This is why a free society is evil.

[Jim Choate]

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).

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