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Written by Dixie Flatline

Value driven libertarianism.

If you don’t embrace multi-culturalism, you’re not libertarian.

If you discriminate in your business dealings or personal/religious/cultural affairs, you’re not libertarian.

If you aren’t for X, Y or Z, then you’re not libertarian.

Value driven libertarianism makes me mad.

I’ve been accused of using the NAP as a rhetorical device, but I believe that is only an attempt to dissuade me from constantly referring to what I consider a bedrock libertarian concept. Non-aggression.

I don’t care if people want to engage in bizarre sexual acts, I don’t care if they do or do not inter-marry and I certainly could care less what religion someone belongs to, as long as they do not promote their values to me through aggression. As long as they are content making decisions over their lives and not trying to make decisions over mine, we can co-exist regardless of what values they hold.

Some libertarians are not so forgiving. To them, libertarianism and a free market society carries with it certain guarantees of social structure, the end of some ideas and the institution of others.

I don’t buy that. I don’t know what a free market will produce, and I don’t pretend to know. People might try the free market, not like it, and impose a state upon themselves. Freedom allows all kinds of goofy decisions like that.

Watch out for libertarians who claim to have it all figured out. Odds are, they’re closet statists with their own social, economic and religious (or atheist) agendas.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Liberty, Philosophy. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

2 Comments »

  1. Mike

    This is spot on. That said, the truth of it shouldn’t give the paleo(-bigot)s any cover for the “cultural conservatism” program either.

    Comment — September 23, 2008 @ 12:52 pm

  2. Dixie Flatline

    The cultural conservatives are ok with me as long as they don’t break the NAP. If they want to limit their trade partners, gene pool and values, insulate those items from change and influence, then they will bear the cost of a lifestyle and environment that is stagnant and a closed loop of evolutionary feedback.

    Which is so totally cool, as they will be bearing the costs of such a philosophy.

    I guess if I was to define the libertarian effect on barbarians, it would be that they will extinguish themselves with their own values, rather than having so-called “progressive libertarian” values imposed on, or dictated to them. The way that barbarism thrives and survives today in the form of war mongers and religious/social fanatics is that the cost of their f**ked up ideas are socialized.

    Think about all of the preachy environmentalists. Now imagine them not being able to preach, but having to be first adopters of their own social and economic philosophies. Sure would sort the wheat from the chaff when they halve their standard of living to be true to their principles.

    Comment — September 23, 2008 @ 1:20 pm

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