Seems to me that libertarianism is a position someone can take up if they want to endlessly rag on the left, generally agree with the right, and take responsibility for decisions made by neither.
Libertarians take responsibility for their own actions. Your actions have benefits and consequences; you shouldn't be insulated from either.
Since their platform is one of no action at all (other than self-serving actions) that would seem quite convenient. But actually that's not true at all. The whole purpose of Libertarianism is to escape being held accountable or responsible for the consequences of your actions.
Think really hard, and then reconsider your opinion. Here, I'll make it simple to you: The flip side of the coin of Liberty is Responsibility.
Whatever. Libertarianism is all about not helping your neighbors and not taking responsibility for how your personal greed adversely affects other people's lives. It's all about rolling back and nullifying every safety, environmental, and business practices regulation on the books. It's about being able to steal your neighbor's waterfront by diverting the river that crosses your land. It's about being able to employ people to work with asbestos but not having to provide them adequate protection or training... It's about not being governed in any way, shape, or form.
On the contrary, libertarians are the only folks who acknowledge the universality of human greed and argue methods for turning it toward the common good. Other political theories pretend they'll somehow eliminate it but generally just cloak it in the garb of political power and the public good Entertainingly, most all of these criticisms are more accurately leveled at progressives as they actually govern. That is, while they certainly encourage more regulation on the books, they encourage selective enforcement and creating regulation that benefits particular companies over others, thus, basically, the personal greed of their donors. That sounds more like the sort of thing allowed by the liberal justices on the Supreme Court (Stevens, joined by Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer), or in very liberal California (where the state, with apropriators who are heavily politically influenced) have a big say, than by the more libertarianish common law interpretation whereby the situation you describe would lead to a successful suit to compensate or stop the diversion. Err... no. A good libertarian first step would be better enforcement and disclosure via the legal system for obvious fraud and torts. Which would be quite a bit better than the government solution of continuing to use asbestos in pretty much every school built until the late seventies. Which, I admit, was only about 1950 years after the first historically documented caution against and recommendation for safety when working with asbestos. So yeah, governments really got right on that.
Even if they could be considered modern libertarians, which is a significant stretch, the fact remains that those guys governed 200 years ago. barfo
So they do govern. And they designed our republican form of government, which would work really well as it was intended to.
No, they don't govern. Some long-dead guys that you want to lay claim to did govern, 200 years ago. The world has changed quite a bit in 200 years. I'm not sure if Washington was reanimated today he'd be of much use. Remember how Bush I was amazed by supermarket scanners? Washington would be amazed by the tile on the floor of the supermarket. barfo
Washington would be amazed at how outrageous the size of government is and the scope of its power. He'd be amazed at the fiscal irresponsibility. He'd be amazed that government is looked to as the solution to the problems created by government being big, requiring it to be bigger. And at the use of taxpayer money to buy off interest groups. He'd be amazed at what Rangel and Waters got caught for and what the others don't get caught for. Libertarians aren't for no government at all. We're for a government that's sized properly, so there's no point in bribing a politician because he has no power to do anything so favorably for one at the expense of another. (BTW, case not to be pursued by the DoJ against Tom Delay, after 6 years of investigation).
Washington would also be amazed by the telephone, the television, the internet, and porn... I doubt we'd be able to get him out of his hotel room.
Changing the size and scope of government in order to minimize bribery? Is bribery really a more important issue than government services in your world? barfo
Many government services are formalized bribery to keep politicians in power and bureaucrats employed.
Ross Perot said it best: "Blue collar bank robbers go into a bank with a gun and hand the teller a note demanding money. White collar bank robbers rob 100s of banks in one fell swoop (and are more likely to get away with it)." Yep, government is the white collar bank robber. I'm affected every payday when I look at my pay stub and see how much is being TAKEN. Rationally, $2.5T would be nearly a balanced budget, and it would be all the govt. services provided at the end of the Clinton presidency and enough extra to fund both wars. Exactly what "services" do you want to claim we're getting over and above that for the extra $1.4T?