Your Personal Libertarian Policies?

Just found this thread and I've read through most of it. Glad to have a forum to explain Libertarian ideas. Simply put Libertarianism is the principle of individual responsibility, more so even then individual freedom. The emphasis on freedom de-emphasizes that which is assumed by that freedom, not only the freedom to succeed, to enjoy those things you like, but to fail, and to pay for those failures. An individuals failures are their failures, not the guys down the streets, not their fathers, or their mothers or anyone elses, but theirs. As such the responsibility for living, for choosing the path of your life (liberty) and for choosing the path to pursue happiness are assumed by the individual. Libertarianism is the only policy I have found worthy of being applied to human beings as human beings, all other philosophies make a mistake in the understanding of what a human being (man) is. There is an assumption in all other philosophies of some un-asked for and un-chosen responsibility for everyone else and everything else in the world. The only responsibility an individual has is to live, to live an individual needs the freedom to choose how to live, to choose what their happiness is and to go after it. As such an individuals life is inviolate, it encompases those things which make up life, labor, happiness, health, property etc. An attack on something which makes up an individuals life, or something which takes it away or damages that is wrong. Sometimes those damages are insidious, difficult to see, however any action which effects individuals negatively is wrong. So pollution as such is wrong, poisoning water supplies is wrong, theft, particularly legalized theft such as an income tax or other things are wrong as well. My responsibility ends where yours begins, I think better explains libertarianism than the old my freedoms end where yours begin clause.

reply to post by gaborn415


There is an aspect of group responsibility within self responsibility. A person living in a Libertarian society owes their own efforts towards the betterment of the whole. Like you stated if a person pollutes the water others drink it effects everyone else. So if true Libertarianism were to flourish people would focus on basic needs of the whole and no limitations on life outside of those basic needs. for instance if a person owned the rights to the last source of water in an area and decided to charge people for that water, a Libertarian society would reject profit over life giving value of water. In essence true Libertarianism (not the political parties version) would be a soft form of socialism where collective needs dictate a person should not lose their life, property, liberty just because another would deny those from someone else. Anything above the collective needs of the whole should be unregulated and people free to try new things, adventure, learn, teach, profit from, etc.

reply to post by Bobbox1980


The underlying impetus of our modern (moral) crusades is that of utilitarianism, a principle which states that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Such a position is concerned with quantity rather than quality, and therefore seeks not evolutionary but numeric growth. Consider its "progressive" developments:

Humanism: the promotion of welfare for the greatest number is a tenet contra-evolutionary in principle, for it clings to the diseased. Perhaps the most universally accepted form of utilitarianism, this becomes the slogan for those who cannot think holistically, and therefore vitiate their morality to a purely anthropocentric mold.

Populism: political influence for the greatest number subverts any hierarchy and commonsense approach to order so that all can partake of the crumbs of the political pie, and thereby creates out of politics an appeal to the lowest-common-denominator. Special interest groups vie for ?political power,? while nothing fundamentally changes in this broken system.

Individualism: mass freedom from authority--which, according to the polarized thinking of individualists, merely seeks conformity--results in disjunction from community and social atomism. This facet of utility is the most ostensibly base, as ?happiness?--of mere individuals no less--become the ?shared? goal, and no greater ambitions are to be sought.

Collectivism: theoretically granting custody to ?the masses,? and ergo, to no one at all, this is the most abstract and utopian of the utilitarian schemas. Collectivism, however, works solely on the level of economics, and therefore does not distinguish itself from the rest of these culturally destructive ideological forms.

Economic growth and population growth are inextricably linked in a cycle of positive feedback. Economic growth is required to support an ever increasing population, yet the population must inexorably increase for the economy to be maintained. What ends up occurring in populations which embrace these utilitarian objectives is that mere sustenance becomes the sole societal priority, and any qualities associated with higher civilization vanish, for there are no resources that can any longer be dedicated to such an endeavor. With utilitarianism, quantity wins. Mediocrity dominates, and any spirit toward ascendancy is crushed, so that life can become "fair." The diseased, the unintelligent, and the emotionally dysfunctional become the normative; any thing greater becomes a form of dissent, to be leveled.

I for one find it odd you think individualism would cause a collapse in of our species.
Its the only thing that has not been tried in recorded history. For thousands of years wars have been fought over control. Hundreds of millions of people have been killed in the attempt.
The most succesfull living creatures of all time are totally solitary, they don't even rely on another to reproduce.

Originally posted by ManWithGrace89
I for one find it odd you think individualism would cause a collapse in of our species.
Its the only thing that has not been tried in recorded history. For thousands of years wars have been fought over control. Hundreds of millions of people have been killed in the attempt.
The most succesfull living creatures of all time are totally solitary, they don't even rely on another to reproduce.

Excellent comment.

I like to state all other forms of governance with this descriptor-

If the government or control apparatus just had a little MORE control, it would be a Utopia. That of course leads inherently to tyranny.

No other system has worked as well as the US framework in the HISTORY of mankind. Yet they keep wanting to have JUST A LITTLE MORE CONTROL.

Then everything would be SWELL.

reply to post by ExPostFacto


What? I'm sorry I've never seen Libertarianism related to communism ever, anywhere else. Libertarianism is the practice of responsibility, if you don't have something you go without in libertarianism, you don't steal it from someone else. You pay for your mistakes or lacks, you don't have someone else pay for it.

EDIT: for spelling.

[edit on 8-3-2010 by gaborn415]

reply to post by concernedcitizan


Utilitarianism makes fundamental errors in metaphysics which are incompatible with reality. As such we have the results we see today, which I think is what you were getting at. However libertarianism per se, as a model of individual liberty and the politics of rational self interest does not share those errors with utilitarianism. See Ayn Rand and Objectivism by Leonard Piekoff, it explains a lot.

If I became president of the country running on "libertarian principles" and I had the power to actually change something, I would go back to common law instead of contract law.

Common law is really simple, don't hurt other people and their property.

That would be complete utopia if everyone followed that simple rule.