Libertarianism/individual freedom

[Rhyfelwyr]

It's like you don't understand what libertarianism is; freedom to act so long as you don't violate another person's rights.

Which is where my second argument comes on. Already you have denied complete freedom, and restricted it from the public to the private sphere. So now we are only free in the private sphere. This would be fine if we were robots that could be happy living on their own and keeping their ideas to themselves, but we are not. It's human nature, we have to play our role in society to be happy, and our beliefs are a part of who we are. If we cannot express them in the public sphere, are we really free? Are we able to pursue happiness unhindered? Or are only libertarians afforded such a privilege?

A libertarian ideology isn't so much 'upheld' as no ideology is enforced on the people.

The answer to this is in my third point. Since we don't begin our lives as rational agents, a sort of 'tabula rasa' situation, if we are brought up with any belief system then this infringes on our freedom to think for ourselves when we are older, since we are a product of our upbringing. As a consequence of this, a pure libertarian will argue for children not to be exposed to belief systems when they are young and totally vulnerable to them (eg Dawkins argument). However, for practical purposes, if you raise people with no belief system, then they will struggle to develop one when they are older, just as surely as they would struggle to change from one they had been brought up in. And so, a purely libertarian system raises generations with no values, a very repressive and narrow-minded system in itself.

What? Why? You can be religious and libertarian at the same time.

Depends on what exactly your religious beliefs are. Only those with libertarian values are allowed to be expressed publicly in a libertarian society. Hardly fair I think. Practical perhaps, but not fair.

Um, where? Show me this libertarian state.

A perfectly libertarian state has never existed. Generally, we use libertarianism as a sort of practical system to protect minorities etc, and I think this is how you would view it, CR, unless you are a true libertarian radical.

If people such as yourself would accept this, then they should not play the 'intolerance' card whenever an idea which threatens libertarianism is expressed.

Good grief. Here's why it's liberating; because you can do what you want so long as you don't overrun the rights of others. You can't do that in Saudi Arabia, and your criteria would apply to any form of government. I'll admit nothing to such silliness.

CR

And we're back to the original problem. How free are we if our beliefs cannot extend beyond the private sphere? Almost all the belief systems seen throughout human history are by nature absolute, in that they claim to be the right path, and to work effectively they must be enforced at the societal level. Socialism isn't a lot of good if only poor people believe in it. How can one man tax another if he can't even interfere in his private sphere? Indeed, if you support any taxation whatsoever then you are admitting that we are a social species, and our freedom must extend beyond the private sphere for it to be truly realised.

Such a person is not a true libertarian, and in admitting that libertarianism is a scale, a balance between private and public freedoms, libertarians lose their right to claim status as a special sort of ideology above and compatible with all others, and instead just become another one of the competing belief systems that every human being holds to.