Why does the garbage exemplified in the comments section pass for knowledge, as opposed to a form of reflexive hysteria when hearing the word “libertarian”? It’s sort of like theists when faced with atheists. It seems like certain people need to be cut down to their very, very small size.
Good catch, Jon. I especially liked that one:
A chest containing the title deeds to all the land? How libertarian is that? And why does the second boat not continue to look for another island if they do not agree with the conditions offered to them by the “original owners” who are no owners in a libertarian sense at all?
Sheesh. The more I understand about real economics and praxeology, the more appalled I am by the way this precious gem of economic liberty is being treated.
What about the garbage by Dave “Human Rat” Wiegel?
Megan McArdle is a libertarian? Excuse me?
She endorsed Obama and Romney? She endorsed Bush in 2004?
Wiegel goes out of his way to undermine libertarianism all of the time. I can’t stand him.
Sadly enough, examples like the two-boats-island one are not the exclusive privilege of the comments’ section of the Guardian; the vast majority of anti-libertarian political philosophers use the exact same type of imagined situations to attack libertarian thinkers… The full-size library of articles and books (unsuccesfully) attempting to destroy Nozick’s theory from the left are a perfect illustration of this phenomenon.
Hence, we probably shouldn’t dismiss the said examples (however preposterous) too quickly -;((