I don't comprehend libertarian ideas...

[Berzerker]

Imran -

No, it's a word the moderates (you know the people that get things done ) use for wackos that can't learn to live in society and play well with others.

Immoral things, hooray for the moderates. As for learning to live in society and playing well with others, you mean wearing a smile as moderates steal our money to pay for the things they want to get done. You act as if society did not exist before the income tax...it did...

This presupposes that there is a God and if there is, then this God will judge humans.

Yes, a risk I'm willing to take. You want to take the risk there is no God or Karma? Go right ahead, you might be right.

Furthermore, what is more 'moral', staying ideologically pure and watching the world go to Hell (pun not intended), or compromising a little bit and making the world a more 'moral' place (according to your beliefs)?

You mean the world won't go to hell if I help moderates steal from others? Gee, where do I sign up to save the world? The Constitution would be compromising a little bit, not the welfare/nanny state we have now and will have in years to come thanks to the "moderates".

Only when you get in power can you attempt to put your ideas into place and make the society 'better'.

By lying? After all, if the reason I lack power is because the moderates won't support my desires for a moral government, how do I get their votes? Certainly not by telling the truth. But I guess lying to gain power is acceptable in a world without black and white.

Of course rape can be 'moral'. If the society believes it to be moral, then it is. QED.

Sig material! Then the Holocaust was moral if German "society" says so? "Society" can't agree on much of anything, so the best you can usually get is a majority of the people. And that means all sorts of evils from genocide to slavery are "moral" if the majority says so...

I didn't know that those that want freedom, but not total freedom are considered people that 'don't want freedom' at all.

Where under the dictionary's entry for "freedom" did you find "total freedom" as opposed to just "freedom"? Sure, we give up some freedoms under the Constitution, but "moderates" don't want constitutional limits on their power.

Libertarians don't want total freedom. They don't want people to have the freedom to steal (after all the first definition of freedom is being 'free of constraints'... and isn't the law a constraint). Are libertarians thus those that don't want freedom?

Imran, you aren't getting it. Freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint, murder (your first example) and theft are constraints, therefore when these acts are committed, constraints exist, and that means freedom no longer exists. You cannot put a ball and chain around someone's ankle and call it freedom, the slave knows the difference even if you don't.
So, a law that prohibits murder does not violate anyone's freedom because murder is not an act of freedom...

Libertarians merely want more freedom than other groups.

Which means it is logical for a person who claims to believe in freedom to accept the libertarian ideology over other competing ideologies that believe in less freedom. I suspect all libertarians can accept a society in which people are left to live their lives as they see fit as long as they don't infringe upon others with force, fraud, or threats.

Of course there is disagreement over how much freedom should be given. After all, people live in a society. Other ideals such as equality are considered important by most people as well. There must be some sort of balance struck between the two... or else you have socialist revolution, and I'm sure you'd hate that .

If these people want equality to supercede freedom, let them tell the truth about what they believe.

Berzerker even puts libertarians on the extreme right wing of his scale

"Extreme" is your characterisation, anarchists are to the right of libertarians.

[Al B. Sure!]

huh?

why is it that none of the libertarians understood my first point about police forces? user fees? now tell me why "Joe Smith Security Co" would ever place their officers in the inner city when they know they'll be first of all, in incredible danger, and secondly, if they do protect anyone, they won't get paid. Wouldn't the CEO of Joe Smith Security Co just tell his officers to not bother fighting crime in certain areas as they make no money out of it?

[Al B. Sure!]

as for education... also, i'm still not comprehending...

loans? 6 year old children can get loans? work? 6 year old children can work?

how are the children able to pay for their education? don't punish people to wallow away in ignorance, living a pointless existance, just because of the wrongs of their parents who didn't give a damn about them.

[Q Classic]

albert, you're not alone in not comprehending libertarian beliefs.

objectivists don't either, but mostly cause they think the libertarian views aren't consistent.

[Whaleboy]

None of us understand each other!!

[David Floyd]

loans? 6 year old children can get loans? work? 6 year old children can work?

how are the children able to pay for their education? don't punish people to wallow away in ignorance, living a pointless existance, just because of the wrongs of their parents who didn't give a damn about them.

Their parents can get loans, and their parents can work more. Obviously.

[Az]

I understand the views of all of you perfectly. I don't agree with them. Neither Berz and DF the libertarians, nor Whaleboy the moral relativist, or Imran the immoral. () I mostly don't agree with any of you.

You gotta give it to the libertarians: They ARE consistent ( 'cept the reparation issue ). They have this basic rule: "one is free to do whatever he wants to, as long as he doesn't force anyone to do something else". And they stick with it. Of course, what results is something terrible, but that's a different issue. Hell, their approach is more constructive than the moral relativists', which decide to dodge the question altogether: "Better society? who decides about 'better'?".

[Arrian]

Az. Even though I bet you disagree with me too

-Arrian

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by Azazel
You gotta give it to the libertarians: They ARE consistent ( 'cept the reparation issue ). They have this basic rule: "one is free to do whatever he wants to, as long as he doesn't force anyone to do something else". And they stick with it. Of course, what results is something terrible, but that's a different issue. Hell, their approach is more constructive than the moral relativists', which decide to dodge the question altogether: "Better society? who decides about 'better'?".

Reparations: whatever dude. Give me a good argument as to why we are inconsistant on reparations. Libertarians have never been for the redistribution of property. This is just an outright slander. There is nothing to the statement that somehow being agaianst reparations for slavery is against our basic philosophy. NOTHING!

[Whaleboy]

Hell, their approach is more constructive than the moral relativists', which decide to dodge the question altogether: "Better society? who decides about 'better'?".

Libertarians are moral relativists by definition. The apex required to make it work (which is variable per libertarian view, mine is ML obviously), is merely the limiter on that, which works both ways. The idea of better society is in cultural relativism, which is completely separate to moral relativism, and only has implications for foreign policies, like pacifism etc, not necessarily libertarianism. Retract your strawman!

[David Floyd]

Sorry, Whaleboy. Moral absolutism is, in many ways, REQUIRED for Libertarianism, at least in my view.

[Az]

Libertarians have never been for the redistribution of property. This is just an outright slander.

I never even dreamed of 'accusing' you of such a thing, guys. I did think you believe in liberty, though. If a person has their rights infringed, he deserves compensation, right? that money that he has the right to, he can pass to his kids, right? QED. those people deserve the compensation.

Think of it as a loan. if a person owes another person money, then he'll still have to return it, even if he's dead, to his kids. The same here. and since the government has illegaly taxed those slave-owners, I think it's only right that it will be the one to repay those debts, as well. The fact that the government is stealing money from you doesn't mean that it doesn't have to repay the other guy.

I, personally, don't believe in compensations for slavery, btw, but for reason of social cohesiveness, and not 'rights' or 'entitlements'.

[Whaleboy]

Sorry, Whaleboy. Moral absolutism is, in many ways, REQUIRED for Libertarianism, at least in my view.

How so?

[David Floyd]

AZ, you apparently haven't seen my argument re: slavery reparations that basically says that the descendants of the slaves are deriving far greater benefits from the prior existence of slavery than they would be if slavery never existed.

That is, by being in the US, they are better off than if they were in Africa. If I owe reparations because I have, in some way, derived a benefit from the existence of slavery, then the descendants of ex-slaves owe reparations, as well.

Of course, they can't pay themselves reparations, and it's hardly fair to expect me to pay, and for them to "double-dip" (live in the US AND receive extra reparations), so I shouldn't have to pay reparations.

[Whaleboy]

I dont think the whole compensation/penal thing is central to libertarianism. That only defines what is against the law, not punishments. Any implications are variable and indirect.