18 Comments

Great piece. I become more and more anarchist every day.

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Right on. Sorry about the mixup!

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Excellent synopsis.

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To paraphrase Thoreau, government is best that governs least and when men deserve it, government is best that governs not at all.

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The only libertarian who ever made any practical sense was HH Hoppe, and his govt of choice was monarchy, which is still government.

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Please explain why anyone would be an advocate of a federal government model that has never governed a high quality of life society.

I love it when Farquar tried to defend the indefensible.

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3% is a very small pie to begin with. Not a lot there to divvy up.

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Wouldn't you include Adam Smith style classical liberalism under the libertarian umbrella?

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I see it as a continuum, not as an Aristotelian “all or nothing” boundary. So yes, I think it’s valid to say that classical liberals are close enough to the ideal concept of ‘libertarianism’ to justify a claim that they can validly qualify as such, regardless of any imperfections (relative to the ideal.)

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So wrong. REALITY attached.

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If you think I haven't correctly described what libertarians believe, what the major factions of libertarianism are, and how and why they disagree with each other, then please explain.

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OK, stupid mistake of mine. I actually watched the video and was responding to that. That's one of the problems with watching and reading so many different things a day.

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We all make such mistakes. For example, responding to the title of an article, without having actually read it (been there, done that.)

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I thought I had. But my attachment didn't come through on this. I'll see what I missed in your post. Realize the word Libertarian is quite flexible due to individual understandings just as being a Democrat or Republican is. They are labels that can't be nailed on to a particular dogma.

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"Realize the word Libertarian is quite flexible due to individual understandings just as being a Democrat or Republican is"

I concur. Getting that point across was the intent of my essay.

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And yet through all this u never once referenced the Libertarian Political Diamond or the World's Smallest Political Quiz?! I'm ~90,90 on that chart.

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Thanks for this article! It’s a lot to digest but first we must accept that our Constitutional Republic has failed and it’s unfair to the next generations to continue believing that it hasn’t failed. What is the best path forward?

While the idea of self-governance is very appealing, Viktor Frankl warned (in the ‘40s) that unbridled freedom could lead to degeneracy without responsibility and suggested that America should have a Statute of Responsibility on the west coast to balance the Statute of Liberty on the east coast. Looking back at history, freedom was already being restrained since at least 1913 because the Gilded Age was irresponsible.

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On my way home from the convention now!

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