General

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

Prime — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 20:16:57 GMT

I think it is nearly impossible to convince her to become a libertarian until after she has improved her life. I mean, good luck with the abolish the minimum wage argument and end food stamps to someone who is truly dependent on those things. I think you must, then, focus on how to improve her particular circumstances, in which I would recommend 3 things:

1) Financial advice. I would personally counsel her on how best to budget her money. I'm not talking about investing or anything like that, just a budget that identifies every dollar she has.

2) Charity! Replace her dependence on the state with local charities. Not only provide for her, but get her involved as well.

3) Help guide her child. This is a longer term solution, but make sure he breaks those chains of dependence. Help him with school, help him get to sporting events, don't let him get in with the wrong people. Perhaps she is too far gone to completely break free of state support, but show her that it is possible for each generation to improve their lot in life.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

Clayton — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:00:20 GMT

And let's not forget that government is such a great friend and protector of the poor...

Clayton -

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

idol — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:14:07 GMT

You're asking people with little education to understand logic and economics. It is not realistic. Regardless of how many statists promise anything, they will not avoid the upcoming currency crisis and runaway inflation. There is always a limit to what statists can promise. My explanation begins by showing the person how, though they may see the benefits they receive from the state, they may not realize the harm they are also receiving. That breeds mistrust, and moves the person towards libertarianism.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

vive la insurrection — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:20:19 GMT

and there are rich white men which are not.

I believe they're called academicians.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

z1235 — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:01:05 GMT

Taking the "what's in it for me?" route is a losing proposition. There will always be dozens of statist proposals which would promise to directly deliver more to any one particular person you are trying to convince. You immediately lose by accepting to play their (statist) game.

Everybody would benefit from a free society but the only way to show this is through explaining the whole picture and through teaching logic and economics. There are poor black women which are able to get it, and there are rich white men which are not.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

vive la insurrection — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:16:24 GMT

Why should trying to convince this person be different from convincing any other person?

I would guess that when dealing with all things subjective, you would treat the person at hand, and not the "objective condition" (for lack of a better term). In the case of the "poor black woman", those titles are apparently precious and relevant titles to the subject at hand. They matter, as they matter specifically to the person at hand.

Of course, a lot of this makes most of these things "empty sets". I don't really know if one political position can really say much different than any other in terms of ends.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

idol — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:07:32 GMT

z1235:

Why would trying to convince this person be different from convincing any other person?

Well, you wouldn't start by telling her it is immoral to take money from rich people in order to give it to poor people. She will probably not be sympathetic.

I would start by asking her, "are you worried about the rising prices you're seeing at the supermarket and at the gas station?" Assuming she answers in the affirmative, I would then explain to her the Fed's role in creating inflation and explain that they punish the poor and the savers like that in part to pay for government pork and cronies. Making her an advocate of the gold standard should be pretty easy.

I'd then have the task of explaining to her why Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid could cause a currency crisis. This involves some ability to think in the long-term on her part. She would be one of the ones hit hardest by runaway inflation.

Making her detest such programs even assuming their economic viability involves creating very strong distrust in the state. I would first try to assure her that charitable donations would step in in the absence of government; if this were not true, nobody would receive welfare checks because the people who don't receive welfare checks greatly outnumber the people who do recieve them. This shows that at least some if not most people support these programs and would fill in with their own donations in the absence of the programs.

Next, creating distrust in the state could take a number of different routes depending on her background. I would have to talk about how the state harms economic growth which hurts her long-term standard of life and how empowering it leads to despotic tendencies evidenced by, for example, police brutality stemming from the racist War on Drugs.

It can take a very long time to change a person's long held ideologies, so I would honestly consider this task close to impossible absent a very open-minded or malleable person.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

z1235 — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 03:13:34 GMT

JimmyJazz:

what would you say to this person to convince her to become a libertarian?

Why should trying to convince this person be different from convincing any other person?

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

cab21 — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 01:57:57 GMT

have a private company give more stuff than the government, if people are that condesending to think that is the actual reason.

i think conservatives say it's ok for a church to give but not ok for a government to give, as the church receives voluntarily and the government takes involuntarily.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

JimmyJazz — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:33 GMT

Thanks for the additional replies. I don't really have anything to say in reply to them (this was never intended as a debate thread whatsoever), but thanks for the replies.

It is interesting that some of you recognized the scenario as similar to your own lives of those of some of your libertarian acquaintances. Although some of the replies I got on the first page such as "become an escort" were truly outlandish, not to mention off-topic (they were more related to how the woman could better her life rather than how to convince her to become a libertarian) I think they got exponentially more reasonable as the thread progressed. The last 2 pages of replies were quite reasonable and were exactly what I was looking for.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

vive la insurrection — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:18:46 GMT

Same way the left would convince her: give her money and stuff.

If you can't do that, you have no "argument".

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

Autolykos — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:30:59 GMT

Good morning, JimmyJazz. I sure hope you didn't think I was going anywhere, because I'm still here. Once again I'll repeat my demand for you to show me just where I said I'd suggest to your hypothetical poor black single mother that she dig ditches. Thanks in advance.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

Live_Free_Or_Die — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:12:37 GMT

Destruction of the purchasing power. . .

The younger someone is the less they can relate to how expensive things have become in dollars.

If the presumption is that I could do anything I think I would go around and start randomly talking to older people born in the 40's-50's who can talk about their first jobs making $70/wk., rent @ $15/wk. and having money left over after all the basic needs were met simply working one job.

I would focus on things like what a 1930's silver quarter could purchase in the 1930's and what the silver of that same coin melted down would be worth today in dollars if they were still in circulation.

There are now entire generations that have lived their entire lives under inflation who accept without question the notion that things getting more expensive over time is just the way the world works. . .

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

Lady Saiga — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:34:31 GMT

I, too, find that the degree of conditioning to believe in the state is dose-related to the amount of formal (perhaps, public) schooling a person gets. I believe that was the goal of progressive education.

Re: How would you convince a poor person to become libertarian?

Marko — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:07:07 GMT

What I have found is that these type of people are already libertarians to a good degree. They don't see any legitimacy in the government. They break laws as they see fit. They open up hair saloons in their apartments without licenses and could give a damn about laws prohibiting it. They even recognize that much of their suffering comes from the government. My answer to the OP then is this; we don't need to convince the poor about libertarianism. They agree. From my personal experience at least I've rarely found a poor person who has any fondness for the state.

It is the middle class that I find are the most clingy to the state.

Heh, my friends from elementary school are working class whereas my friends from secondary school are mainly middle class. Now when meeting for a beer with the former there is always a good chance I will be hearing an impassionate rant about the state (taxes, corruption, traffic fines, public utilities, building permits, smoking bans...), whereas with the later any conversation involving politics is frustrating as hell and to be avoided if at all possible.