Yes, it is too bad.
So now what, JimmyJazz? Clearly I’m still right here.
To give my answer to the OP’s question-
If she was a friend of mine, I’d help her with childcare so she could go to school at night. Nothing like developing self-reliance to help one appreciate the merits of self-reliance. If she was my friend, she’d know my views and be respectful of them, so down the road I’d have high hopes that she’d understand and become convinced.
If she wasn’t a friend of mine, I’d leave her alone.
Oh that stuff. I thought you meant defining “libertarian” and “left of center”. I have no idea how I didn’t process that you were talking about “ad hominem”.
Well in the low-content thread I just made a post about how I’m trying to figure out the difference between a liberal and a progressive.
@ Lady Saiga - HOW would you convince her of your views? I mean, how do you know she would not convince YOU of her views “down the road”? (Let’s say her views are in favor of one of the two major parties).
Just so you know JimmyJazz, I made a response to your original post as well…
Pssst, Lady Saiga - JimmyJazz’s intention is to try to prove that you necessarily won’t be able to convince her of your views.
Lady Saiga, I respect your right to decide my intentions for yourself.
Oh please do tell me how I’m not respecting that.
Well, I know why I believe what I believe, and the whole experience of my life as it stands at this moment reinforces those beliefs. But if my friend introduces me to a new way of thinking and I decide she’s right, then there’s no downside to that process, is there? If I’m honest, and she’s honest, we’ll both listen to each other and actually think about it. If either of us is dishonest then the whole process falls apart, being useless.
My experience is most people are honest and, even if it takes them a long time, eventually admit that libertarianism makes sense to them. Whether they choose to act upon that understanding can be another story, though. Most people seem to think libertarianism is “impractical” if logical. But bringing someone even to that point can take a lot of familiarity and comfortable dialog over the course of a relationship. No other “conversion” method, in my opinion, works.
Thanks, Lady Saiga. I guess what I’m wondering with this thread is what happens if someone isn’t interested in hearing about how libertarianism could possibly create the greatest good for society at large, if they are too focused on concrete material benefits that (they believe) are derived from voting for a particular major party or major party’s candidate.
Should such people be written off, or can they potentially overcome their immediate self-interest in favor of a system which would benefit society at large and, in the long run, them as well?
Also, given that a “truly free market” is not likely to come about any time soon, would such a person be rational to abandon their short-term self-interest in favor of merely incremental movement in the direction of a more market-oriented society? Or would they be irrational to do so?
EDIT: If they would be irrational to do so, does that mean that libertarians are acting irrationally if they spend (waste) time trying to convert this person to embrace something other than her own rational self-interest?
JimmyJazz, you never responded to my post.
Who’s to say what their immediate self-interest necessarily is?
It’s sounding more and more to me like the real purpose of this thread is to stealthily paint libertarians as either not caring about the poor or wanting to hurt the poor.
SkepticalMetal, I wouldn’t expect him to - he’s clearly cherry-picking with his responses, which implies an ulterior motive on his part.
@SkepticalMetal - sorry the thread has moved quickly. I read it, and I acknowledged it by including your warning against Soviet Russia and Maoist China in my post summarizing the suggestions of the first page of this thread.
I understand your points such as about the minimum wage. Duly noted.
By the way, I am going to be away from my computer for the rest of the evening. But, since I never intended this as any kind of debate thread, my responses aren’t really necessary for the thread to continue. I am still curious what others have to say about how to convince this hypothetical person, or someone roughly like her, to become a libertarian. (Or, alternately, whether they would consider such a person not as good a target for converting to libertarianism as, say, a college-educated white male).
JimmyJazz, in light of you actually responding to SkepticalMetal, I’ll reiterate my demand that you show just where I said I’d suggest to your hypothetical poor black single mother that she dig ditches.
But I don’t, and I doubt many others here on this forum do, see libertarianism as a departure from that self-interest. If you’re approaching it from a left-of-center perspective, perhaps you see the philosophy as solely concerned with the greatest good. That’s not my impression, or my focus, at all. There’s no conflict between self-interest and the interests of the society in libertarianism. Not even in the short term, as I see it.
I don’t reply to “demands”. You are being very hostile. I was considering apologizing for a possible mistatement on my part, but now that you’ve phrased it as a “demand” I will have to harden my stance. As your avatar would say: Good DAY, sir.
@ JimmyJazz
I see. I think it would have been better if you would have left the hypothetical story out of this - I’m pretty sure this thread would have been much more…smoothe if you just would have asked “how would you go about convincing a poor person relying on the nanny state that he or she should convert to libertarianism?”