Bastiat said that “The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.”
What do you think is the most “ineptly defended” aspect of libertarianism?
Personally, I would say NAP and homesteading.
i would say law. crime and punishment, homesteading rights, lifeboat scenario. rothbard himself admitted that legal theory is pretty weak. anarchy and law is an exellent book, however. if you think we are weak in law, i say look at the anarcho-communists. [:D].
Vulgar libertarianism. The tendency for (some) libertarians to defend, or appear to defend, Big Business, rather than champion the cause of small businesses and wage earners. We need to give the people a shoulder to cry on. YOU DID NOT DESERVE TO LOSE YOUR HOUSE. YOU DID NOT DESERVE TO LOSE YOUR JOB. YES, THE GAME IS RIGGED.
Also, libertarian criticism of “democracy” can be seen as elitism or anti-egalitarianism. I think that for anarcho-capitalism to take off, we must make it clear that the masses are not our enemy.
Can you articulate to the working class why open borders that increase the supply of working class labor is in their best interest? Or for that matter, can you convince a Lebanese Christian dutifully going to their local Orthodox parish and clinging to their last shred of the old country why they shouldn’t care that Muslims are as free to immigrate to their locale as anybody else?
Can you present a simple, compelling argument to blacks why civil rights laws and affirmative action should be abolished? Or why it shouldn’t trouble them one iota that the Mises Institute is whiter than Augusta National?
Can you persuade a Southern Baptist granny in West Virginia that she should allow prostitution, pornography and abortion?
Go get 'em, tiger.
lol
Tell the WASP that a third-grade educated foreignor who doesn’t speak English couldnt possibly threaten their job.
Christians aren’ t supposed to live separately, but are supposed to go unto all the world.
It wouldnt be if they would join!
Maybe granny should convert sinners instead of putting them in jail.
Without a doubt, the legal system/courts. Just do a search on the topic here and you can see no one seems to agree with each other. It was my hang up on becoming a full ancap for years.
Frankly I wouldnt have it any other way, being that it is a revolt against nature.
Ever hung drywall? Run a mower on a golf course? Go into a white trailer park and tell them you have their best interests at heart. This is a white upper middle-class argument. In fact, that’s the very reason meso-american immigration into the US is not opposed by the white elite: their law school/med school/MBA bound offspring are not threatened by it.
What fucking arrogance. Ever talked to Middle Eastern Christians? I do every Sunday.
Ever occur to you it’s against their self-interest to do so?
Like I said, go forth into Appalachia and tell them this.
Never let them see you sweat.
The environment (though to be fair, there’s no political philosophy that has a perfect solution to that one).
Agreed, the ancap legal system is kind of hazy and theoretical. Easy for a minarchist to attack.
But dammit, minarchism is just too boring. Lacks any edginess at all.
Ha!
Let me be clear I’m not arguing what’s objectively right. Like Stranger says, it will be a matter of giving consumers what government cannot.
small businesses are not exactly a bunch of angels. lets not forget it was apple who championed retirement plans for gay couples not yemenese deli shop owners who slavedrive their mexican cattle.
Oh how white of you.
What does that mean? Are you saying that if some consumers want you to capture women for them, or to attack blacks, or to drive mexicans off some land, you would do it for money?
I wouldn’t. And I doubt the majority of producers would. But I also doubt the majority of producers would give a shit if an abortionist’s house burned down, or if the percentage of blacks relative to whites employed in engineering didn’t equal their percentage of the population.
trust me, im not a white liberal. i simply observe that the sainted small businesses whose hands are not red by government subsidy have under their command a reserve army of labor they could shit on every morning.
The trailor park people are worse off now than they would be under anarchy. Immigrant workers are subsidized with welfare rights. Also, they are slave laborers who can be jailed at will.
The white trailor park people are competing against slave labor, and paying for it with taxes!
That is just a reflection of the increased supply that open borders entail. By strictly economic standards, there is nothing to get angry about. Which gets back to the main problem: how to convince the hoi polloi you’re advancing their interests when you’re actually not.
Also, this only underscores the disconnect between libertarians (i.e., white high IQ persons) and the masses.
Cool.
Well, any savvy producer would see a market and a profit opportunity where there is injustice. I’m not saying those are examples of injustice, but you know what I mean.