Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Let's see what the standard definition of 'libertariansim' is from Google:
an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens.
Hrm. That's weird. That doesn't really square up with some people's, uh, unique view of Libertarianism. I wonder if Wikipedia would be a bit more helpful?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertari ... t_currentsBoy, it's sure hard for me to figure out which Libertarianism is the right one. I tend to think what's being discussed by our board's, uh, whatever-he-is favors Left-Libertarianism because he's advocating more of what got SoCal into the mess it's in, and is in favor of securing your labor for the benefit of the people who are free to reproduce without end, take drugs in the street, and usher in more desperate people into an already desperate situation. I guess you Californians will just have to suck it up, throw more money at private organizations who are already solving the problem!
But then again, I'm not really sure what our resident expert-on-everything thinks the solution is because he really doesn't offer solutions other than: More of your money to him so he can solve homelessness. Of course he doesn't believe private donors will step up to any relevant degree so I'm fairly certain it's up to the government to levy more taxes on you so he can fix what he advocates creating more of. It's the perfect job security position if you ask me...
- Doc
Minimal government intervention in people's lives is what you get when you are economically conservative and socially liberal. Minimal is not "none" and libertarianism does not collapse into its anarcho-capitalist subtype.
The view I expressed would not be out of place in
Reason, the most important libertarian political publication or
CATO, the most important libertarian think tank. Indeed, I specifically linked a podcast discussion among libertarians from libertarian organization CATO on libertarian support of universal basic income. It also would not be out of place among numerous important libertarian thinkers. I already mentioned one: Milton Friedman. The idea that the most influential and popular libertarian publications, think tanks, and scholars aren't really libertarian or don't know what libertarianism is because of some half-cocked reading of a wikipedia article certainly sounds like the hasty googling to confirm your biases that you are so fond of accusing others of.
The idea that libertarianism is a political label that describes relative economic conservativism and social liberalism is a popular stance among libertarians mostly famously expressed in the
Nolan quadrant model of the political continuum. Libertarians stereotypically share this outlook through the
"World's Smallest Political Quiz." which is designed to convince people that libertarianish thinking is more common than they might imagine. Studies that attempt to look at the prevalence of libertarian thinking in the US population typically measure it specifically by looking for the combination of economically conservative and socially liberal beliefs associated with libertarians (it's about 10-25% of the population depending on whose methods and definitions you favor). Maybe a little more hasty googling can lead to discovering that for yourself.