Penn Gilette has always seemed to be driven by a level of honesty and compassion and valued the freedom to choose where to direct that compassion. I think earlier on he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it’s become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don’t want to be called Repuiblicans.
I mean in the early 2000s he was calling bullshit on the hysteria over the vaccine autism link saying the alternative of kids dying to preventable diseases is so much worse. He even gave the tenuous link a benefit of the doubt and accepted that even if they did cause autism,t he alternative is so much worse.
There aren’t many people who are willing to evaluate their entire political decisions and come to the conclusion that they were wrong. Even fewer who will admit it publicly. Even fewer still who will accept responsibility and then do something about it.
Of the people I have respectfully disagreed with, the fact that he’s come around is a huge testament to his willingness to be humbled and corrected.
There aren’t many people who are willing to evaluate their entire political decisions and come to the conclusion that they were wrong
I doubt that his ideology actually changed much, but instead he just realized that the Libertarian Party didn’t actually match it like they claimed to do.
The New Hampshire libertarians went full tea party and dragged the rest down with them. I never expected to see anti LGBT rhetoric from a party that enshrined gay rights in their charter way back in 1972, at a time when the Democrats and Republicans were holding hands and chanting “God hates fags” in unison
Yeah I remember when libertarians were “I want a good old fashioned mom and mom Marijuana farm where they defend it with machine guns if they so choose”. And back then my beef with them was climate change requires everyone to work in tandem and is an existential threat. These days, libertarians are Republicans who know to be ashamed to call themselves that
I never thought they were a viable option for taking one of the two main party slots, but I thought they had some good things to say and their voice should be heard. Now they’re just part of the far right noise machine.
DAE DEI IS BAD???
No, LPNH, no I don’t.
They’re not even real NH people-- after the internet was invented all these freaks found each other across the country and made a pact to move to NH. Then there were enough of them to implement all the absolute stupidest of libertarian ideals in one place (not that I have much hope for even the best of their ideals to succeed).
They essentially astroturfed a party and made NH look like shit. Which is why this sweaty mutant is talking about toaster licenses.
Was that when a bunch of libertarians flooded a town as new residents, dismantled the municipal government and ended up being overrun by bears because they didn’t lock up their garbage cans after dismantling the requirements to lock up garbage cans?
he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it’s become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don’t want to be called Repuiblicans
I had a similar progression myself when I was in my teens, maybe even early 20s.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview. It took me a while to realize how common it is for self-identifying libertarians to lack any capacity for nuance. The natural extreme of “libertarianism” is just anarchy and feudalism.
In a sane world, I might still call myself a libertarian. In a sane world, that might mean letting people live their own damn lives, not throwing them to the wolves (or more literally, bears ) and dismantling the government entirely.
I’m all for minding my own business, but I also acknowledge that maintaining a functional society is everybody’s business (as much as I occasionally wish I could opt out and go live in a cave).
One problem with libertarianism and the other selfish philosophies is that humanity absolutely cannot survive at all without a massive amount of cooperation.
Assholes who think they can do it on their own are completely delusional.
If you eliminate everything from your life that required the cooperation of another human being, it’s likely you’re naked, starving, and freezing to death.
"Oh, I can hunt for food.’
Really? With just your bare hands? Maybe your naked ass will get lucky and nail a squirrel with a rock, but what are you going to do when a mountain lion decides you’re the squirrel?
Even if you manage to make some rock tools and weapons, you didn’t figure that out on your own. Someone told you about it.
Knowledge is the biggest advantage humans have going for them. Without sharing knowledge that others discovered, most people wouldn’t last long enough to matter.
Too damn right. Community is what makes humans strong. Eventually from those communities we form institutions which build nations, which may even build empires and coalitions.
A human alone is just potential food for something else.
The core political belief I hold is that so long as you are not directly harming someone else, you should be free to do that. That said, I have a lot built up on that.
I do not extend it to corporations or government. I believe that regulation is undoubtedly necessary for a functioning society.
And with laws, nuance is in everything. Nothing is ever so black and white to have a zero tolerance policy.
The perverse ideas that money is speech and corporations are people can make a lot of simple common-sense statements suddenly completely insane.
I support free speech. Money is not speech.
I support personal freedom. Corporations are not people.
Why limit it to direct harm? There’s tons of easily avoidable ways to indirectly cause harm. The most obvious to me are about our natural world: taking anything in an unsustainable way deprives others of opportunity, up to and including their ability to feed themself. Reckless hunting or fishing, poisoning water with agriculture runoff, introducing invasive species for personal gain or through negligence, even just cutting down all the trees around you can have loads of consequences with the impact to animal habitat and increased soil erosion.
Indirect becomes nebulous. At what degree of indirect harm do we set that limit. Almost every action we do may cause indirect harm to others. It might be better phrases as “physically” harms someone. I don’t want to get into someone doing something to themselves like taking drugs and restrict it solely on the basis that it will hurt their family and friends to see what happens to them.
I use it as the core base of my beliefs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think that freedom divests them of any responsibility for their indirect actions. It’s the default position until something convinces me why it should be restricted or outlawed.
I also limit it to individuals working alone. Once they work in groups and organize the damage that can be done is different. Or doing it for commercial reasons. I believe private businesses can only exist under strict regulation.
My indirect harm litmus test would fall along the lines of like an OSHA style philosophy of regulation, for example for any kind of ledges we generally require rigid hand railings. If someone got hurt falling off a ledge at my workplace sure I didn’t do anything to cause it, but I’d still be on the hook for their injury because I didn’t take the required steps to reasonably prevent unnecessary injury.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview
The problem is obviously that nobody lives in isolation. Everyone takes actions which impact other people.
If there are going to be laws, then the government needs a police force and a judiciary that are big enough to enforce those laws. If there are going to be companies, the government has to be bigger than the biggest company, otherwise it won’t be able to effectively enforce anything. The bigger the biggest company gets, the bigger the government has to be in order to be able to enforce the laws. But, big government is antithetical to the libertarian philosophy. If you want to limit the size of the government but still want government to be able to enforce laws, you need to limit the size of companies. But that’s a regulation, and government regulations are antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.
Arguing for the idea that the government should generally let people mind their own business as long as nobody is getting hurt, or that consenting adults are knowingly and willingly consenting to being hurt, that’s fine. Same with the idea that regulations shouldn’t be overly burdensome. There’s always going to have to be a line drawn somewhere, but it’s fine if you tend to want that line to be drawn in a way that allows for more freedom vs. more babysitting by the government.
The ridiculous bit is when libertarians try to argue that some extreme form of libertarianism is possible. Anarchy is certainly possible, but it isn’t something that most people, even libertarians, think is a great plan.
The extreme forms of Libertarianism or Anarchy are only possible if everyone engages in good faith. They have no built-in protections against bad actors. Someone wants to divert a river for any reason? Sucks to be downstream.
Anarchism can. Anarchism is not the stupid “no rules” thing the media portrays. It’s a lack of hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have government, rules, and protections. In fact, I think any Anarchist would agree they’re required or else people can be exploited and lose their freedom, or things like your example can happen. We should just do it in a more cooperative form, not with a ruling class making the rules for us peasants.
How can rules be enforced without a heirarchy of privilege? What stops someone from saying “I don’t consent to being told what to do”?
To use a real world example of anarchism in action, shopping carts in a parking lot. I’m doubtful anyone has said “you have to return your shopping cart to a cart return” but the generally people do return their shopping carts. There’s also people in vests that come around and clean up the parking lot of loose shopping carts. Sometimes people might offer to pass off a cart they just finished using to someone else, or maybe even snag and extra errant cart on their way to cart return. There’s no heirarchy, no authority on high dictating the rules, just people doing their thing and generally following the rules but there is someone who is paid to make sure things get cleaned up when the inevitability of stupidity happens.
People can cooperate without the need for a hierarchy. They can agree that some actions are bad and to punish people without an elite doing so.
If you want to learn more, there are tons of resources. Here’s a few:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-r-what-is-anarchism
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full
You don’t need an “elite” for there to be a heirarchy. I know what anarchism is I just disagree that it’s an effective ideology for post-industrial humanity. The world is too complex, our choices have too many consequences, for individuals to make good decisions without ceding some responsibility of knowledge to specialists. This means regulatory bodies, lobbyists, and ideally a democratic means of appointing people to these bodies without being at the short-sighted whims of whoever is suddenly mad that they aren’t allowed to fill in a bunch of marshes to build a commune.
I don’t think heirarchy intrinsically means class divide, which is the part I see as important. Full disclosure: I most identify with authoritarian-leftism with sympathies to anarchism as a utopian ideal. My education in ecology taught me that people are not to be trusted without strong regulatory agencies, as much as I’d like to believe that individuals generally want to do right.
You might consider Anarchism ironically. It’s leftist libertarian basically, and is not “no government.” It’s about removing hierarchy, which destroys freedoms of people.
I used to call myself a Libertarian too, and I eventually ended up on Anarchism.
Thanks for the link. I’m not up on the latest in anarchist philosophy. The last meaningful work I read on the topic was probably In Defense of Anarchism by Robert Paul Wolff.
The libertarian party used to be considerably different as well. It certainly became something different entirely around 2012-2016.
All the Koch sucking the party did.
Yeah, I don’t have any problem with libertarianism in theory. Pro-civil liberties, anti-racism, anti-war, pro-choice, pro-guns, free markets, etc. I disagree with the value of some of it, but I can see why someone might thoughtfully and sincerely come to that sort of rationale. I’ve never really had a problem with Penn’s (and Teller’s) views because of that.
But the reality is that the majority of modern libertarians are just narcissist capitalists that do not like rules or laws that restrict them from doing anything they want. That or, way worse, they’re Ayn Rand ideologues who genuinely believe that self-service is a moral imperative, charity is immoral, poverty is personal failure, human life is measured in productivity, and the sick, poor, or malformed should be left to whatever fate the market gives them. Those types are some of the worst people on the planet. They see a wealthy capitalist as inherently a leader and role model and think he should be unconstrained from accumulating more wealth without concern for society, employees, or individual rights. We’re living in the light version of their ideal, and it gets closer to that ideal every day.
Agreed. If right-libertarianism could work at all, they’d need to be on the frontlines of boycotting companies that do bad things.
They claim that the government doesn’t need to force desegregated lunch counters; people would stop eating there until that place either changed or went out of business. Alright. Are they going to be the first ones to stand up and boycott companies that do anything like that? Because from what I saw, they were the first ones to say “they technically have a right to do that” and then do nothing. Almost like letting them get away with it was the actual point.
Gilette seems to have caught on to this trick at some point.
I feel the same with Unions and the broader Right. Like the whole point of Unions is they’re the “free market” equivalent of government regulation. If you’re pro free market but anti-union, then you’re not actually pro free market, you’re just pro exploitation.
Absolutely. It’s no coincidence that anti-union sentiment is common among right-libertarians.
They don’t just think companies have the right to do that. They also think companies have a right to create restrictions that prevent you from doing anything. If you go to a protest you may be fired, for example. It creates a situation where the ruling class can prevent dissent because you need food, water, and shelter at minimum, and they can take that away if you are a dissident.
Commenting just to keep this particular comment in my history to write about later. I think it’s a backbone for a labor bill rights as well as a form of ranked choice voting
When I was younger I called myself a libertarian. This was progression from a somewhat conservative family, with my ideal that people should be left to do what they want as long as it doesn’t harm others. I eventually progressed towards a leftist mindset and now consider myself an anarchist. Same idea, except libertarians mostly want no protections and are pro-hierachy, which leads to a lack of freedom not more freedom. If companies are free to do what they want they will use their position to remove the freedom of workers to make choices freely, for example.
I still hold most of the same ideals as I did then, as I’m sure Penn Jillette probably does too. I just have a better view of the consequences of the policies that they push for.
Edit: reread this and it comes off as accuaation. Im not accuijng you, just typed the thing in second person.
Often l have found that libertarians aren’t so much pro hierarchy, so much as blind to the role they play in the existing heirarchy.
It seems common to not turn a critical eye to yourself to see where you actually fit into the scene of things, and missing that you are in fact doing harm yo others by being ignorant of the impact of your actions is super on brand.
Libertarianism always felt like 2/3s of the way there, where the only remaining domino is to recognize “wealth is a thing I have because of circumstance… If someone else had this wealth, what would they do with it, and if they had Elon Musk billions what would that look like?”
The smartest people in the room are those who are willing to admit a mistake, or that their opinions have changed.
The wisest people in the room will be able to do that, but I don’t think you have to have had different/the wrong opinion to have that status. The wisest people listen, consider, and use all available information to make the best possible decisions.
Wise is definitely the better word to use here.
Reminds me of an anecdote about Robert Kennedy Sr. He was approached by a reporter on the campaign trail that asked him his stance on capital punishment.
“I’m against it,” Kennedy told the reporter.
“When you were at the Justice Department, that wasn’t your position.”
Kennedy replied, “That was before I read Camus.”
Our media now rails on politicians “flip flopping” if their opinion is different than it was in the past. I always get angry when I hear them say that because, to me, it’s a good thing. I want someone who has new experiences and changes their opinions with that. I don’t want someone who learns something and dismisses any information they gained because it doesn’t match their current beliefs.
Personally I believe flip flopping and changing your mind are 2 very different things, flip flopping is making an appearance of change in response to social pressures, ie “I need to appeal to this specific group of voters” or “I’m suffering backlash for something I said” where as changing your mind is “I’ve learned something I didn’t know before and I am changing as a result”
The media uses the term for any change of opinion. For example, I think I recall hearing some media saying Biden “flip flopped” from the position he held on crime 20+ years ago since he realized it wasn’t effective.
What the term should mean is you changing your opinion flippantly, whenever it’s useful. It shouldn’t be when you adjust your stance on a topic (for any reason) to a new one. It’s when you go back and forth and aren’t consistent with a new position.
That explains why selling “sticking to your principles” and “tradition” go so easily for politicians.
Most people are thick as a pail of pigshit.
“A lot of the illusions that I held dear, rugged individualism, individual freedoms, are coming back to bite us in the ass. It seems like getting rid of the gatekeepers gave us Trump as president, and in the same breath, in the same wind, gave us not wearing masks, and maybe gave us a huge unpleasant amount of overt racism.”
Hats off to a man willing to admit he made a mistake.
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We should remember that at the time there was a severe lack of masks of any kind available. So creating a masking culture and blocking as much as possible was seen as better than just rawdogging the atmosphere.
the shortage was for a few months at best, I was working as a trucker hauling grain then, wheat dust is fucking nasty, I often wore a mask for that, an N95, which I went out of my way to get in bulk. Cloth masks can’t keep grain dust out of your lungs, don’t tell me they do anything as to a virus.
don’t tell me they do anything as to a virus.
Okay. I won’t, but the NIH would like a word.
That’s a common misconception of how masks work during an epidemy. The main reason to wear a mask is not to be safe from other people. It’s to not spread the virus (that may not cause any symptoms yet but be present in you) to others. That’s why doctors wear masks during surgeries - to not harm the patient. A proper mask works better and can protect you as well, but a cloth mask can limit the amount of breath you spread all around you and can be effective enough to limit the spread of the disease. So it’s not the same situation as with grain dust, where you need to protect yourself, not the others.
And those were also the few months that NYC was using refrigerated semi trailers as extra morgue space because so many people were dying. And yeah they do. Some virus particles will be too small to be stopped but some will be riding larger particles and be stopped with them. Reducing the sheer amount of virus in an area is always better. Whether it’s by 10 percent or 90 percent.
As a big fan of P&T, this is a major win.
Not to mention the veganism which is also closely related to rejecting fascism.
https://vegnews.com/magician-penn-jillette-goes-vegan-for-the-animals
(Full disclosure: I saw an interview where Penn says he went vegan for health and weight loss. But maybe he’s evolved to animal liberation as well.)
Not to mention the veganism which is also closely related to rejecting fascism.
I mean…
Technically a vegan did shoot hitler in the head that lead to the end of WW2…
But that’s a weird way to say hitler was a vegan.
Hitler wasn’t a vegan. He ate eggs and dairy products, according to his doctor.
Near the end of his life, Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) followed a vegetarian diet. It is not clear when or why he adopted it, since some accounts of his dietary habits prior to the Second World War indicate that he consumed meat as late as 1937. In 1938, Hitler’s doctors put him on a meat-free diet, and his public image as a vegetarian was fostered; from 1942, he self-identified as a vegetarian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler_and_vegetarianism
This does not contradict what I said? Vegetarians and vegans are not the same thing. Vegans do not eat eggs or dairy (or honey or any other product derived from animals). Vegetarians have no such restriction, they just don’t eat meat.
Not every response to a comment is an argument. This one looks like it was providing some color and additional detail to your comment. Calm down.
Can we just let them make what was clearly a joke and move on with our lives?
Do you have any idea what they meant by:
Not to mention the veganism which is also closely related to rejecting fascism.
Then?
Because dietary restrictions is not an effective way to fight fascism.
And I don’t want to get in a pedantic argument about modern terms applied to 80 years ago. Although it seems that’s what you really want to do
Today’s Hitler only eats at McDonalds.
And he injected copious amounts of animal hormones.
Vegetarian* FTFY
it’s gives me hope to see this. i made a career change recently from one that’s so utterly dominated by libertarians like this meme that it’s costed me jobs and inflicted trauma upon my psyche.
i’ve also been trying to drop the carnist behavior that i learned as a child; and also for health & weight loss goals; and learning that someone with a high profile that’s familiar to me, has done it successfully is helpful; thanks for sharing this.
Hey, you got this. Meatlessness is a difficult switch but once you get recipes and habits built up it gets easier. At this point meat doesn’t smell like food to me and while there are things I miss, it’s not like I worried it would be when I started
IMO petrochemical textiles are a way bigger moral and existential problem than wool or even leather, so while there are many genuine concerns with the livestock industry I cannot support “full” veganism. We might get there eventually with biodegradable plastics but we aren’t there now.
Didn’t know he was vegan. Weren’t they both guests at the chefs table on Hell’s Kitchen recently? Do they make anything vegan on that show?
Cool to see the meme applied to someone who genuinely went to clown college!
I’ll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.
Eh, Princeton WISHES it were as effective and useful as Clown College
Sorry, I thought he went to Princeton-Plainsboro.
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I mean, libertarianism in essence, arrived at purely through your own reasoning, is pretty based. Every person should be free to do as they please right up until it infringes on their neighbors’ own similar freedom; the government should be limited in scope to services which uphold that goal.
In practice, its proponents are either selfish pricks who think libertarianism means they specifically get to do whatever they want, or they wind up reinventing the government with Citizen Advocacy Boards and such.
The principle is valid, the company is pretty cringe tho.
It’s that line of “infringing on the freedom of others”. If you think it’s the government role to free people of their oppressive burdens (e.g. free them from poverty, free them from ill-heath) then concentration of wealth is “infringing on the freedoms of others”. So it needs to be regulated against.
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No. Not what I said.
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I think you just didn’t realize that’s synonymous with what you said. Private property is wealth, private property is theft… But even if you didn’t realize that’s what you implied, you were still correct :)
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Somewhat ironically, we can see virtual libertarianism/Anarcho capitalism evolve by following EVE online: Some of the larger player corporations became de facto states
I always thought I was one of the few people that saw Eve as the libertarian dystopia that it is. I certainly thought I was the only one that held it up as a ready example of what libertarianism looks like when fully executed – now that I think about it, this must be a more popular idea than I realized. Complete with nullsec monopolies and everything. All this in a space that features no scarcity other than real-estate. The end game of libertarian ideals in the Eve example ends in monopoly and the accumulation of absurd amounts of power into the hands of few select individuals. What’s striking is how well run things are on the fleet level, only for the corporate leaders to often be wasteful, populist, of questionable moral fiber, and generally irresponsible – albeit not as a rule. They also have a penchant for casually destroying those that disagree with them. It stands as an excellent example.
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I think it’s cool if you take it far enough for it to become anarchism, but if there’s still property it just becomes an excuse for exploitation.
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The funny (sad?) part is that libertarianism was originally coined to be a synonym for anarcho-communism, when discussion by name of the latter was outlawed in France. In fact, the definition has been completely overwritten only in the USA, where the word was colonized by Murray Rothbard in the 1950s. In Europe a lot of people still recognize the word “libertarian” outside of North American contexts as reference to leftist anarchist tendencies.
But colonizing an existing social good and contorting it to become something antisocial is extremely on-brand for capitalism.
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Right, that’s exactly the problem I have with most people who call themselves libertarian. In a nutshell, they truly believe that we all should get to do whatever we want, as long as it doesn’t affect others. Except, everything we do affects other people. Some of the ways are profound, and some are trivial. The libertarian-type people are so selfish, or solipsistic, they think that only their own judgement applies whether the effect infringes freedom it not.
We see that with vaccines: The government shouldn’t mandate what they put in their bodies. That’s infringes freedom. But they’re more than happy to spread virus into other people’s bodies, and if immuno-compromised people think that it’s hurting them, too bad. Or the libertarian types think that they should be allowed to drive the biggest brodozer available, because it doesn’t affect anybody else, and the freedom of other people who get hit and crushed under the wheels, the other drivers blinded by eye-level headlights, or the taxpayers who have to subsidize more free parking space and street maintenance, doesn’t matter.
It’s always the same pattern: Anything that stops me from doing what I want is an unreasonable infringement of freedom, and any effects I have on other people are just the reality of living in society and they should suck it up.
Libertarian socialism with democracy in the workplace woud be a better alterantive that libertarian capitalism … we’re just stuck in the end of history way of thinking that people cant grasp life without capitalism
The thing is, there really is no such thing as libertarian capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist without the state, they’re essentially two necessary sides of the same coin. American “libertarianism” can really be described as a (successful) attempt to obfuscate that fact in the minds of capitalist subjects (Especially the most socially and financially privileged of those subjects). To make it seem like nothing good has been the result of competent governance, that it’s all great men unburdened by regulation, unbridled by law. Really though, all the coercive might of capitalism deflates without the violent capacity of the state.
Yeah , agree 100% … great man theory of history rly pisses me off , plus the whole “capitalism is best without regulations” bullshit , people forgot the first gilded age and the fight of the unions to give people some semblance of decency in the workplace
It’s good to remind people that the term “libertarianism” (“Libertaire”) was coined by French anarcho-communists in the 1850s when the French government outlawed speech advocating anarchism specifically by name, and that for a full century is was used by anarchists throughout the western world to refer specifically to non-hierarchical modes of socialism and communism, ideologies that are founded on concepts like mutual aid, social solidarity, worker’s control, anti-authoritarianism, etc. It wasn’t until the 1950s when the American Murray Rothbard colonized the term to advocate for the exact opposite in an attempt to obfuscate the inseparable relationship between capitalism and the state. His attempt worked.
Ideologically I’m a true believer in communalism, a sociopolticial practice that is not quite anarchist and therefore is best described as a “libertarian socialist” tendency. But thanks to that ancap rat bastard Rothbard that description does not aid in helping most people to understand me.
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I feel smart because I met Penn in his dressing room in Vegas few years back and discussed Gary Johnson’s running for President. But I came to my senses years ago…
LMAO I’m a libertarian who fully realizes that my party is bullshit.
I mean, Democrats and Republicans are both total bullshit too, but at least I’m self-aware enough to know my party is bullshit.
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Why have a party if you know that libertarianism is bullshit?
Because at least when Libertarians fuck everything up, sometimes it’s kinda funny. Ever hear about the time a bunch of Libertarian idiots got an entire town overrun by bears?
If they all suck why not just focus on mutual aid and solidarity with working class folks, instead of siding with billionaires. Because that’s ultimately what libertarianism is you know?
Libertarians aren’t a monolith, y’know. I’m not the “simp for billionaires” type of Libertarian, I hate those people. Rather, I’m the “prepper nutjob who hates the government and is ready to retreat to the woods when everything goes to hell” type of Libertarian.
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Well I think the real question is what are your ethics if you encounter another human being when you have retreated into the woods? … Do you avoid them?
Yes. “Get off my lawn” would be the appropriate response.
Do you try to dominate or exploit them? If so that is libertarianism.
No, that is not Libertarianism. Libertarians want very small government, focusing on protection of one’s rights and one’s property.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism
/ˌlibərˈterēəˌniz(ə)m/
noun: libertarianism
- a political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens.
Do you work toward partnership and mutual aid? If so that’s anarchism.
No, that is not anarchism. Anarchists want no government whatsoever.
an·ar·chism
/ˈanərˌkizəm/
noun
noun: anarchism
- a political theory advocating the abolition of hierarchical government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.
No offense, but honestly? I find anarchism to be even more ridiculous than libertarianism, and us libertarians are absolutely ridiculous. Sure, “voluntarism” sounds good on paper but what ends up happening looks more like Somalia in practice.
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I considered myself a Libertarian for a few years. I was a disillusioned Republican during the George Bush days and Libertarianism really grew on me. I voted for Gary Johnson twice.
As I became more concerned about climate change, I could not see a viable Libertarian solution to it. Private business is more than happy to keep chugging away with fossil fuels until it’s far too late.
For Libertarianism to work, these same private businesses need to do the right thing voluntarily. In Atlas Shrugged, those businessmen and women are doing what is right for their business and it just so happens to be what is right for everyone else, that isn’t always the case. All too often, what is right for business goes against what is right for society. Once I realized this, everything unraveled for me.
So anyway, here I am, years later, voting for Democrats because I’ve got no other option as the GOP became more and more insane since I left.Anyone who is a libertarian is unfamiliar with game theory. Some problems happen when individual people act in their own self-interest, but the collective outcome is harmful. Climate change is a prime example.
It seems to me like American libertarianism isn’t truly libertarianism - its focus is on freedom for capitalists, not freedom for people (corporations are not people). In theory, libertarianism is guided by the principal of non-aggression. Passing laws to fight climate change does not violate the principal of non-aggression, despite what the capitalists claim.
I wish this were true, but what you are describing is more akin to the Democratic party’s platform. Laws by the Democratic party are passed so people and companies don’t violate the principle of non-aggression. For example, besides climate change, regulation on banking is to prevent banking from taking people’s money and just going out of business.
The Libertarian party doesn’t support the principle of non-aggression in practice. By this definition, the Democratic party would be the true libertarians or liberals.
For example:
Australia: https://www.libertarians.org.au/wa_platform
Ending Climate Alarmism Policies: Repeal state laws and subsidies tied to net-zero targets. Let the free market decide the energy mix.
And like you said, the US one too: https://lp.org/environment-energy-resources/
When governments try to tackle environmental issues (which is hypocritical, as governments are the largest polluters), they use a punishing approach that rarely, if ever, solves the problem
Progressive policies tend to line up with classic Libertarianism.
Also, modern Libertarians tend to be literally just the dissolution of the federal government and their own personal rights at the expense of other’s rights, none of which is Libertarianism.
You said this much better than I did. One of the reasons why Democrats are called liberals.
I think you misunderstood my point. What you’re referring to as “libertarianism” and “the Libertarian party” is what I referred to as “American libertarianism.”
I don’t believe true libertarianism exists in the USA. I agree with your point that the Democratic party most closely aligns with the theory of libertarianism. It sounds like you agree with the point I was trying to make, but maybe misinterpreted it.
Edit: I want to add that the Libertarian party in America doesn’t follow the principal of non-aggression as I understand it.
The closest thing the US has to a true libertarian is Bernie Sanders.
Very true, at least at that level in politics.
Oh yeah, I think I was confusing in my response. I should have said:
All libertarian parties both in and outside of the United States don’t ascribe to your interpretation of the theory of libertarianism.
I included Australia as an example, but here is Canada’s platform as well.
https://libertarian.on.ca/platform/2011/environment Agreements among neighbours would be another factor that would replace top-down regulations.
That’s disappointing. Maybe “modern libertarianism” would have been more accurate than “American libertarianism.” According to Wikipedia, in the 1950’s libertarianism was synonymous with liberalism, which seems to align much better with my interpretation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology
I wonder if Penn’s (old) interpretation of libertarianism was the same as mine.
I love how they just drop the statement that governments are the largest polluters with no sources, supporting evidence, or even explanation. Just saying something obviously does not make it true.
Or they’re so used to their privilege that they don’t understand how protected they are by society.
Exactly, they ask why they should have to contribute to letting disabled people not have to work. I ask why people too disabled to work should have to beg for sustainance or live in poverty
American Libertarians have no experience dealing with other people and are incredibly naive. At least one customer service job would be very horizon-broadening for them.
As I became more concerned about climate change, I could not see a viable Libertarian solution to it.
The libertarian solution to climate change would involve privatizing the commons: sell off the atmosphere to some private entity which would then issue licenses for emitting, have standing to sue unlicensed polluters for violating its property rights, etc.
In other words, basically cap & trade but with a for-profit corporation in charge instead of the government, for no good reason.
At least, that’d be the theory. In reality, that’s how you get Spaceballs.
Libertarianism also was my first stop out of my childhood religious right upbringing. I still tend to see issues from a libertarian framing – i.e., if it’s not hurting anybody why should the government care? – but most US libertarians seem weirdly fixated on ideas like “why can’t I dump 5,000 gallons of hydrofluoric acid into a hole in the ground if the hole is on my own property?” or “why shouldn’t I be allowed to enter into a contract with somebody that allows me to hunt them for sport?” or especially “why can’t I have sex with a minor if they say it’s OK?”, where there’s really obvious personal and societal harms involved and the only way that you can think otherwise is if you’ve engaged in some serious motivated reasoning.
Whereas my thinking these days is more like, “who does it hurt if somebody decides to change their outward appearance to match how they feel inside?” and the like – i.e., the right to personal autonomy and free expression, rather than the right to do whatever I want to others as long as I can somehow coerce them into agreeing to it. I don’t have much patience for the anarchist side of left-libertarianism – in my experience you need robust systems in place to keep bad actors from running amok, and a state without a monopoly on violence is simply ceding that monopoly to whoever wants to take it up for their own ends – but that starting point of libertarian thought, that people sold be free in their choices until those choices run up against somebody else’s freedoms – is still fundamentally valid.
I always say it’s not crazy to become a Libertarian as much as it is to remain one. It just astounds me that anyone could debate those positions for a length of time without starting to realize how tenuous most of them are.
The problem with Communism is that if requires non greedy people.
The problem with Libertarianism is that it requires non greedy rich people.Exactly. We’re nothing but monkeys in trousers. We have a lot of evolving yet to do, psychologically speaking.
One of the biggest failings with a lot of idealist political systems (anarchism, libertarianism, communism, etc.) is that they try to do away with hierarchies and bosses. But, those are inevitable for great apes. A good setup provides a way to limit and manage the bosses that will inevitably appear. Yes, it legitimizes their power, but by acknowledging it, it also provides a way to limit it.
You guys are wearing trousers? I find it slows down the whole process of throwing feces at my enemies.
Oh, so it’s faster for you to take a shit on command than it is to have trousers to collect the shit so you can just reach back and grab it when you want to?
If so, I’m impressed.
I imagine you haven’t flung much shit or spent much time thinking about it. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can just shit when you want to. You’re probably just a beta trying to impress the shit flinging alpha shit veterans though. :p
If I’m wrong though, all hail floofloof. We’re not worthy!
Disclaimer: I support pigouvian taxes on greenhouse gas emissions.
Long ago, one libertarian solution to climate change was insurance. So you’d buy disaster insurance for your house, then the insurer would bet that pollution would go up. This creates a financial incentive to reduce emissions. Best case scenario, your insurance payments are a slight reimbursement for a voluntary reduction. Worst case scenario, your insurance payments essentially bribe their workers to sabotage.
However, the Coase Theorem says this only works while transaction costs are low. And you’d need long-term contracts that aren’t realistic with today’s interest rates. So it would take decades to establish the financial infrastructure necessary.
Genuine question: why do you care about climate change if you would be dead by then?
… It’s happening right now bro. You’re alive right now, and we’re having extreme weather events right now.
Climate change isn’t a point in which either before that point nothing happens and after that point something bad happens, instead as we continue with bad practices, things get continually worse.
We’re having extreme heat, right now. Places with longer hurricane seasons, or where hurricanes are now way worse, etc. And things can still worsen.
What you seem to be saying is that, you don’t care about your future and minimizing future issues, but also don’t care about any family or friends that you have. Society has done so much, that here you are born, with Internet access to a federated app, electricity, many of life’s privileges compared to our ancestors, people now and in the future would appreciate what help you can provide now.
you are born, with Internet access to a federated app, electricity, many of life’s privileges compared to our ancestors. Those were knowledge, most of things were born because our ancestors needed them for own benefit. Here with climate change. First of all, My small country doesn’t make a difference, I don’t have a car, I don’t spend more than 400 kw monthly. If you really want to make a change, stop having kids. Less carbon print to ZERO carbon print, but a lot aren’t willing to do it. I am not willing to do anything that involves changing my ways of life.
Genuine question: why do you care about climate change if you would be dead by then?
Empathy, or caring about how other people are affected, even if it doesn’t affect you personally. Empathy is normal and healthy.
Better question is, why are 60+yo Capitalists who already have more wealth than they could possibly spend before they die, so desperate to hold and collect even more wealth?
But most of this people doesn’t even exist in the present. I mean, isn’t better that stop having kids, you can kill 2 birds this way: Reduce footprint to ZERO, avoid future generations suffering of global warming.
So you don’t feel bad for future humans because they’re assholes for existing?
I can’t feel empathy for people that doesn’t exist. Simple as that.
Damn. You’re a cold motherfucker.
How about a 1yo baby that will suffer the effects of climate change their whole life, can you feel empathy for a 1yo baby?
I feel more anger about the parents that brings that child to suffer to this world.
“Why should I care about other people?” is a question that comes up a lot, and I am deeply suspicious of people who don’t care about others.
But we are talking about future here, some of that people doesn’t even exist
Because “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit” - Greek proverb
If we don’t cover the things that our children (or nieces/nephews) will benefit from, no one else will. There are no adults in the room. It’s just us.
What children? I will not have nieces nor nephews because I do not have first grade brothers or sisters. I mean sorry but I don’t care.
Then you’re a bad person. It’s quite simple.
Whatever quality of life you have enjoyed beyond living naked in a cave eating bugs and berries you owe to the people who came before you. Not just your ancestors, but the people who invented tools and discovered natural laws and organized societies and legal systems, the people who built the cities with their sewage systems and hospitals and electricity, the people who developed fertilizers and antibiotics and undergarnments that don’t itch like a thousand angry fleas are having a rave in your crotch. And now, after enjoying the fruits of 10,000 years of civilization, you decide that you’re the be-all and end-all of people and everybody who comes after you can go fuck themselves? Bad person. Plain and simple.
To be honest I’m in all to human extinction, actually I’m all for all life extinction. Life is based in predatory model mostly with exception of some plants and bacteria.
You have a very limited view of what life is. I pity you deeply.
And what is life? 70 years is shit is crap is nothing.
That is the definition of unbridled selfishness, bordering on sociopathy.
If this is truly what you think and drives how you behave then you are a leech on everyone else that will follow in your footsteps.
I won’t have children either, but I still want the world to be better for them, and I do the best within my means to make that happen.
People like you, when they’re competent, are the ones that rise to the top of the corporate ladder and own businesses that expound the worst parts of capitalistic society. Greed, selfishness, disdain for the plight of others, no thought for consequences as long as they don’t affect you personally.
So, don’t care if you don’t want to. But internalize that you’re a POS if that’s actually how you feel.
Still I can’t feel that because first those future people doesn’t exist and second I prefer that future people don’t exist
So yeah, sociopath. Shrug
Sociopath for not being able to feel empathy to inexistent people? Wow …
pissing in your water supply rn cuz i dont care
We were talking about global warming here
Yeah, which could also affect me. But pissing in your water supply doesnt affect me, why should i care :)
Well if you do on 30 years you are free to do so. I won’t be here anyway…
…do you not care?
Not really, I would be dead by then, no family. I mean if I have to make a great change in my life because of climate change, forget about it.
I’ll give you a point for honesty, but to also be honest, I think you’re a selfish arsehole.
So? Doesn’t matter I’ll be dead.
I think if you’re under 50 years old, you’ll probably be impacted by the effects of climate change for a majority of your life at this point. The change won’t be an instant thing like in The Day After Tomorrow after you’re long dead, it’s happening now when you’re alive.
You are so optimistic you think I will be living more than 30 years since now lol. Bad lifestyle.
Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine? Bless your heart.
I’m sorry to see downvotes on a genuine question. From a libertarian point of view, the question is very valid.
The basis of classical libertarianism is the non-aggression principal, which basically means “don’t harm others.” Seems like that would include causing harm after you die. But modern libertarianism seems to have a very strange interpretation of that principal…
“I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative” - John Stuart Mill
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith
I think Penn went there with a different mindset than those occupying the space now.
Galbraith wrote one of my favorite books!
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South Park guys too.
Politics so bad, you made the comedians who were mocking both sides in the 2000s apologize.
South Park guys too.
Source?
That’s not what that episode is about…
At the end of it the boys make their own agreement with ManBearPig and refused to act against climate change in exchange for RDR2 and something else I can’t remember
The episode was commentary on how we’re still making the same mistake and not addressing the shit we need to because it would cause minor inconveniences.
Like, you just completely missed the plot…
Did you miss the part where all the characters realized Al Gore was not lying about ManBearPig?
AND THEN decided that RDR2 was worth passing the buck to the next generation… just like the generation before them had done?
At the end of the day it’s a comedy show. You wanted a montage of them making the word better?
I prefer we all get back to the pile
Either you replied to the wrong person or don’t understand what anyone else is saying
Being wrong admitting it and changing your mind with new information is absolutely amazing and a great character trait. Props to him.
I got to meet him in Vegas. He was really nice to a nervous nerd. Now I’m even more impressed he has the courage to change his beliefs in public.
A sign of true intelligence is the ability to change your opinions after consideration and evidence. Penn always struck me as a very intelligent man.
I used to practically idolize Penn and Teller and had all their books and STILL use their card-forces and other goofy, effective performances with friends. It made me a legend with friends and family.
I lost track in adulthood but am glad to see that Penn didn’t turn into a grifting chud like so many from the time, and practiced what he preached in using critical thought and self-examination.
Yeah, they’re really nice guys. I got to go up on stage for one of their shows and participate in a trick. We went to a lot of shows on that trip (seven, i think?), they were the only ones that stand outside the exit and greet ever person leaving that wants to meet them. They sign autographs, take pictures, etc. with hundreds of people after each show. And they stopped to talk to my friend and I for a couple minutes as we left and Penn thanked me for participating and let me keep a prop from the act as a souvenir. Great dudes.
The souvenir is a good example of the libertarian aspects of their show. It was a metal card with the bill of rights on it, with the 4th amendment (the freedom from unwarranted search and seisure) highlighted in red. The premise was you should put it in your pocket when walking through the metal detectors or scanners at TSA at the airport. When the machines go off and they question you about out it, you were meant to pull it out and snarkily go “oh sorry, that’s just my bill of rights”. It was a good for a bit of a laugh in theory, but way too obnoxious to actually do in real life. I packed it away in my carry-on instead. I still have it in a keepsake box somewhere.
anyone who claims to be “a libertarian” should be forced to watch the libertarian convention which YOU KNOW none of them have ever seen in their lives.
check out the ideas your “party” pushes. real big brain stuff.
there’s nothing wrong with freedom, but regulation is necessary. to say otherwise is either ignorance, stupidity, or malice.
I got turned towards Libertanianism when I lived in Germany for a while and if you ever had you’d know why. Then I lived in Asia where it’s the exact opposite and that turned me towards socialism. My point being is that there’s definitely a golden mean to freedoms and any absolutist should be immediately ignored because they are objectively wrong.
I got turned towards Libertanianism when I lived in Germany for a while and if you ever had you’d know why.
Living in Germany rn. I don’t get it? Can you please explain?
Not OP and couldn’t see myself moving towards Libertarianism, but I can kinda see where OP is coming from. Germany does have a huge amount of regulations for almost everything. A lot of projects take far too long because there are so so many rules and laws to be considered. People working in administration got so used to that, that they tend to avoid responsibilities and hide behind rules and regulations (saying this as someone working in administration, trying to establish better digital processes, which tends to be quite frustrating). On an individual level, everything (except the Autobahn without its speed limit) is always made, so even the biggest idiot can’t hurt himself. Sometimes that ruins the fun for everyone else…
I’ll take ruined fun over ruined lives.
Where do you draw the line? Because that’s what it’s about: how much risk is acceptable for efficiency, personal freedom, etc. The answer is obviously not “zero” or else we wouldn’t have room for cars, construction, stairs, public beaches, the list goes on. Most of life is inherently or potentially dangerous, how much of that danger should be blocked by the state and how much left to the individual to manage?
There is no The Line, obviously. It’s all decided on case-by-case basis, and decisions have to be made in context. The only thing you can do in advance is to answer the question “do you prefer momentary efficiency, or do you prefer safety” and then go from there.
It’s not even about monetary efficiency. Ruined fun/ruined life. You said you were on the side of “ruined fun” but how much fun are we talking about? I assume you have some kind of stance because you joined the conversation.
I started to observe a pattern recently, when people on this platform refuse to read the text of the comment they’re replying to. It leads to all kinds of bad faith arguments.
Don’t be like that. Read the text, and engage with the text, not with what you imagined someone might say to you.
ruined fun is a ruined life
It’s just Kafka-esque bureaucracy of everything. It’s almost impossible to get anything done and it’s incredibly demotivating.
Its 90% of european continent , ita burried under 10 layers of buirocracy … we even have a joke here “you’re gonna need a form ym1p (you’re missing 1 paper) on your third visit, otherwise you wont get anything done” , doesnt translate as well tho
Yes I’m generally pro regulation and government oversight but the way European countries implement this sometimes feels like a purposeful moat to protect the rich.
Gee, I can’t imagine why Germany would want to slow down government actions…
That’s not “leftism”, that’s just unchecked, unquestioned bureaucracy.
Not saying it is, just quite the opposite if what libertarianism is.
Can you give some examples? I really don’t understand what you’re talking about
Have you ever had to visit a DMV?
No, I’ve never lived in US. Why?
Maybe I’m oversimplifying but I tend to think money is the problem. Supposing all wealth were equally distributed, libertarianism makes a lot of sense to me as maximizing personal freedoms. It generally becomes a problem when people use wealth to abuse others, either by hoarding wealth and restricting the freedom of others that way, or by using inequality to purchase things that no person should be able to purchase.
Another thing to keep in mind is that libertarianism wants everyone to focus on the individual, when society itself is an organized group that looks toward the collective (ideally, anyway)
Without guardrails or penalties for being caught, people that abuse the system will hoard wealth and power until they can call the shots
Or get shot , libertairanism slides into feudal/oligarchical structure if left unchecked
These thought experiments are fun and truthful and all but I really dont see much value in this speculation tbh. In my 40something years in different cultures I’ve became a staunch believer in Golden Mean of politics. Use the right tool for the right job. Times are good - work on more fteedoms, times are harder - maybe it’s time to tighten up the belts.
But what if the hard times are caused by rich people abusing the commons? Should we just keep tightening our belts while the rich take more and more?
I agree in general, like if there’s a drought expect less food. But most of our scarcity is artificial. I believe there are solutions to the challenge of surviving.
No the golden mean also applies to your example too. If rich get too toxic it’s time to bring out guillotines
Oh interesting, that’s not what it sounded like. Is that your personal view, or a tenet of the Golden Mean? Is there a particular thinker that you cleave to more than the others?
The Wikipedia page is pretty nebulous on this, other than allowing for a limited aristocracy (and monarchy?? Lol no thanks on that).
I’m not sure how you’d decide exactly how limited this aristocracy is without importing from other philosophies and value systems.
Golden Mean is a philosophy of Aristotel who said that all things have a golden mean (or balance) where existence is optimal.
Basically avoiding any sort of extremism will always be the most efficient path because of uncertainty and imperfection of our existence.
He mostly applied it to virtues of living like justice or wisdom. Sure you can close yourself off and study non-stop or fight all of the injustice in the world without sleep but this is not sustainble and diminishing returns reaches a point where the energy input is no longer returning positive results or even decreasing the overall output.
Imo this applies to basically everything including politics. Because political systems are so complex (and people are so complex) it’s imposible to control the systwm without leaving space for imperfection. So you can be a socialist but you still need to respect some individual freedoms, you can be a libertarian but you still have to admit that some things need to be forbidden for smooth sailing basically.
I can certainly second this as an American who emigrated to Germany. I considered myself a strong “Bernie-leftist” in the States yet gravitate more towards the political center here.
Libertarianism is just a way to soft-sell Totalitarian Plutocracy.
I was about to say “letting the rich fuck us in the ass without even the courtesy of a reacharound” but your answer is more acceptable in polite society.
Now, now, they also weaponized it to siphon off democratic votes BEFORE they started pushing the current Totalitarian Plutocracy.
It can do two things!
