Asymmetrical Information

That's funny - I have had the pleasure of meeting several elected Libertarians. But then, none of them were from the Peoples Republic of NYC either

Never apologize for NOT getting a Libertarian elected. In fact, not getting them elected is a public service worthy of high praise.

Mostly, librarians are appointed and not elected. And that's why libertarians are opposed to libraries, I suppose.

But it really is perfect, isn't it? The party that most consistently advocates for a small/non-existent government never gets elected to any meaningful government post? I mean, the Greeks couldn't have written it any better.

I love your comment, can I use it too?

Along those same lines, since a lib will never be elected, you are always able to use the trite and tired "don't blame me, I didn't vote for _____."

Actually, you're right, but only if the "L" in Libertarian is capitalized.

There are plenty of libertarians (note the case) who could not care less who gets elected.

Jane Galt has perhaps inadvertently revealed the silliness of Libertarian absolutism. We live in the real world of flesh and blood human beings with all their faults and laughable limitations. To get anything done, compromises with these less than angelic creatures must be forged. Wearing a halo around one’s head may make some folks feel superior---but it accomplishes virtually nothing. Give me the sinners every time! Democracy is a yucky and messy business, asserted Winston Churchill. Those who don’t like to seeing sausage made should be directed to play with the children. Adults have serious duties to perform.

"Those who don’t like to seeing sausage made should be directed to play with the children. "

A slight correction is in order:

"Those who don’t like to see sausage made should be directed to play with the children."

Libertarian Party members would better advance their cause by abandoning the party aparatus and simply becoming an interest group, like the NRA, the abortion people (pro and con), the Club for Growth etc. Instead of wasting money on candidates who don't even want to win, they could put that money into a PAC, lobbying, advertising, endorsements and other methods of influencing elections and legislation. I think it would be possible to affect the positions of some legislators on some issues, which would at least accomplish something, as opposed to accomplishing nothing, which is what the LP does now.

In conversation with a Libertarian professor some time ago, I asked why his strong effort at building a think tank to fund research on Libertarian topics. He made a couple of points:

[a] Most people who consider themselves Libertarian are *not* really Libertarian.

[b] Raising money is impossible because people want to give money to individuals they forsee having a reasonable chance of getting elected.

[c] If someone is actually interested in giving money to your think tank, they probably don't want to just give it. They want you to push their pet project. Also consider once more point [a].

On the other hand, if one were a self-professed libertarian who runs a website which repeatedly and publicly endorse more or less every single Republican policy (including opposition to abortion) and spends a lot of effort criticising half-formed policy positions of as yet unelected Democratic candidates, then some small degree of personal contrition might indeed be in order when the occasion demands.

A Libertarian since '72, "big and small L". Perhaps the utopian vision has not worked out, "little or no gument" and all that. We must, I advise, work towards some better political positions, in the libertarian direction.
Not a new idea really. Maybe we messed up by not using Dr. Lord again as our P. candidate (some years ago, the VP). She was a winner. G

First of all, I am pro-choice, D, and second of all, libertarians come in both pro-life and pro-choice forms; thinking otherwise is a left-wing delusion that the only reason to oppose abortion is a desire to keep women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

Jane, I don't think D meant to imply that you were not pro-choice. I think he was pointing out the hypocracy with which people claim their political affiliation (i.e. "I'm a libertarian") and then go agreeing with every half-a$$ tenant of another political party as diametrically opposed to the claimed political party as possible (i.e. "I'm a libertarian, and I am for legislating morals, really big deficits to pay for schools, social security, medicare and welfare) just so they can seperate themselves from the icky aspects of said political party that they're not claming any affiliation with...because they're a libertarian.

I've re-read that paragraph twice now and I'm still not sure it makes sense. But the point was, I didn't read it as an attack on you.

But really I wanted to say -- on a totally unrelated note -- was that I totally agree with what David Thompson said on this one.

Take a picture, this may never happen again.

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Ron Paul, who I would qualify as a RINO (Republican in name only), since he is the most libertarian Congressman around.

Congratulations, Jane, you're now the proud captain of HMS Pinafore. A brief snippet from the libretto:

Jane : We sail with all opinons humbly respected,But fair warning! A Libertarian will never,ever get elected!
Chorus : What,never?
Jane : Wellll, hardly ever...

While I would really like to have elected officials who were dedicated to individual liberty, both economically and socially, I know the Republicans and Democrats aren't. I can choose to elect tax-and-spend nanny-staters, or slightly-less-tax-and-overspending expansionists.

Libertarian candidates, even if unelectable, reach a significant power point when they reach the level of spoiler. This is a good thing. It acts as a brake on the tendencies of the other parties to go overboard.

The hope is that my vote for a losing Libertarian affects a losing Republican or Democrat's perspective in this way: If only I had won that teeny Libertarian percentage, I'd have beaten my opponent. What changes do I need to make (less spending, less taxes, less intrusion) to woo that vote?

The fact that the Libertarian party exists, still, after being so ignored by the mainstream media and restricted by onerous election laws that favor the 2 major parties, and, frankly, being fractured by the large number of kooks it attracts, is testament to the ideas and ideals it holds.

I dropped the big-L several years ago, due only to the kook factor, but I smile whenever I get a chance to vote for them. It's like putting a firecracker under the chair of the major parties...

"I'm a libertarian, and I am for legislating morals”

Legislating morals is unavoidable. It is intrinsic to the very notion of forming a viable society. The only real question is which morals will be imposed upon the whole citizenry. For instance, we (I hope) all agree that bank robbery must not be allowed. Anyone dissenting on this matter, and sticking a gun in a teller’s face is facing a jail term.

Actually, libertarians - at least those who might otherwise have voted Republican - have gotten a number of big-government Democrats elected, most notably Harry Reid, the Nevada Senator (check the 1998 election results). That is, indeed, something to be sorry for.

Aw David, and I thought we were playing so nice.

This is not the proper forum to discuss the difference between laws which prevent anarchy and laws which impose a moral view on others. Murder, robbery, rape, these are crimes which have victims and therefore, to achieve a safe and free society, we need to have laws which prevent these victims from being created. Murder is not necessarily "bad" from a moral standpoint, uncontrolled murder is "bad" from a societal standpoint.

Conversely, there are other crimes which are "victimless". Adults having kinky sex with other approving adults in the privacy of their own home is an example of this. The taking of large amounts of drugs is another. The reason there are laws against this behavior is largely because we view these activities as "immoral". But if/when these activities are made legal no victim is created. Therefore, these are laws based on "morality".

A strict libertarian, as I understand it, doesn't want these "moral" laws imposed on them for the most part. They want their pot and thier kinky sex. But the societal laws which form the construct of a civil discourse is important, and a strict libertarian would support and stripped down version of those laws.

Sigh. Wanna talk more, you have my email address.

I don't see any evidence that voting Libertarian (or any other third party) in the hopes of being a spoiler does anything to change the major parties. The Libertarians may well have cost the GOP a few races, as someone noted above, but rather than becoming more like the Libertarians, today's GOP has become less so, advocating greater restraints on personal freedom and a huge expansion of government. The Greens may well have cost Al Gore the 2000 election, but I don't see any significant change in the Democratic party either.

I disagree somewhat on those examples, Kate, as I think one reason we might choose to legislate morality in the case of e.g. drug use is that it can and frequently does lead to victim-crimes, or will force society to bear long-term costs. Marijuana is admittedly a difficult and uncertain case because in many ways it is like alcohol -- (relatively) benign in moderation but sometimes abused, and then sometimes taken to other more harmful locales such as behind a steering wheel.

I don't think that same argument of uncertainty can be applied to the hard drugs, though, which are readily harmful to the individual in ways that can quickly create victims (person under the influence loses self control and atypically submits to a desire to commit a violent crime) or become an undue social burden (long-term costs of caring for an individual who has destroyed his/her ability to coexist normally in society, including everything from drug-induced homelessness to physical and mental damage of self and/or offspring).

anony-mouse --

The counter-arguement to your arguement is that if people commit crimes (i.e. cause victims) because they have choosen to take an action (i.e. getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated or stealing drug money) then it seems that you should prosecute them under those crimes that create victims. The crime is not that Billy got high, the crime is that Billy ripped off a liquor store. Our prison system would be much emptier if this was the way the laws worked. But they don't. This is the general view of the traditional staunch libertarian.

I'm talking about staunch libertarianism. People who want to pay as little in taxes to support as little government as possible. They can then take all that money they saved and spend it on the services themselves (or not).

Now, remember, I generally view myself as a "liberal" so I don't jive with all this stuff. On the other hand, I do believe in legalizing drugs, taxing them horrendously and then taking the money and using it to pay for treatment programs is a pretty good idea. I mean, just because drugs are illegal, doesn't mean you pretty much can't get anything you want right this minute.

Seriously, I don't do any drugs (legal or illegal, except for nicotine and caffine) and I could get ANYTHING delivered to my office in under an hour. So obviously making the stuff illegal doesn't prevent its use or its accessability.

Anony-mouse:

Absent any facts at all, I would be willing to wager a large (for me) amount on the proposition that alchohol is implictated in more serious crimes against others, by at least an order of magnitude, than heroin, cocaine, and crack combined. (I am excluding crimes that result from the illegality of the latter group - shooting rival dealers, assaults while escaping cops, etc.). If people were really looking to enact laws that limited harms to others, then we'd probably restrict alchohol more and other drugs significantly less.

Kate - in the interests of science, you should totally try to get something exotic delivered in under an hour. I'm shocked by that level of service. If you got good data on times, amounts, etc., you could send it to the guys at Marginal Revolutions for one of those "Markets in Everything" bits (the market being for drug delivery service, not the drugs). After all, didn't Galileo risk jail for science?

Do it, Kate, do it.

My apologies, Jane. You're not Captain Corcoran after all. You're actually Major-General Stanley :

I am the very model of a modern Libertarian:
I teem with glowing notions for proposals millenarian,
I've nothing but contempt for ideologies collectivist
(My own ideas of social good tend more toward the Objectivist).
You see, I've just discovered, by my intellectual bravery,
That civic obligations are all tantamount to slavery;
And thus that ancient pastime, viz., complaining of taxation,
Assumes the glorious aspect of a war for liberation!

Chorus :
You really must admit it's a delightful revelation:
To bitch about your taxes is to fight for liberation!

Kim Plofker,"I Am the Very Model of a Modern Libertarian"

Kate: By the same logic I can go out and rob a bank right now (literally if I was so inclined -- there's one across the street), law not withstanding. Absolute prevention is virtually impossible; the law can only act as a disincentive (even if I wanted to rob a bank, I might not want to go to prison and have a felony on my record) and remove or monitor persons who have shown a desire to threaten civil order (police, courts, probationary programs, and incarceration).

Is a marijunana user a threat to civil order? Speaking purely in consequentialist terms, probably no more so than an alchohol user, and equally difficult to regualte.

How about, say, a heroin user? I would argue 'yes,' because in addition to the rapid addiction, the narcotic tends to create an accellerating dependency -- the so-called "hard" drugs are very difficult to use in moderation because of the power of the chemical addiction. And that person then has a high probability of either acting out violent crime under-the-influence, or becoming a violent criminal to sustain the cost of the habit -- which might fall under the sort of system you propose but would still have the potential to be exorbitant. And even if the vicious circle of tax-and-provide-healthcare succeeded, at what intangible cost would that be?

Or IOW, that's why I'm not a Libertarian either (although I probably espouse some of the small-l variant's principles).

Anonymouse: A bank robber is setting out to interfere with other people's basic right to keep the money they have earned and use it as they see fit. He is also threatening people with violence and presumably would be willing to kill if thwarted.

Someone smoking crack or injecting heroin is NOT directly infringing on anyone elses' rights. He may fail to fulfill obligations that he assumed such as supporting his family, but you hardly need drugs to break promises, nor are broken promises a criminal matter.

It's also untrue that use of the hard drugs will automatically make someone unable to keep a good job. If drug use was as devasting as the drug warriors claim, most corporations wouldn't need urine tests. They'd have fired all the dopers for poor performance anyhow. But somehow many of these people manage to get into less trouble with coke and heroin than some people get into with alcohol. (Don't give me any BS about safety - if you want a test that improves on-the-job safety, have them blow into a breathalyzer. That detects someone who is drunk NOW. The urine test takes days or weeks to come back, so if your forklift driver comes to work stoned, the urine test isn't going to prevent an accident. Then it tells you that the guy used something within a period of a couple of weeks, maybe on the weekend, not whether he was impaired while at work.)

Since you'll probably accuse me of being a doper: I'm an alcoholic, sober since 1976. As for marijuana, I might have inhaled some once, but I was coughing too hard to hold onto the joint for long... Never even considered the harder drugs. A bottle of a dozen Tylenol pills will last me years.

Don't blame me, I voted for the guy who couldn't possibly win!

Limited government implies a limited legally enforced morality. Life, Liberty and Property should cover it. Everything else is mere taste, and should be funded by private means.

markm: the bank example was only intended to clarify that the law does not inherently prevent, perhaps I should have been more specific there.

As for the other, it's hardly a matter of rhetoric to make sweeping claims about the hard drugs. Alcohol may well be implicated in more crimes or job accidents as you (and Tim) have noted, but what of it? We've already proven that it is difficult to regulate a widely accepted drug that can be potentially beneficial in moderation; this may be an argument for legalizing marijuana or prohibiting both, but I don't see how it touches on the more troubling issues the harder drugs tend to create, and rapidly; and which are much harder to use at a moderated and beneficial level (if any).

Forgive me if I think that vices with strong and near-universal addicitve tendencies are not handled well by Libertarian philosophy, but I've worked in low-wage industries, and I've seen firsthand examples of persons who will feed a $7-10/day smoking habit because of the addiction while having to scrape the last pennies out of the couch (or go into unrecoverable credit-card debt) just to provide school supplies for a child or pay for basic auto maintenance. I really don't want to find out what kind of society we would get to live in if other drugs with strong addictive tendencies were legalized and thus potentially made as common as nicotine is now, nor do I find that a tax-and-provide-healthcare approach adequately addressed to social consequences of such an approach.

Great bumper sticker, seen only once:

"I am an anarchist, and I vote"

Anonymouse: Smoking is one of many things government cannot fix without making far worse problems. Alcohol also does a lot of damage, to the lower classes most of all, but we all know how well Prohibition worked out - less moderate drinking, as much or more binge drinking, and the Mafia went from a collection of neighborhood gangs extorting protection money from Italian merchants to a big business. Banning drugs is working no better. About the only thing more ineffective are the school anti-drug programs with their obvious lies and exaggerations.

OTOH, smoking is way down over the last 40 years, due to social pressure and publicizing the real dangers. Sure, some people ignore the message. Most of them are in low-paying jobs, because being stupid and self-destructive are not great character traits for most good jobs. (President of the USA appears to be an exception ... or maybe it's not a good job.) There's only one long-term solution for the willfully self-destructive: Darwin.

I would have more respect for self-described "libertarians" if their political convictions in practice amounted to anything other than support for the Republican party.

Jane herself has said right here that she is much more concerned with the Democrats' propensity for raising taxes than she is with the Republicans' propensity for trampling on the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

Libertarians will stand by the Republicans every time because of taxes and guns.

Jane herself has said right here that she is much more concerned with the Democrats' propensity for raising taxes than she is with the Republicans' propensity for trampling on the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

Oh, she said that? Same sneer and rhetorical distortions and everything? This has an immediate deleterious impact on my respect for her point of view -- IF you can find the quote.

Anony-mouse:

I don't know that it includes whatever snottiness you seem to be looking for, but the following quotation seems to back up at least part of what Orbitron is claiming:

"Bottom line: it's awfully hard for the state to regulate private things like drug use and sexual behavior. On the other hand, they seem to have no trouble at all getting their hands in my pockets. Until those things are reversed, it's unlikely I'm going to vote Democratic very often."

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004124.html

Since Dems seem more likely to believe that the state shouldn't be regulating sex or most drug use than Republicans, that seems to leave taxes. What's the big deal, it's her position. It's not immoral or anything.

I do think, however, that it would have been more accurate to say, "Be a liberterian if your the sort who cannot bear to apologize for a mistake." Support for Bush by any other name remains the same.

Comments are Closed.