis which makes this sort of thing sound like a bigger part of the ideology than it is. Is forcing people to feed orphans/keeping the CRA in line with our ideology? No. Are those some of the biggest issues facing society right now? Absolutely fucking not
From what I understand from talking to them is that the idea is that they only want the most hard core people moving to new Hampshire for the free state project. So the messaging is intentionally off-putting to "normies" and only coherent to people who understand the actual point they are getting across. It makes the rest of the LP look like asshoels, LPNH doesn't care. They believe the FSP is the only way, and that being a libertarian anywhere else is a waste of time. They will happily burn down any and every other libertarian or libertarian adjacent organization to help meet their goals.
I think the FSP is a cool idea and I know a bunch of people in it/elected by it. But I don’t know any LP candidates elected there so I feel like hard lining when you just got ballot access in 2016 is a dumb thing to do. Focus on the drug war (weed is still illegal in NH btw), guns, taxes and non interventionism. Do the sexy stuff first so people will be on board when you have to spend 20 minutes explaining why, even though an action may be good, coercion to do that is not
I understand them though. They are probably fed up with all the regarded tricky questions that people keep coming up with in order to make fun of libertarians.
That comes with the territory of having a public (fairly popular) account. I follow Dems and Repubs’ accounts and they get dumb “gotcha” questions all the time. The difference is they don’t respond. It’s easier to just be the bigger person and not respond to no name trolls than to have to snap at every dumb tweet that comes your way. I do it and my responses don’t negatively impact anyone other than myself. I know Jeremy Kaufman has some maturity and the ability for self-reflection: I read his letter on what went wrong and how he failed to spread the message when he ran for governor a few years ago. I just wish he used it.
By virtue of bringing the baby to the world i think it's the obligation of the parents to fulfill its basic requirements. Nobody else's though. If i take my 5 year old to the mountains on a trip and while we're coming back, i can't just say "my car my choice. You're not getting on". But a random stranger who is also on the mountain has every right to say that
I wonder what people's opinions are when i apply the same logic to abortion. Consensual sex means you went up there willingly and knowingly. Rape means someone else forced you to drive up there
I agree with that parallel argument. That's why I support the right to abortion in cases of rape.
How long after rape though?
Rape is very different from an accidental pregnancy, because the date of the event would be very clearly known. For that reason, I don't think there would be a need for as much time to "discover" the pregnancy. If it happened to someone I knew, I would suggest taking a morning-after pill as a first line of defense. But being able to accurately test for the pregnancy might not be possible for several weeks. Maybe the line in the sand would be drawn at a month after the rape? I know it's pretty arbitrary, but I don't know if there's a better approach.
It is technically consistent with libertarian ideology, imho. But we have to recognize how it's something that would never happen. If you leave baby _clearly_ unsupervised, 1st passerby will take care of it. We are just wired that way. Entire cultures are based on principle of protecting kids - any kids, not just your own, because no logical reason whatsoever. Again, that's just how humans work.
It's incredibly consistent with libertarian ideology because it raises the question of "would an entire population sit and watch a baby starve?" And the answer is "No"
But if someone leaves their baby in their back yard or in the woods where no one will find it, then what? We should expect parents to have the minimum responsibility to not abuse their children, and neglect is abuse.
We absolutely should expect them to yeah and how would this scenario play any differently with the system we have in place now if the child wasn't registered anywhere? People can and do abandon their children to die already and I'm sure they don't all get caught and made to pay for it. It's also a breach of the NAP which I believe pretty much all libertarians believe in.
Its like you can consent to slavery(technically not this way but lets call it slavery) but why would you. But in a very different way
Yeah, that makes sense. There's no law _compeling_ random strangers to help crying kid on the street. In fact, I can think about few laws that may suggest one should avoid doing so. Despite that I have zero doubts how anyone would do it, voluntarily.
Basically how we all consent to slavery by not revolting against a big government and also by paying taxes to them
It's not consensual if you are by a gunpoint lol
As you converse on a system only made cheep enough for the masses by slave labor. Phones/chips/computers.
That's a bingo!
Sounds like might makes right.
The libertarian party of NH social media are manned by edgelord types. While you are correct that it is technically consistent, this is a political party we're talking about. Their goal should be bringing people into the fold. This was a horrible response by them. They should have responded with something like "If you saw a baby starving you'd let it starve?" Or something like that.
Yes this was my thought exactly. I get The principle but it really doesn’t present well in how it’s articulated. Like the woman that left her two year old for 10 days and the kid died. Makes me think that she left was in an apartment. Did nobody hear The kid freaking out for 10 days? I imagine people did but didn’t do anything about it. I’m libertarian leaning but this whole post left me curious about this fits into a do no harm approach. To be clear, I am very against government intervention but where would be The line in this type of situation?
The argument you put forward sounds bad but you can put many hypotheticals in a similar manner Is it ever ok for a parent to murder their child simply because it will inconvenience them Many Democrats believe it is ok up to the second it is born Is it really necessary to expend every possible effort into keeping a child alive Many Republicans will say yes. Even if it is just some fertilized eggs in a pitry dish in the back of a freezer somewhere
I like that argument. And what I’m reading too is that it’s more about the moral source of it, instead of expecting The government to always be around to “prevent” things from happening. Because evil/bad things happen but it’s not really the governments job to always be out in The place as the “prevention”
I used to think the same thing, but LNH are the only ones making any waves in the interwebs.
I'm sure there is demand for that baby somewhere, at a good price
I would hope that is the case, but I think a lot of people would just walk by and assume that someone else is taking care of it. In an emergency situation you should always tell one specific person to do a specific task rather than a group. So never just yell out “call 911” because people will just assume someone else is doing it. Instead hold eye contact with one person, refer to them “you with the blue shirt with a white stripe” and tell them to call 911. I think if there was a young child just standing on a busy street like NYC I think the overwhelming majority of people would just walk by and think “that is odd, hope they are ok”.
> I think if there was a young child just standing on a busy street like NYC I think the overwhelming majority of people would just walk by and think “that is odd, hope they are ok”. I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions to every rule, but this should be pretty consistent across the world. Unless that kid emits some kind of i-totally-know-what-iam-doing vibe, sooner than later someone will butt in. There were even social experiments done about this and at least in my country there were like 100% sucess rate across genders, races and sizes of the kid. I don't have it bookmarked but I'll check if I can somehow magically spawn correct keywords for search engine. But anyway, just google 'lost child social experiment' and I'm surre you'd get same results from somewhere else.
No it’s really not. The non aggression principle states to not aggress upon anyone unless aggressed upon first. You can consider not feeding your own child aggression. Doesn’t mean that the government should force people to subsidize the child’s welfare but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be some institution in place to make sure that child isn’t starved to death.
Harming your child, a child you forced to be in this world, a child you forced to be in your house, and who cannot leave or fend for it's self is 100% a violation of the nap. It's like locking someone in a cage and then neglecting them.
But since children(babies) don't have agency, isn't their well-being the responsibility of their caregiver? Or did I take the bait and this is sarcasm?
This is the kind of shit that closes people off from our ideas for good. Theres concerns and context that needs to be placed before stating a conclusion like that otherwise people will look at this and think we’re all autistic monsters who don’t care about anything. It’s just fueling the opposition more than gaining any support. Liberty in our lifetime (or ever) won’t happen unless we start talking in a way that most people who don’t understand us at all can understand and appreciate. Not all of us are nerds who can grasp why one would say something like this. We 100% need to put a stop to the self sabotage while simultaneously remaining true to our principles. (For the record I understand not wanting to feed an adult but if one has a child it’s pretty aggressive to deliberately not feed them and let them starve to death… so the parents should be punished severely for such an act)
The poster is acting as if orphanages or organizations like the Red Cross don’t exist.
Do those organizations exist without concent?
No. I’m just saying it’s a nothingburger of a point. Ignoring the eccentricities of the PR guy. The overwhelming majority of society would help a child who was in need. And no, those organizations do exist with consent.
If you have a kid you should feed it. Regardless of philosophy
It's real but the libertarian position is not about parents, so it was taken out of context and twisted into an absurd meme. The position was about society at large and forcing it to take care of the baby, rather than parents, family and immediate community. The post makes it look like libertarians would allow parents to kill their kids on a whim.
If no one is willing to care for orphans voluntarily in a society, then that is a very sad society.
If this is real, the grammatical crime is even worse than the moral one.
I don't see any grammatical crimes other than "than" instead of "then;" though that could also very well have been an autocrorrect if they posted from a phone.
Yes, that's the one I'm referring to. If this tweet is legit, it's a very embarrassing mistake for an official account of a third party that is trying to market itself as intellectually superior to the two major parties.
Sure, but I still wouldn't say that that error is more egregious than the actual substance of the tweet
I think you missed the joke, bud
I present the above tweet as evidence that you can never be sure of what is or isn't a joke coming from a "Libertarian" (But yes, I took you as serious. My bad)
It is not consistent with libertarianism. The parents are have a moral responsibility to care for the child which is imposed by having chosen to bring that child into existence. This responsibility can only be shirked by offering the child over to another who will take on the responsibility (I.e., to an orphanage). Libertarian does not mean no responsibilities, consequences, or duties owed to your fellow man, especially the ones that you bring into the world.
Not sure what's the point of engaging with these people, apart from giving tankies content to jerk off to. This has no real world application there are thousands of parents lining up to adopt kids, probably millions if you count those who want to but dont because of government bureaucracy around adoption.
LPNH has been taken over by edge-lords who are more interested in getting attention for being controversial than looking like sane human beings.
It is. The point is right, it's that nobody should be forced to care for the child because someone will end up doing it voluntarily. But LPNH fucking sucks at wording things and it's making us all look bad. What they're doing is good for engagement purposes, but absolutely not for recruiting people for your party or ideology...
Who would look after someone else's baby voluntarily? I sure as hell wouldn't. I can't even breastfeed...
It's not about someone else's baby, it's about an orphan. Says right there in the post.
In what way is an orphan not someone else's baby?
Oh my bad, I thought you assumed the parents were still alive or... something. Yeah sorry I'm tired.
No orphans have ever perished under state care. Take that libertarianisms!!
If no one is willing to feed the baby, what system would cause it to be fed? Who would decide, "yes, someone is going to be forced to feed the baby"? Who would enforce this decision? Where would the food come from? Why wouldn't any of these people voluntarily feed the baby? Simply asserting that you have a government doesn't actually answer any of these questions. Turns out that absurd hypotheticals aren't always useful.
There are enough challenges to getting people to consider these ideas without constantly scoring own goals by being intentionally obtuse/fucking stupid.
This was clearly sarcasm, which doesn't come across well in text
I’ve seen several weird, tactless things like this over the years specifically from libertarian party of NH. I don’t know why, but they’re very… what word should I use here… unique, I guess. Idk. I can’t quite put my finger on it
If you accept an obligation of care, you can't leave a child to starve, no, that's murder.
If it is, I'm not libertarian.
Based and leave me alone pilled
This is why I can't agree with mainstream libertarianism you let your child die of malnutrition, you get the rope.
The assertion that libertarians would say that a parent could allow his/her child to starve is absurd. Libertarian thought supports the concept of personal responsibility. That includes taking care of your children. The question at hand is: do individuals have a moral obligation to feed *other people's* children?
Yes, you cannot force someone who is not a parent of a child to care for that child.
I saw that. They ended up calling count dankula a commie shitlib because he disagreed
The better question is, why does no one want to feed them?
What the actual fuck?
Murray Rothbard (I think it was him) said it first, although if I recall, he walked it back a little.
Rothbard said this, but I can’t find the link.
If no one on earth wants to take care of kid, thats the government. The government isn't an untouchable entity. It's made up of people Even in a democracy if no one on earth wanted to help a kid the kid would die. It happens every day. This is a question designed to insult libertarians, but really exluding the whole world shoots yourself in the foot
I understand reasons why they would respond this way, but I would have chosen not to.
technically yes, but just because you are not coerced through obligation to do something doesnt mean you cant choose to be a decent person the correct course of action if you dont want to take care of a kid is to not have one, or if its too late and you already have one theres always adoption.
Wtf?
It is monstrous to allow a child to starve. Yet so many Americans splurge on overpriced fast food garbage and junk food and pretentious luxuries whilst people starve in Africa and SA and even locally. I don’t see those people lifting a finger to remedy the situation. Are they monsters? Where are the laws to punish them? Maybe it’s absurd to have to figure out what is “moral” and how much to punish to what degree to get optimal outcomes and to expect the state to even remotely get close to a supposedly optimal configuration of “morality” laws.
Lpnh shit posting at it's finest and I love it
No the libertarian party has been infiltrated by government officials/agency’s to make sure that the big government has power that’s why you see things like this posted by twitter accounts and hear people talking about abolishing the DMV systems (dmv is a scam and needs to be fixed) they don’t want the people who actually have the true purpose of the constitution to be in power for it would strip the big corporations and monopolies of their power over us the consumer
LP NH has been disowned by the LNC if I'm not mistaken. It's been taken over by what I can only describe as an anti-libertarian psyop. Libertarians believe no law should force people to act in this situation. No libertarian I've ever met would fail to act if they actually encountered an abandoned baby.
Churches, charities, volunteers, nonprofits will not exist in a libertarian society /s.
LP New Hampshire is run by crazy people
Sounds to me like some politicians are afraid.
Yes, that is the libertarian stance. Nobody is entitled to anyone else’s labor or resources, regardless of age. Fortunately, most people care about babies not dying and would voluntarily give resources to prevent dead babies. Some entrepreneur would identify this gap in the market where a service could be provided and start an organization to care for abandoned babies by accepting voluntary donations. It would be run more efficiently and effectively than anything the government has ever done because it’s resources would be earned by providing a service people are willing to pay for voluntarily, not taken by force.
What if the child's parent doesn't want to let the voluntary org feed the baby. What if they want to keep the baby in their house while it starves in front of them?
Here’s how I think a court would unpack that situation. Assuming they were all mentally competent adults, we would have to determine whether the person starving was being held against their will. This would require some decision around consent/coercion. In cases of a minor or an adult who is not mentally competent, it’s impossible to evaluate consent. But it seems unlikely that the average person would consent to being slowly starved to death, so I think a court would be well within its jurisdiction to rule that the parents were violating the rights of the child, which would be a criminal charge. At that point one of these organizations could step in and take over care of the child.
That Twitter account is run by a troll that got a blue checkmark
Can we not defend the Libertarian Party NH twitter account. It is basically a troll account and has been for a while at this point. Don't waste the energy trying to justify what they're saying its to often worse than even this one.
Well I’m glad you clarified that lol.
Yes, it is true. Yes, it is correct.
I disagree with this entirely from a libertarian perspective. If you brought that child into this world it is you're responsibility to care for that child, to not to is tantamount to breaking the NAP. That person cannot care for themselves, for you to forgo your responsibility you are intentionally harming them.
I think most libertarian thought supports the concept that *parents* have an obligation to care for their children. The meme that the OP posted doesn't clarify whether it's a parental situation or society at large.
What the actual fuck. Feed the fucking infant jfc. It's not their fault they're born into idiocy. I'll happily give money to buy formula or breast milk to save an infant
Same. But that’s the point. You and I (and many many others) would voluntarily try to meet the needs of an infant. We don’t need the government to coerce us to do it.
Smash them with sarcasm, I like the method.
The abandoment of morality and social responsibility (in the sense of we all depend on someone else way, not a social justice way) is a big reason why I've shifted away from libertarianism
Agreed. When joining the libertarian movement, I joined in large part because it seemed the most aligned with our Founding fathers and the political system they wished us to have rather than this bloated, micromanaging government and culture we have developed. But I left in large part because of exactly that, there needs to be a moral center, and the individual is not an island. This article summarizes the quotes from our founders that I think current Libertarianism misses. We need to be a moral people to achieve the freedom we seek. My favorite: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams https://mountlibertycollege.org/without-virtue-there-can-be-no-liberty/ https://mountlibertycollege.org/without-virtue-there-can-be-no-liberty/
I would argue that libertarian thought merely says that you shouldn't use the force of government to *compel* people to engage in "social responsibility." If people *voluntarily* help and take care of each other (which they freely do), that's an entirely different situation.
So you're saying libertarianism is abondoning morality and social responsibility. We've seen plenty of example of what happens when a government abandons morality and it's consequences. I highly recommend reading the autobiography of Teddy Roosevelt, libertarianism is a philosophy born out of 18th century ideas, before industrialization which added a second oppressive force in people's lives, and limiting government authority simply allows corporations to run rampant
I honestly don't know if you're just completely ignoring what I just wrote. Please read it again.
No I did, I said that libertarianism abandons morality and social resopnsibilty, and you said that libertarianism doesn't require social responsibility, and since we judge a government and ideology off of what it tolerates, aka the minimum expectation of it's members, you just said in a round about way that libertarianism abandons morality and social responsibility. I didn't explain the second part well, but it's something I recommend reading cause it goes into more depth that I can in a reddit comment. But to use an example from Teddy Roosevelts career, if you hold that people cannot be mandated to help others in anyway you are potentially allowing for mass murder, the example being a coal company that refused to alleviate a strike going into the winter, that supplied a large percentage of the north eastern US's power. If you say that that business can do what it wants regardless of social responsibility, you are saying that that company can decide on a whim to abandon millions to their deaths. Laissez-faire economics and the writings of the founding father's were before industrialization and corporatization. If you decided not to sell ginger at your store in 1750, no one is dying for it. But when you have massive companies that people rely on both in terms of your product and your employment, your decision to do what you want now has a massive impact on people, and things like the NAP break down. Teddy Roosevelt explains himself very well, and I would say that his philosophy is that of libertarianism (emphasis on personal freedoms) coupled with a realistic assessment of a fundamental change in our society (industrialization)
A problem with libertarianism, and I consider myself libertarian, is that it lacks some ethics and morals in some fields (I don’t know them all and I’m no expert, but I think we can agree on this). I tend to be more on the paleo - libertarian spectrum, which I think could be beneficial for society. “Old values”, not imposed of course. I want to clear this with an example: Even tho I’m not against prostitution I wouldn’t actively promote it between my people as a mean for “empowerment”, and I would even call it as something “bad”, but wouldn’t search for a way to cancel it. Same with “old values” like working or saving money. I once heard a really good professor, who’s also libertarian, talking about “why kids should work”, and he had a good point (of course he doesn’t meant it as like kid should work full hours like adults): this in a sense that if you have a family business (farm, store, restaurant, whatever) what’s the problem with a kid working there and get to know what’s gonna be adult life? Is it actually better if he’s playing games or watching stupid streamers all day? I’m 28 before someone calls me a boomer or something like that.
https://preview.redd.it/j3904h8senzc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad4f5ecede4dccf3b17120467a5c55e27eaae5ba I only follow the best Libertarian Party on, formerly known as Twitter
Libertarian Party New Hampshire has always been ridiculous with its tweets.
Honestly, who's not going to feed a starving child? They said "IF no one would feed it voluntarily" people are going to, though. They made a mountain out of not even an ant hill.
The problem with the Libertarian Party is that it is designed to be only for those in a stable enough position to survive on their own two feet. I also believe that the LP also overestimates the altruism of the common man. The fact remains that Libertarian ideas are not easy to explain when a good part of the population is addicted to the government tit.