;)

Libertarian Police™ Department

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”

He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

Unpopular opinion: obvious stuff that 99% of the people here will agree with.

It’s been my experience that libertarians are just conservatives that are too cowardly to commit to the bit.

I think you may have come up with the least unpopular opinion on Lemmy. There's more people who are unabashed fans of Stalin and Mao than there are libertarians.

Buuut...I mean, I'm not a libertarian, but I've taken libertarian ideas more seriously than you have, so I can play devil's advocate.

The idea behind libertarianism isn't to hand power over to corporations; that's just what detractors claim will happen. What they claim will happen is that corporations will become far less powerful.

The nightmare cyberpunk scenario where companies acquire private militaries and just physically take over doesn't really apply. The difference between libertarians and anarchists is that the former do see a place for government, usually including military, courts, policing, enforcement of contracts, and a few other things. So companies would continue to have to earn your dollar the old fashion way.

Now, think of industries that suck, where the companies are really shitty causing people to complain about them all the time, but are nonetheless stuck using them for lack of options.

Got some? Okay, now, were you thinking of electronics companies? No? How about bedding, or kitchenware? Hardware & tools? Flooring? Children's toys? Food & grocery?

Or...were you maybe thinking (depending where you live) of banking, airline, healthcare, insurance, or telecom industries?

Okay, now, change of topic: think of some industries with lots of regulation and government intervention.

Did you by any chance come up with the same list?

Lots of people will claim those industries are heavily regulated because they're somehow inherently shitty, and need the government to step in to fix them. Libertarians would say that those industries are shitty because regulations and government interventions prevent competition and shelter incumbents. They don't have to treat customers well anymore, or make particularly good products, because their position is secure whether they do or not. In an actual free market, competition is easier, so it's harder for a company to establish a monopoly.

An extreme example: Britain famously demanded Hong Kong as compensation from China during the Opium Wars, and used it as a gateway to Asia. They treated it with a sort of benign neglect: as long as the port was functioning, they didn't pay that much attention to the operation of the territory. It was not heavily regulated, to the point that even (for example) the healthcare industry was basically regulation-free. You could literally stick a sign on the door of your apartment claiming you were doctor, and start treating people, and nobody would stop you.

So, since healthcare is one of those sacred industries that requires heavy government regulation to protect people, the life expectancy and health outcomes of Hong Kongers must have been abysmal, right? Well...no, it actually climbed steadily throughout, and is #1 in the world today (though it should be noted the situation re: regulation changed post-1997). And it was a hell of a lot cheaper than American or European healthcare at every point.

There are industries where monopolies seem to form naturally. In my lifetime, Microsoft, Facebook and Google have all been accused of being monopolistic. There were calls for government intervention. But like...they were monopolies (or got close, anyway) because lots of people chose to use them. Nobody was forced. I couldn't stand Microsoft or Facebook, so I switched to Linux way back in the 90s and I've never really used Facebook at all. I do use some Google products, because they're pretty good.

And I'm fine. Nobody ever threatened me. My life wasn't negatively affected AFAICT. I just didn't use that product. Competitors appeared, like Linux & BSD, Reddit, Lemmy, etc, and I liked those better so I used them instead. That was it. Pretty boring as far as dystopias go.

The situation is a bit different when it comes to government. I can't opt in or out, I'm just stuck. I mean, I can move (assuming I have enough cash to do it), but fully extricating yourself from your home country is surprisingly hard: the US will chase you around the world to claim taxes from your income. And you immediately have to pick another country, and your options are severely limited.

People talk about corporations in such dire terms. It's kind of mystifying to me: just don't fucking use that corporation's products. Voila! You're free from their insidious influence.

Ahh, but they corrupt government institutions with their lobbying money! The libertarian answer is: have fewer government institutions, then. They can't lobby to bend regulations in their favor if there are no regulations in the first place. They would say that heavy regulation means incumbents are protected from competition, and can thus extract more 'rent', meaning more profit, which they can then turn towards warping the copious regulations in their favor...meaning still more protection, more profit, and more regulatory capture.

Like I said, I'm not a libertarian, but I understand their perspective, and I think it should be more influential than it is. I can talk about how rent control raises housing costs, or how "worker's rights" results in lower pay, or how minimum wages are racist and sexist.

Or you can just call me names for taking libertarians seriously! That seems like the more popular approach.

Is that an unpopular opinion? I thought that was the whole appeal, hence why most billionaires are libertarians.

That's also basically the moral of the story of bioshock.

Instead the way to go about this is MORE democracy not less of it.

Agreed. Some good steps to take:

• Switching to approval/STAR voting (far fewer flaws than FPTP, generaly better than ranked)

• Requiring all companies to be worker owned democracies. We don't accept dictators or monarchists in government, so why would we accept that kind of tyranny in our work?

• Shit loads of anti-corruption efforts. As of right now, politics is controlled with money, and politicians effectively get a free pass to use their office for personal gain. That shit needs to end.

Libertarianism denies humanity. Exalting the individual as the basic unit of society is the political equivalent to a spherical cow in a vacuum. The human mind and body deteriorate in isolation; we need others to even think or be healthy.

The individual in isolation also happens to be the weakest political unit. It's almost like the ruling class invented the an ideology for the serfs to demand feudalism. An ideology that not only rejects collective action, but short circuits any attempt. A group of libertarians is called an impasse.

Prioritizing the rational individual causes irrationality in society. Tens of thousands of rational decisions to go home at the same time lead to the irrationality of traffic.

Well, I wish it was more popular.

I love the concept of government, it's a state mechanism that when it works correctly, society advances and everything works. The problem it, it require constant citizens involvement in order to keep it in check.

Libertarianism: “fuck you, got mine” disguised as a legitimate political ideology

Settle down, there, Braveheart 😂

Is this really unpopular? I think it's a very based anarchosyndicalist standpoint.

ASU nor KU

Are you French? Because they have some acronyms backwards (like UE)

How can anyone take it seriously now of all times? Libertarianism in the modern day is being fronted by hack stand up comedians who ran out of material so they went with the political shtick to stay relevant. They don't actually believe in anything other than enriching themselves

The problem is that no single person can educate themselves strongly enough on every potential topic. That's why we're supposed to have representatives to spend all day in a specific area of expertise. I could be jobless, and study this stuff all day every day, 24/7 and STILL not be educated enough to vote on a bill and claim to understand all of the nuances and interactions with society that would ripple out from that decision.

And have you seen society? Do you REALLY want some of these idiots voting? They don't even care to educate themselves - so it's easy to influence them with advertisements and campaigns.

Companies are usually small dictatorships or even tyrannies. Handing them the power over all of society will only benefit the owners of these companies. The rest of society will basically be reduced to the status of slaves as they have no say over the direction of the society they maintain through their 9to5s.

Well said. It's so weird how gullible people can be.

The things that always gets thought about last is transparency, accountability, and separation of powers

Subsidies for big business, regulatory capture and other forms of corporate rent seeking are all things libertarians are against. For big L libertarians you even have party platforms.

The problem is capitalist libertarians don't see corporations as a power structure, just simply as an expression of individual effort. There's no libertarian conception of a corporation as a collective unit or a way to exert influence; libertarians see a corporation as a random group of individuals who voluntarily join a leader.

Yeah but isn't that just common sense for people outside libertarian circles? It's not an unpopular opinion, it's a logical conclusion.

Community driven, worker owned decision making? Maybe you could check out Democratic Confederalism?