If you consider yourself a member of the “radical libertarian left” then I do indeed draw a distinction between you and people like Obama.
You’re the one using misleading language, however, when you say things like “leftists are our natural allies” when you aren’t actually talking about modern leftists. It serves no purpose to use personal definitions.
What’s a capitalist reform? A ballot initiative to cut taxes and eliminate price controls.
[8-)]
I never said that “leftists are our natural allies”. I merely put libertarianism in its historical context as in large part being an outgrowth of “the left” in the 19th century. According to my view of the political spectrum, the libertarian’s natural allies are - libertarians, wether they lean “left” or “right”. The problem with the assumption that “the right are our natural allies against the evil left”, as I see it, is that the bulk of contemporary conservatism is not particularly libertarian and to oppose the entire “left” irrespective of context is to aschew all libertarian-leaning or outright anarchist people on “the left”.
Supporting liberty and individualism is not a quality of (American) rightists qua rightists. That some do is rather a result of 1) the fact that the US has historically been a relatively libertarian country, and 2) traditionalism of some degree being in general an attribute of rightism. Ultimately, the only reason republican talk show hosts (and as a result, all republicans) might like lower taxes and free trade is because that’s what Americans of a hundred years ago liked.
He means Pinochet style capitalism.
Surely, you don’t mean to say that the distinction between nationalized health care and banning flag-burning is irrelevant!? Nationalized health care is not only a much larger violation of rights, it’s much, much, much, much, more difficult to undo.
I thought the boogeyman didn’t exist?
It really just seems that you keep bringing up “greater evils” (nationalized healthcare) in order to excuse voting at all, in order to lessen the impact of overall evils, by going for the lesser of evils (McCain, in this instance, since he would supposedly delay healthcare). The lesser of evils argument is irrelevant since it does not address that both evils are just plain and simple evils that should not be tolerated either way.
Tolerating the lesser, instead of the greater, serves to ultimatley apologize for evil itself, which is why political means will not be the answer, as the increasingly Statist-pandering LP party itself shows, the RP platform (while supposedly “radical” compared other Statist candidates, is still Statist), and the infilteration of the libertarian movement by Statist sympathizers (whether left right or rainbow, whatever) clearly indicates. Libertarianism is apolitical movement, and so called libertarians who are political are not really libertarian at all.
Libertarianism is not a polite dinner conversation, it is an inherently radical philospohy that advocates gettting rid of a inherently flawed, Statist system in favor of apolitical system that favors the non-aggression principle and solves the problems of the Statism system.
Honestly, if the Statist system were represented or paralleled as some type of flawed system (say in mathematics, computer science & programming, etc.), I hardly see how people would have any qualms about abolishing it in favor of a new system that would solve the previous’ system’s problems.
So yea, basically you’re argument doesn’t make sense to me. Sorry for the sligtly long winded post, Ego.
I absolutely agree that neither evil should be tolerated.
From the standpoint of consistancy to a principle, the choice between canidate A who wishes to violate the principle for issue X and canidate B who wishes to violate the principle for issue Y is a false choice that forces you to aschew the principle no matter which way you choose. The choices presented to us in political democracy all suffer from glaring inconsistancies. The distinction between which particular inconsistancies they have is irrelevant from the perspective of one who is trying to remain entirely consistant. Even if you can prove that canidate A’s inconsistancies are moderately less dangerous than those of canidate B, it does not logically follow that you should support canidate A or that canidate A is the best goal to strive from at the moment. If one is actually trying to remain consistant, they must reject both.
The radical tries to remain on the side of consistancy. Only the pragmatist or utilitarian would be willing to breach consistancy in the name of a comparative or mere cost-benefit analysis.
How is this even related? The secular ethical system acting as a backbone to ancaps only condemns the initiation of violence, not violence per say. Whether you use violence in self-defense or not is purely a personal preference, and has nothing to do with a general theory of libertarian ethics.
My analogy might not be great, but that really doesn’t matter. The fact remains that by advocating means that are inconsistent with a goal, you essentially forfeit ethics. If you then adopt a purely utilitarian position about the political process, in the hopes of choosing the lesser evil, that’s fine, but from that point on you must, in order to be consistent, abandon any attempts to defend anarcho-capitalism from an ethical perspective, and instead focus purely on the economical advantages - something that certainly won’t be easy.
Edit: Damn, what I typed up was essentially already said by others. Ah well, I’m leaving it anyway.