On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, Me wrote:
I would like to defend libertarianism, I don't believe I can defend anarchy. I don't believe a system that lacks a government operating military and judicial services would be efficient.
I would respond to your claim that libertarianism is 'fascism at best and socialism at worst', but I can't even come close to guessing what you might be basing that upon.
Cool. I've gone over it before but it's a pain in the ass to have to search the archives. I'll elaborate per your feedback... Liberatarians are overly focused on 'the cost', wanting to eliminate all non-focused effort and cost. This as a goal within a suite of goals isn't so bad, however as the primary goal it is very bad. Why? Because without a basic equality not based on cost there is no way to protect those who don't have. And simply not having is not sufficient reason to ignore the needs of human beings. I do not see libertarians addresing this aspect of their philosophy. The general view I see on the individual level is 'screw 'em, if they can't pay let 'em hang'. This simply is not acceptable. It denegrates self and society. Libertarians are ignorant of the basic concepts of 'morality', it is not a factor in economic equations and is therefore safe to ignore. An example is prisons. Libertarians want to conver them into profit making business while at the same time completely ignoring what a prison is and why it exists and ultimately who is responsible for it. A prison is where society puts persons who don't behave accroding to some stricture. I believe details as to the particular stricture are irrelevant at this point. As a resul the people responsible for prisons are the individual citizens, not 'the government' which is a convenient straw man argument (which I don't see Libertarians even recognizing let alone addressing). As a result the cost of that detainment should be born by those individual citizens directly. It is a function and responsiblity of their citizenship. It is fascist because it wants to, in effect, centrally manage everyones resources to the benefit of all. It is potentially socialist because of the lack of recognition of fundamental civil liberties and the consequent abuse that can result as a consequence. It is cheaper after all if everyone has only a couple of choices for each decision. This minimizes the secondary market costs (and potentialy some primary ones as well). ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------