Comments on: Liberaltarian Reactions

By: Liberals + libertarians = liberaltarians « The Spirit of Moderation

Liberals + libertarians = liberaltarians « The Spirit of Moderation — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:07:57 +0000

[...] Future?“, December 2006; “Liberaltarianism Back to the Future”, May 2008; and “Liberaltarian Reactions”, February [...]

By: More Monopoly Power in Education | Radical Ignorance

More Monopoly Power in Education | Radical Ignorance — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:09:33 +0000

[...] like this make me hopeful that the country could be swept by a liberaltarian movement. Education reform should be a high priority of such a movement. By agreeing to commit [...]

By: R4 Cards

R4 Cards — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:00:09 +0000

By: dude91

dude91 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:31:14 +0000

Good read , i like the way you put your point forward .
I agree with all you said up there !

By: Mobile Phone Accessories

Mobile Phone Accessories — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:51:01 +0000

Conservatives may be against big government in theory, but rarely are in practice; they tend to be more interested in regulating expression because of concerns about vulgarity, for instance.

By: dustinjruybal

dustinjruybal — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:04:52 +0000

The latter suspect that even moderate libertarian types reject the legitimacy of regulation altogether, and so are just being coy when pointing out the costs of regulation. Libertarians aren’t really interested in regulatory efficiency. They just hate regulation, period.The other thing is (and this is no ones fault) thrift savings plan when public arguments are made against regulation liberals aren't usually the targets- low information middle class moderates are which leads to regulation opponents making their arguments not about helping the poor but about the government trying to take over Regular Joe's life. So not only does your funding not come from people we trust but often the arguments your making look to us like manipulating people with fear

By: Brad Taylor's Blog

Brad Taylor's Blog — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 03:15:21 +0000

In Defence of Insufficient Government*…

There has been a lot of chatter recently about the idea of liberaltarianism: the potential political alliance between libertarians and contemporary left liberals. Being someone who came to libertarianism a few years back from a pragmatic left liberal p…

By: Dan H

Dan H — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:12:46 +0000

A more fundamental rift between liberals and libertarians is that liberals believe that society and economic activity needs to be planned by a central authority. This is why they are almost always in favor of new regulations - a regulation is a plan, an attempt to control what they see as out-of-control forces. No matter how good an economy is, it can always be made better by the smart people at the top, so long as they are given the power to change things.

Libertarians, on the other hand, are okay with the notion that a modern society is an exercise in spontaneous order, and that optimal solutions are often reached if you simply let society or the economy work out the problem and adapt. Most libertarians accept that society has to work within a framework of social order and civil society, and that government has a place in maintaining the conditions which allows markets to work and people to be free to choose without coercion. This separates them from anarchists.

Conservatives get along with libertarians because they share the same fundamental beliefs when it comes to the economy, only they tend to personify it by saying that the family and local community are the drivers of social order, and they seek to protect them. Both Conservatives and libertarians have an inherent distrust of central planning, and this overrides their differences on social policy enough to allow them to work together.

Where conservatives and libertarians differ is that conservatives think the central government should be the protector of established social norms and morality, and libertarians do not. But compared to their agreement that central planning of the economy is bad, this is a much smaller area of disagreement.

I do not see how libertarians and liberals can work together so long as liberals seek to continually increase the state's power to plan society and control the market. This is a very deep, very fundamental difference in philosophy.

By: webgrrl

webgrrl — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:41:15 +0000

"smoking bans, transfats"

Um, Craig, reality check: here in NYC all that "nanny state nonsense" was pushed by um, the then-Republican, Bloomberg.

I find most liberals are too busy telling me that FGM can't be judged because it's an issue of multiculturalism and oh no they wouldn't ever judge; it's conservatives who are making me infantile, telling me how I have to live my life and how I can't get birth control inexpensively over-the-counter because they have religious beliefs.

By: toad

toad — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:08:17 +0000

The problem is intractable when it reflects a deep enculturated distrust between classical liberals and contemporary liberals. The latter suspect that even moderate libertarian types reject the legitimacy of regulation altogether, and so are just being coy when pointing out the costs of regulation. Libertarians aren’t really interested in regulatory efficiency. They just hate regulation, period.

Well, yes.

I've read too many libertarian screeds about abolishing the Federal Reserve, "taxation is theft," getting rid of OSHA, the evils of environmental rules, and even zoning, repealing civil rights laws, etc. to believe otherwise.

The fact is libertarians generally come across as fanatic ideologues - the kind of people you edge away from at a party so as not to hear about how fractional reserve banking is the source of all our troubles, and how wonderful things are in Somalia.