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A devastating attack on Libertarianism

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Avram replied on Mon, Aug 17 2009 8:15 AM

I don't think strawman is the right word. Strawman implies they are familiar with the theory and only choose to highlight certain parts of it in a misleading manner.

I what we see here and else where is instead better described as a primitive understanding.

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Alice replied on Tue, Aug 18 2009 2:22 PM

Avram:

I don't think strawman is the right word. Strawman implies they are familiar with the theory and only choose to highlight certain parts of it in a misleading manner.

I what we see here and else where is instead better described as a primitive understanding.

yeah, i agree, though sometimes it is a strawman, most people are just describing an accidental caricature

"The first Accounts we have of Mankind are but so many Accounts of their Butcheries.
All Empires have been cemented in Blood..."

- Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society

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Ansury:
It appears to me that you are a Libertarian (or a Ferengi, a la Star Trek),

I lol'ed at work.

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ricarpe replied on Wed, Aug 19 2009 7:01 PM

Ansury:
It doesn't matter to most Libertarians that this kind of hyper individualized economics is objectively at odds with the natural laws that underlie the biosphere and sponsor human life on earth.

I would counter that this person is using some sort of extreme definition of Libertarianism and the individualism that goes along with it.  Libertarianism is not based on some sort of xenophobic fear of interacting with others--which appears to be that writer's interpretation. 

I would argue that Libertarianism helps to prove how efficient human interaction can be without State intervention: one individual is free to interact with any other individual, or group, as he or she pleases; likewise, that individual is also free to not interact with anyone they please, as well.

 

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree." -James Madison

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