Difference between Liberals and Libertarians

Tennesseahawk · Dec 20, 2011

Liberals often talk about freedom from government intrusion, making me think they sound like libertarians. Regardless, they are not. Yes, their thought of being free is wonderful, leading them to Ron Paul in a disillusioned Obama world. So what is the main difference between freedom-loving liberals and libertarians?

I think the biggest difference is that liberals hold the illusion that you can have liberty alongside big government. You can't. The more power government has, the more intrusive it becomes. There is no way around that. It's called bureaucracy.

The ONLY way to achieve freedom from government is to do the government's job yourself. That means being a responsible individual, with a strong work ethic. Strong individuals create a strong community. Strong communities create a strong country. And a strong country doesn't take crap from a bunch of bureaucrats. Let freedom ring!

AMonger · Dec 20, 2011

There's also a difference in what each calls freedom. To the libertarian, freedom is rooted in private property rights, even to what most would call the extreme. I read a novel by L. Neil Smith called The Forge of the Elders, about a space shuttle mission to an asteroid to explore it to find out what exploitable minerals it held. Upon their arrival, they found that it was already occupied by aliens, and the alien civilization was libertarian to the core. That allowed the author to paint his picture of a libertarian utopia. Some aspects were better, and some were ridiculous.

Forex, disoutes were settled by arbitration. One such case was that of a man (being?) who fell from his balcony and would have fallen to his death, had he not managed to catch himself on the balcony below. As he clung there, trying g to lift himself up, the homeowner who owned that balcony was yelling at hi e to let go, because he was trespassing. To let go meant falling to his death. He managed to climb up on the balcony, with the homeowner yelling at time the whole ti e about trespassing. He couldn't get up to his own balcony from there, so he took the most direct route through the man's living room and out the front door. The trespasser was sorry, but really didn't have any other option other than falling to his death. The arbitrator awarded the "victim" an award equal to rent for the couple of minutes he was trespassed upon. But the guy would settle for nothing less that the execution of the trespasser, so in the end, he got nothing.

Other libertarians want no public police or fire, but private. One story I read suggested that people contract security firms for their protection, each being profit motivated to doing the best job with no casualties that would eat into their profit margin. They also call for the abolition of public streets, which is just unworkable. Every time you turned a corner, you would end up owing the owner of that street whatever he wished to charge for driving or walking there. They could even ban whoever they didn't want there. So Coca Cola Inc. could own a road and nobody on it could ever get a Pepsi. So that clearly wouldn't work.

Otoh, as you point out, leftists freaking love government, as much or more so than libertarians despise it. Greg334 might not be a pure leftist, but he sure does love government and submission to it.

PJ ORourke once said of liberals that their idea of freedom is an infantile one. They consider freedom the right to say bad words and out anything in their mouths, usually drugs. What they somehow fail to realize is that their beloved gummint is made up of the same fallible jackballs that you bump into on the street every day, and that the oath of orifice doesn't come with a brain upgrade or morality infusion, so now they're jackballs with power.

Given a choice between the two, with all its faults, the libertarian system is far better.

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You know the problem with bad cops? They make the other 5% look bad.