I hate correcting on spelling, but I see this mistake too often... it's laissez-faire. It's not even pronounced lazze-faire, less-faire etc. It is pronounced like 'less', only with an 'e' at the end in the case of the first word and 'fair' in the case of the second, with the French 'r'.
ViennaSausage: I was always "lazziez-faire" but never knew it. I always felt that people should be able to do whatever they want, granted they are not harming everyone else.
I was always "lazziez-faire" but never knew it. I always felt that people should be able to do whatever they want, granted they are not harming everyone else.
Yeah, me too, long before I ever heard the term "libertarian", etc. Only when I discovered the Internet in the mid-80's did I find other people who thought the same way... (but the only Austrian I ever heard of was Hayek until something led me to mises.org - that was maybe 2002 or 2003)
I don't ever remember not being a "libertarian", though I admit not knowing or caring what that word meant until recently (and I still don't really care so much).
Now that I have found the virtually unlimited treasure trove of audio available on Mises.org, I almost never listen to talk radio anymore. I can't stand Hannity any longer, he is such a schill. Sometimes he has good guests, but since he doesn't let them talk much, it's not worth it.
Rush is occasionally interesting, but once you've listened long enough, you know what he is going to say. There's only so much defense of W I can take. Savage is at least somewhat radical and that makes him interesting. I used to agree with his position on Iraq, which was fight to win or go home, with the emphasis on fight to win. Now I am more inclined to the latter.
My journey towards libertarianism started 12 years ago. At that time I was strongly Conservative in the minarchist sense and believed in a limited but strong defense. After W completely abandoned anything that looked like a limited government position, I started looking for something closer to my philosophy. Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty shook my world last summer. I am still recovering and finding myself becoming more and more persuaded by the consistency and logic of his position. Not totally convinced on anarchism yet, but I believe it is probably better than the alternatives.
I can't get away from this site. Thanks to all the great contributors and people who run LVMI, there is always more information available. As an added bonus, it's actually intellectual and based on logic and reason. Wish law school had been more like this. Heck, I wish legal opinions were more like this.
I used to be a conservative liberal, then I found some libertarians. They explained how the market works to me (I used to think businesses were out to get everyone). However, they did not tell me they were libertarians. I eventually found out about libertarians, studied about them more, and eventually found The Future of Freedom Foundation. A little while after I searched for more organizations and found CATO, NCPA, FEE and Mises, and signed up for all of their daily emails. Recently I have dropped CATO and added Lewrockwell.com. My education is pretty much completely an internet education. I have yet to really read any books.
At most, 5% of the population would need to stop complying to bring down the government.
Inquisitor: I hate correcting on spelling, but I see this mistake too often... it's laissez-faire. It's not even pronounced lazze-faire, less-faire etc. It is pronounced like 'less', only with an 'e' at the end in the case of the first word and 'fair' in the case of the second, with the French 'r'.
Thanks for correcting the spelling. I almost always misspell that word. And thanks for the correct pronunciation too! I have only read the word as it is not a ubiquitous spoken vernacular word.
Ego: What drove you over the edge?
What drove you over the edge?
Nothing "drove" me over the edge. I was apolitical until I discovered libertarianism. Rand's "For The New Intellectual" was my turning point.
But I do have a pet peeve: mandatory seatbelt laws.
Twirlcan: I went to Europe and I visited the site of Hitlers Nurnberg rallies and wondered how he could convince people to fill up that huge stadium, march in silent unison with torches and then get their approve for him to start killing people. When I returned in January of 1991 the war had started and the Superbowl was on, and the halftime celebration was all praise of the war and the state with seemingly everyone chiming in and feeling good about it. That answered the question I had in Nurnberg and every year since then my opinion of the state and what it does has declined steadily.
That makes shivers run down my back just thinking about it. It's spooky being at an event like that, being the only one to notice the evils of the state.
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
I'll answer a somewhat different question: what radicalized you as a libertarian? Because I may have been a "Big L" libertarian and a minarchist for a while, but I was eventually pushed over the edge into more radical territory (I.E. anarchism and apolitical libertarianism). So here are my answers:
1. Herbert Spencer's "Social Statics". It helped convince me that the state will eventually be rendered obsolete through social evolution. This idea was an important first step pointing me in the direction of libertarian anarchism. Furthermore, the chapter "The Right To Ignore The State" has blatantly anarchistic implications.
2. Debating with Objectivists and proponents of "subscribed government". I first encountered the idea of "subscribed government" when I was a minarchist, and I argued that the idea was absurd because it would not truly constitute a government at all. I ran into cognitive dissonance upon exploring and debating the idea and soon realized that my own principles inevitably leads to the abandonment of "government" as it is commonly understood. I ended up "converting" an Objectivist to a market anarchist in the process, even when I was still confused about it myself.
3. Stefan Molyneux's podcasts on minarchism and anarchism (and how they relate to ethics). I find Stefan's emphasis on consistancy and universality to be very compelling. Radicalism and consistancy go hand in hand. Molyneux makes it very clear that minarchism is highly inconsistant and hypocritical. He debunks statism from an ethical perspective and it was ultimately ethical considerations (and the weeding out of ethical inconsistancies) that drove me towards libertarian anarchism.
4. Debating with moderate libertarians. The more I debated with such people, the more disgusted I became with mainstream libertarianism and the party, and the more I became convinced that the political approach is futile and self-contradictary. In a profound sense, the spinelessness and inconsistancy of the moderates drove me towards radicalism.
5. The immigration debate. My opposition to border enforcement lead me down the path of rejecting political borders in general, and hence inevitably in an anarchist direction. I could never wrap my head around the idea of "national sovereignty", as the only sovereignty I can recognize is that of the individual. Nationalist sentiments have always struck me as collectivistic and irrational.
6. Introduction to the ideas of agorism. Enough said.
wuzacon:I can't get away from this site. Thanks to all the great contributors and people who run LVMI, there is always more information available. As an added bonus, it's actually intellectual and based on logic and reason.
I second that. I do not comment on this site often as I am relatively new to libertarianism and do not believe I can yet play a hand. However, I am on here just about every day and enjoy and appreciate the discussions.
As I said I am still very much developing. However, what got me questioning government from the start was Thomas DiLorenzo and John Stossel. DiLo showed Stossel's "John Stossel Goes to Washinton" on the first day of his Intermediate Micro class and I couldn't stop thinking about it. However, it wasn't until Ron Paul that I became obsessed with learning more about the fundamentals and exposing the state's influence on myself. More a very long while I was angry and could not understand how people like Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul remained so calm and collective. I have sinced relaxed...
Although I must say, I have always been libertarian at heart. From a young age I never understood political correctness and felt many fallacies were perpetuated in part because of it.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV. And you think you're so clever and class less and free. But you're still f***ing peasants as far as I can see.
There's room at the top they are telling you still. But first you must learn how to smile as you kill, if you want to be like the folks on the hill.
classiclib: That makes shivers run down my back just thinking about it. It's spooky being at an event like that, being the only one to notice the evils of the state.
A friend of my family (now dead) went to Germany as a tourist in 1936 and attended one of those rallies. He said that it was dead silent during those events and that all you could hear was all the boots marching in unison. He said he was the only tourist in his group that was worried after wittnessing it.
http://www.comebackalive.com/phpBB2 Travel, Adventure Travel, Arguments, Recipes.
Brainpolice:The immigration debate. My opposition to border enforcement lead me down the path of rejecting political borders in general, and hence inevitably in an anarchist direction. I could never wrap my head around the idea of "national sovereignty", as the only sovereignty I can recognize is that of the individual. Nationalist sentiments have always struck me as collectivistic and irrational.
I completely agree with your stance on immigration, and I have pretty much felt that way for as long as I can remember. The idea of immigration status bogles my mind.
As to the inconsistency of minarchism, I have definitely come to understand that more recently. Regardless, I would still prefer a minimalist government to the massive one we currently have. I think there is definitely a moral difference between stealing trillions of dollars vs. millions of dollars. They are both theft, however, the smaller theft causes much less suffering than the larger theft.
Immigration and citizenship laws certainly must go... but they must not go first. As long as we still have elections in which you can vote yourself money, we can't allow mobs of leftists to move in and reverse and progress.
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
I wanted to ascribe to an ideology that would support my right to run through the streets naked with green jello all over my body while reading Playboy magazine.
MacFall:I began to really become libertarian after I was introduced to the non-aggression principle, and I was "driven" by a need for my beliefs to be logically and morally consistent. I was basically a market anarchist (with some blurry areas) before I read any literature on the subject, but reading Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty nailed the coffin shut on any remnants of statism left in me.
Or it was something very much like this.
Corporations are an extension of the state.
Rich333:I wanted to ascribe to an ideology that would support my right to run through the streets naked with green jello all over my body while reading Playboy magazine.
Well, as long as you own the streets, then you have found the right place.
Rich333: I wanted to ascribe to an ideology that would support my right to run through the streets naked with green jello all over my body while reading Playboy magazine. MacFall:I began to really become libertarian after I was introduced to the non-aggression principle, and I was "driven" by a need for my beliefs to be logically and morally consistent. I was basically a market anarchist (with some blurry areas) before I read any literature on the subject, but reading Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty nailed the coffin shut on any remnants of statism left in me. Or it was something very much like this.
LMAO!
My history is kind of weird, because i was a neocon being an argentinian...
Yeah, thats wierd, isn't it?
Well, that's have an answer and was the love that I had to your great country, their founders, their presidents, their costume of freedmon, etc,
But it was that love for America that drag me to the neoconservative ideologic system. Because I needed justifications for america's actions around the worlds, due to the importante hate rounding here about America (mainly for cultural reasons, and historicals). I needed to justify the invasion of iraq, vietnam war, interventions in everywhere, mainly because I though america was defending freedmon, and people here wasn't getting the right thing...
Well, after being a argentinian neocon (almost one year). And please imagine that in my country, where 9 of 10 practically want to make America blow up, was a harsh problem. I started reading different articles in Mises, LRC, Reason, etc, and my points of view radically change. How could I be favoring such a blood thing like war!! But I was totally blind in my love for America...
You may think I am kind of idiot for loving another country, but that's because living here is such a hard thing when the state is everywhere. If you hate us state, that's why you did't fell the argentinian one...
I want to make something clear, I always was pro market, pro liberty, but this neocon thing was prrety illogical.
I still love your country, but only the pre-lincoln era. :)
Welcome to the forum, jackbas!
How is the political landscape in Argentina? Would you say that socialists are more popular than capitalists?
Ego: Welcome to the forum, jackbas!
I second this motion.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Inconsistancies in rhetoric drove me to libertarianism. I could not oppose organizations like the UN if I argued the validity of state intervention in Iraq based on their laws.
I also couldn't champion the constitution.
Then Ron Paul started his campaign and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he had to say. I was your typical Paleo, and was quite nationalist. Then I adopted an ideology of constitutional minarchy (where the federal government would only function to unify state interest but not have power over economic or military transactions [Kind of like the Articles of the Confederation]) which slowly morphed into an idea of a minarchy that would function off the voluntary economic transactions of its citizens (donations and bonds) but have no control over the marketplace. (I kind of thought that under a system like this, necessary war would probably be better funded out of individual fear that the state was underfunded because it lacked the means to fund itself and people would therefore give more money than under taxation). But pretty soon I just became an agorist.
It seems to me the Iraq War has created a bigger libertarian movement. Bad management on the state's part.
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