/r/AskLibertarians

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A friendly place to learn about, critique, and question libertarians and their views. r/AskLibertarians is for any questions about the philosophy of libertarianism, libertarian movements and traditions, libertarian opinions on certain situations or current events, or anything else you feel is relevant. No question is too basic (or advanced!) to ask, so don't be shy. Subscribe :)

AskLibertarians is for any questions about the philosophy of libertarianism, libertarian movements and traditions, libertarian opinions on certain situations or current events, or anything else you feel is relevant. No question is too basic (or advanced!) to ask, so don't be shy :)

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/r/AskLibertarians

11,127 Subscribers

2

Are big corporations good?

I presume we mostly agree that corporations shouldn't be regulated by the government except maybe for some anti monopoly/violence laws but do you think that big corporations are good, I feel once there starts being middle management and large governing boards it basically becomes like government just a little better

7 Comments
2024/03/12
23:28 UTC

3

I haven't heard a peep about the libertarian candidates this year?! Is it just too early?

Who's the presidential frontrunner? What's a good neutral website to track the libertarian candidates?

7 Comments
2024/03/12
19:42 UTC

0

Why shouldn't the US have fought in WW1?

I've heard many Libertarians complain about America's participation in WW1, but how else should the US government have dealt with Germany, a country whose submarines wouldn't stop sinking American merchant ships.

21 Comments
2024/03/11
15:57 UTC

3

Statistics on gun crime/violence (effectiveness of gun control)?

Hey are there are any comprehensive statistics that show some sort of a correlation between deregulated gun ownership and gun crime or crime in general?

I found this https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/ and this https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shootings-by-country but I was wondering if more sources are accessible.

Do you guys know of any good statistics or data regarding the more anti-gun US states like California? Or even anti-gun states like Germany in the EU?

10 Comments
2024/03/11
15:22 UTC

5

Self defense vs. unarmed intruder

I’m currently reading Ethics of Liberty, and Rothbard argues that the correct justice system is a retributive one. So if someone steals your car and then you hunt them down and kill in them in their sleep, YOU would be liable for murder. Not because you engaged in vigilantism, but because your “punishment” of the criminal exceeded that which his crime demanded. Okay, we all understand this and I assume agree here.

But what if you catch an unarmed thief redhanded in your house? And let’s say you “caught” him because he broke in through your bedroom window while you were in bed. But unfortunately for you, you’re missing both your legs and are unable to stop him from running off with your wallet. So instead, you grab the gun from under your pillow and shoot him in the back, instantly killing him as he’s walking out.

Would (should) the defender be held liable for a crime in this scenario? I understand libertarians are not pacifists, but given Rothbard’s framework of retributive (proportional) justice, it seems like the defender would be liable given that killing someone is not proportional to them stealing a little bit of money.

42 Comments
2024/03/10
19:43 UTC

0

Were you a fan of Dragon Ball growing up?

With the passing of Akira Toriyama, I was curious how people of different political views felt about his work. What did you think of Vegeta in particular?

3 Comments
2024/03/10
19:35 UTC

2

What are the differences between the antidemocratic sentiments of US libertarians and the antidemocratic sentiments of US conservatives?

25 Comments
2024/03/10
11:08 UTC

10

Is there any (historical) proof that reducing government size decreases the chance of crony capitalism or corporatism?

24 Comments
2024/03/09
21:58 UTC

0

How would Libertarians solve decreasing fertility rates

Basically the title; I am very much in favour of free markets, free trade and small government, though I am wondering how (or if) such a combo can combat decreasing fertility rates.

I’m wondering what other free marketeers have to say besides offering religion.

42 Comments
2024/03/09
15:27 UTC

4

Is Thomas Jefferson overrated?

The long period of Democratic rule after 1800 vaulted the Declaration of Independence & Jefferson, its principal author, into legendary status, even though the document had only a modest influence in the nation's early years. Jefferson lifted most of the key passages of the Declaration from George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights and admitted that they weren't original thoughts. The Declaration of Independence, however, did eventually become a powerful symbol of human rights around the world. The document was also an important admonition that governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed & had a duty to secure their people's rights — not take them away. Yet in practice, as president, Jefferson often used the government to do just what he railed against: abscond with people's rights.

Jefferson sometimes used his executive power for disastrous purposes, especially when he implemented the harshly enforced embargo that usurped American freedoms & resulted in economic devastation & even starvation. Jefferson's idea to force Native Americans onto less desirable land farther west was a horrible precedent that had terrible

long-term human consequences. Although James Monroe set more policies in place that would slowly harm the country over time, Jefferson's immediate & disastrous embargo & enormously bad precedent in Indian policy are alone sufficient to rank him below Monroe. To those bad policies must be added Jefferson's execution of the Louisiana Purchase without amending the Constitution, which set a bad precedent for the government acquiring future territories & severely undermined that jurisprudential bedrock. Thomas Jefferson is ranked twenty-six [on a list of the most libertarian presidents] here.

— Ivan Eland, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity & Liberty

Thoughts?

20 Comments
2024/03/09
06:36 UTC

3

Best Strategy Books/Games.

Hey everyone, I'm getting into business adminstration. Not in a formal way like most people do. It is just the fact that I feel I kinda understand it better. To be more clear, I understand the "reason" & "human action". I would like to know some strategy books you have ever read or games that you have ever played. It can be of any genre. War, business, politics, history, anything! Wish me luck! 💛🖤😎

4 Comments
2024/03/08
21:56 UTC

3

Why do Chinese electronic products cost less?

11 Comments
2024/03/07
12:41 UTC

0

why is physical removal of those who disagree with us necessary?

"There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society." why is this needed. of course i would never associate with a communist but there is a huge diffrence between a communist and a democrat, as communists call for a violent revolution in order to achieve their goals. so why do we need to expel these people in order to maintain our desired political ideology? and how would this take place? like ancient Greece?

24 Comments
2024/03/07
09:06 UTC

0

What do you think of a very well run country that's not absolutely libertarian but more libertarian than US

Monaco, Singapore, Dubai.

All are very rich countries. Singapore is too socialist for me. And it kept drugs illegal. That's my pet peeves. But otherwise they're doing fine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/03/05/singapore-prime-minister-defends--paying-taylor-swift-to-not-perform-in-neighboring-countries/?sh=472a8a3b3877

This is a sample of what they do that's really not libertarian but make their country even richer.

If only it's not IQ shredder it would have been a great place to live.

Then we have Monaco and Dubai with no income taxes. The social freedom is pretty good too with Dubai allowing polygamy and transactional sex. Drugs are again, unfortunately illegal.

Thousands of such countries and one of them will be more libertarian than the other.

I think I like this more than anarchist Somalia

What do you think?

9 Comments
2024/03/06
14:48 UTC

5

Why should water be privatised? There's no competition??

16 Comments
2024/03/06
13:50 UTC

1

How do you define fascism?

Hello!

I think this is a fairly interesting topic because the word is thrown around so much but people seem to define it very differently.

I'm familiar with some scholarly definitions of fascism like Eco's and have my own opinions on the definition as well. However I wanted to learn what people of different ideologies define fascism as

So, I would appreciate it if you would answer these questions so I can learn what Libertarians think:

  • What is your definition of fascism?

  • What do you not define as fascism?

  • Do you consider any modern political figures or countries to be fascist? If so, which ones?

23 Comments
2024/03/06
09:19 UTC

3

Is anyone here familiar Ivan Eland and his work? How would you describe him?

3 Comments
2024/03/05
20:44 UTC

11

If an activist breaks the law, should they face the consequences of their actions?

There was a post on r/relationships. OP has a 22-year-old daughter, and she's a leftist climate activist. She and her friends went into an airport and threw paint and oil on rich people's private jets. Apparently, they also put paint and oil on the jet engines and made false phone calls claiming that the jets and one other plane had been sabotaged. They were caught and all arrested, and now she faces 20 years in prison. OP and his wife decided not to help their daughter at all. They aren't paying her bail or going to help her find a lawyer. All the comments were hating on OP, telling him that he's a bad person. They all believe she should get away with her crimes scot-free. Apparently, the phrase "fuck around and find out" is foreign to these people. She broke multiple laws, so she will go to prison, probably for a very long time. By the time she gets out, she will be in her 40s. She will have no one to blame but herself. Her and her friends acted like a bunch of animals, so they should be put in cages and treated like animals.

Edit: People are saying she was "fighting for a good cause." That may be true, and if her target was rich people using jets that hurt the planet, well, she failed because it's working-class people who are going to have to pay if you destroy someone's property. The property owner isn't the one who's going to pay the person who damaged it; it is the one who's going to be paying, and working-class people are going to have to put their blood, sweat, and tears into fixing the plane that person destroyed. She's actually hurting the people she's trying to fight for.

18 Comments
2024/03/05
20:43 UTC

0

How would libertarians deal with terrorism?

Much of the discussion that that can be found in response to terrorism focuses mostly on 9/11 and government intervention in a classical liberal sense (for the common defense):
https://www.lp.org/blogs-daniel-wiener-how-do-you-deal-with-terrorists/
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/libertarian-splits-war-terrorism/

The second link explores whether Bin Laden should have been brought to trial rather than declared war on. One misconception that the LP run into is the "cycle of violence" myth with their statement in 2001:

A fundamental role of the United States government, as defined in the U.S. Constitution, is to protect American citizens against foreign attack. Therefore, it is proper for the government to take forceful action against terrorists who have already killed thousands of Americans, and who have threatened to kill more. Such criminals must be rooted out and destroyed before more innocent people die. Their training camps and weapons must be eliminated. Their supply infrastructure must be shattered.

At the same time, the United States’ response must be appropriate and measured. Every precaution must be taken to minimize injury or death to innocent civilians and non-combatants — in Afghanistan and in other nations. To do otherwise is not only a violation of America’s ideals, it would also create future enemies for our nation and continue the cycle of violence and revenge.

Bin Laden attacked because the United States didn't follow sharia law, and 9/11 was meant to be an impressive show of force to get people to convert to Islam (I suggest reading the book "The Bin Laden Papers" by Nelly Lahoud). As long as the rest of us do not live in an Islamic state, that makes us fair game for violent jihadists. Nothing to do with revenge.

I don't see how libertarians could reconcile non-interventionism with terrorism. There could be an argument that terrorism is a result of government blunders; Terrorist orgs need exorbitant amounts of money to function, and they get that money from sympathetic governments or from hostage situations that result in extortion of a hostile government. Without such funding, terrorist orgs would fail.

96 Comments
2024/03/05
05:12 UTC

2

How do you explain economic crises?

Libertarians like to blame economic crises on government interventions and the government certainly isn't blameless, however if you assume that the actors within the economy are rational thinkers, which is the assumptions that libertarian economics makes, shouldn't they have forseen the economic troubles.

The loose policies of the federal reserve certainly carry blame for the great depression but shouldn't the banks who lend out money to stock investors have known that and not have lend them money?

The government created the subprime mortgage bubble, but shouldn't the banks have done their own due dillegence?

It seems to me that libertarian economics don't account for mass hysterias, when everone is getting rich off of stock it seems to be rational to join the frenzy.

15 Comments
2024/03/04
13:57 UTC

9

What was your opinion on Shell suing Greenpeace?

Back in November 2023, the company Shell sued Greenpeace for $2.1 million after activists boarded their oil vessel without permission. A lot of leftists were upset at this, and one comment said, "If Shell can sue Greenpeace, can I sue Shell for damaging the environment?" I find this dumb because how you feel about big corporations is irrelevant to this. They broke the law; if they were to get arrested, sued, or both, they would have no one to blame but themselves. There is nothing wrong with protesting against oil companies or any company, but if they break the law and damage property while doing so, there will be consequences for it.

The actives were trespassing and damaging property, and while they were trespassing, they should have been arrested. If I wanted to protest against Jeff Bezos, I could, but I can't go to an Amazon warehouse and destroy property and get mad when I get arrested or sued. Leftists believe that you should be able to do whatever you want and break multiple laws without any consequences, and a lot of these people know less than fuck-all about the law. “If Shell can sue Greenpeace for allegedly hurting Shell, then why can’t Greenpeace sue Shell for allegedly hurting ‘the environment’?” is the sort of question a 3-year-old asks and then thinks they have made a brilliant argument. What's your opinion on it? And again, there is nothing wrong with protesting companies, but if you break the law doing it, there will be consequences. We don't live in a society where we can break laws and rules and there will be no consequences for it.

4 Comments
2024/03/03
22:41 UTC

0

Should the federal government fund the police? Or should states do it instead?

27 Comments
2024/03/03
19:00 UTC

1

What harms are there in an energy price cap?

7 Comments
2024/03/03
10:40 UTC

0

Repercussions for nap violation

My understanding was that if an opposing country violated the nap they would be wiped of the earth with no mercy and nothing left behind but I keep hearing libertarians say that Israel should try a ceasefire or that they are bad or need to stop in some way, aren't they just responding to an nap violation and trying to be fairly reserved about it?

5 Comments
2024/03/03
08:55 UTC

3

Why was decriminalisation of drugs a failure in Oregon?

12 Comments
2024/03/02
16:45 UTC

6

Be as specific as you want, but how would you define the "state" or "government"?

Generally, Libertarians and AnCaps agree that the "state" is a monopoly on force. However, using this definition, wouldn't a Rights Enforcement Agency that merges with a private Arbitration agency and is dominate in an area be considered a monopoly on force and therefore a minimal state as Nozick suggests?

12 Comments
2024/03/02
15:07 UTC

5

What right do you deem the most important?

18 Comments
2024/03/01
22:48 UTC

2

public land and waters

so in a libertarian state what would happen to public land and waters like large lakes and state/national parks, I get a tourist company could buy them but it seems to me that oil or logging companies would be able to outbid and supply it much faster leaving us with very little "public land" left that would just have tolls to enter?

I believe that private companies are better than the state but that large companies tend to corrupt just the same, I also don't think we should stop beef farming because of co2 emissions but also don't think we should let every tree in the world be cut down just because it's a profitable resource.

5 Comments
2024/03/01
19:34 UTC

0

Why do parents get to have authority over a child?

As a libertarian, I generally respond to any claim that a person can exercise authority over another person because of some arbitrary social construct with, "fuck you."

And I am having trouble with why parents get any authority over a child. It seems like, "provided genetic material" and is a really arbitrary basis to grant a person authority over another person.

Why do parents have right to exercise authority over a child in libertarianism?

101 Comments
2024/03/01
14:38 UTC

4

Is there an age of consent under libertarianism?

For the sake of argument, this means someone not yet at the minimum age of consent is assumed to be legally unable to consent to both 1) the signing of contracts and 2) sexual activity of any kind.

If there is, at which age should one be legally able to consent, and which exemptions are possible? If there is none, why is there none?

38 Comments
2024/03/01
14:14 UTC

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