this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
351 points (88.9% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27240 readers
2329 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

So far, outside of a classroom, the only “Libertarians” I’ve seen in real life are people who vote republiQan and refuse to take accountability for it.

Or people who don’t vote, and allow republiQans to rule while taking no accountability for it.

So, they don’t support universal healthcare because republiQans don’t, and that’s what they really are.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

This is the problem with "ism"s. At whatever point you decide that philosophy X is the answer to everything, you start being wrong about a lot of the world, because whatever it is, there's at least like 30% of situations (and potentially a lot more) that your particular ism actually isn't the answer to.

Libertarianism or anti-imperialism or ACAB or socialism or pro-the-Democrats or anarchist or whatever it is, it's never always the answer. Trying to hold a debate about, well is it philosophy X or philosophy Y that's always right about everything, or any other discussion that feeds into the basic wrong premise, is just compounding the imaginary non-situation-dependent way of looking at it.

Although yes some of them are wrong a lot more of the time than some others.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wanna be free to stay unwell.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

When you combine "Libertarian" with the greed that is typical in the ultra wealthy, their core value typically only includes liberty for themselves and no empathy for others. You can use any party label you want but without empathy, members of every party are nothing more than selfish pieces of shit. Just to be clear, I am not a "they're all the same" idiot, as Republicans clearly think empathy is a four letter word. But there are sociopaths without empathy everywhere in society, especially in the US.

As far as universal healthcare is concerned, we can't even agree as a society to provide clean water to our population by removing leaded pipes. Why would we expect something as reasonable as universal healthcare?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (8 children)

On a political spectrum, the term libertarian should relate to anti-authoritarian. So, I can see how the case can be made against socialized healthcare for them. It's not really about true freedom or liberty. And in the US anyway, it's largely just facade co-opted by the ~~fascist~~ [authoritarian and wealthy] right wing, ironically.

The word "Libertarian" in US has less relation to the dictionary definition than "Republican" and "Democrat". These are names of parties over here, even if they have a namesake of governmental mechanisms.

Examples:

Ron Johnson said in a single breath that he was a libertarian and opposed the legalization of marijuana.

Find the average "libertarian" policy position on border policies.

US politics is unfortunately entrenched in tribalism rather than searching for the right tool to match a job or solve a problem and maximize outcomes, the libertarians over here are no exception.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Libertarians usually define liberty narrowly as "freedom from government".
Freedom does not mean the ability to do as you please, but rather the ability to not be told what not to do, or to be made to do something you do not wish to do.
A libertarian usually does not object to wage slavery, and would disagree with the concept of wage slavery entirely, on the grounds that you were not forced to work a job you dislike, since you could always choose to starve instead.

What you're looking for is one of the schools of anarchism.
Although usually painted as "anti-government, anti-society", it actually derives from being against hierarchy, and is characterized generally (there are many schools) as being opposed to involuntary power hierarchies.
Sometimes government is the best way to reduce the total amount of coercion in the system, since forcing a lot of people to pay a little can free many, many people from being forced to do stuff they loath to survive.

Libertarians aren't pro-liberty they're anti-government, and anarchists aren't pro-chaos they're anti-coercian. They're both entire political schools of thought, so I've obviously not encapsulated them entirely in two paragraphs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

This is exactly right.

However, you are on Lemmy where the vast majority of users are from the US which means they have their own weird skew on libertarianism and liberalism, thanks to their media and social media. Somehow it's distinctly Republican, conservative (lol, yes), and pro-capitalism, which obviously isn' correct because of their many, many, many, anti-liberal views.

Only in the US can socialists be mad about a school of thought that values social equality and welfare, because a form of media informed them it's pro-capitalism and the red-cap redneck that cries "Liberty!" with their AR-15 must be liberalism or libertarian.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

You will know the answer if you look more specific at what exactly different people understand as "liberty"

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›