this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Says “I’m a libertarian but I’m not one of those crazy ones”.
My followup question is usually what’s your opinion on seatbelt laws and drivers licenses.
Libertarianism isn’t a monolithic ideology, and opinions vary widely among libertarians. Furthermore, one who identifies as libertarian doesn’t inherently reject all utilitarian or communitarian values. Some may argue against seatbelt laws and drivers’ licenses on the basis of personal freedom and responsibility, while others might see the value in certain regulations that protect public safety. What unites libertarians is a belief in limiting government intervention to essential functions, but defining those ‘essential functions’ can differ greatly among individuals within the libertarian community. Libertarians often share common ground with leftists on social values, differing significantly from mainstream Republican politicians.
Seatbelt laws would really only make sense if their purpose was to protect others from harm, but, as far as I've been able to think, this would only make sense in 2 scenarios:
As for driver's licenses, that's actually a rather complicated issue.
EDIT 1: As pointed out in this post, there is a third case that I hadn't originally considered in that, in a crash, one's limp, and unrestrained corpse could fly through the windshield and end up causing damage to someone else's property, or bodily harm to another.
There are cases where in a head on collision the person not wearing a seatbelt is launched out of the car like a missile killing people in the opposite car.
Yeah, I came across that point in this post, a little while after I had written the above comment. I will update my comment accordingly.
Both are necessary, there's an argument to strengthen the latter, and neither violate the NAP. I'm not one of those crazy ones 😁
These two statements contradict each other.
The NAP is a substitute for laws for "libertarians" who can't tolerate the thought of other people actually being free.
The entire point is to have something that proactively justifies the forcible imposition of your will upon others. So the instant that somebody does something of which you disapprove, you can decree, by whatever rationale might serve, that it's a violation of the NAP, so you're now entirely justified in shooting them.
The NAP is not a substitute for laws. I would argue that it is a framework, or set of principles by which laws are created. Also I do not understand what you are implying in the second part of that statement.
This is blatantly false. Libertarianism is fundamentally opposed to the idea of "the forcible imposition of your will upon others".
Can you define "something of which you disapprove"?
Not really. It only seems that way because most of us have only had experiences with the psychotic capitalist neo-libertarians of the Murray Rothbard school.
Actual libertarians, left libertarians. Can definitely get pretty squirrely when you get out on the fringes of ideologic anarchists etc. But many are fairly rational and even generally pro social democracy.
Right-wing libertarians are just an oxymoron. Under capitalism none of us can truly be free and we are all subject to the whims of wealth hoarding psychotic oligarch monkeys. They'll tell you that you're free not to work for them. The only problem is choosing not to work for them means choosing starvation, homelessness, and death. Which isn't the sort of thing that should be considered a choice in any civil society. But absolute necessities for unsustainable systems such as capitalism.
No, the NAP is a principle not a substitute set of laws. It applies equally to an individual or to groups affected by a policy; the point is to lessen, not eliminate, 'agression' on balance and holistically. What you're describing is used not just by 'libertarians' but by anyone that doesn't want a law to apply to them.
Did you overlook the "non" in "non-aggression principle"?
You think that libertarians don't think laws apply to them...?
The NAP is only colorably considered a "principle" when one applies it toward one's own life and one's own choices. That's notably NOT the way that the "libertarians" who pay it the most lip service use it.
Instead, they apply it to other people's lives and other people's choices. And the explicit point is to measure the nominal accepability of those other people's lives and choices, and as necessary to provide colorable justification for imposing their wills on those other people in order to prevent or punish the "wrong" choices.
That's the exact function of law, simply transferred to a different concept.
Isn't this entire thread about "libertarians" vs libertarians? I'm not sure who you're trying to argue with but it certainly isn't me 😁
By "libertarians", are you referring to the non-libertarians that OP was outlining in their post?