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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

I consider myself to be a "bleeding heart libertarian". I'm against the drug war, believe in a strong separation of church an state, live and let live, etc. But I don't mind paying taxes for the government to help people help themselves and to help people who can't help themselves.

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That just sounds like a standard progressive liberal (and there's nothing wrong with that). What viewpoints do you consider specifically libertarian?

Small, localized governance. True representative government (no career politicians like the sleaze John McCain and Nancy Pelosi). Strong adherence to property rights. Government not picking winners and losers. Government not accepting bribes (campaign contributions via big-money lobbyists). No corporate welfare--if a bank fucks up, they go out of business and shitbirds like Jamie Dimon get to live under a bridge the rest of their lives and (hopefully) die drunk while OD'ing on heroin.

ETA: End to the drug war, non-interventionist foreign policy.

I haven't heard liberals talk too much about legalizing all drugs. Clinton in the 90s started the whole tough on crime, 3 strikes you're out, crusade. I am against the minimum wage - I think it skews supply and demand and contorts the free market -- but I do believe in the basic income for people who work in the form of an expansion of the earned income tax credit.

I don't believe Clinton is a progressive liberal, but most progressives support these policies, as far as I know.

Come to Ohio, it's the main plank of the liberal platform here.

I still mind paying taxes and always will--anyone who doesn't is a doormat. It's just that I also no that a certain amount of expropriation is going to happen no matter what. I still don't support in collectivism or collectivist solutions, though. I think those things are the big lie told to people--that no other system can do what government does. The US government is mainly involved in theft from the middle class via taxation and inflation.

It's not that no other system can do what government does, it's that there is no other system. Government is a local monopoly on violence. Getting rid of violent (coercive) government does not remove the ability of men to be violent. Because violence is the birthright of man, we develop these agreements about when it's okay to be violent. These are called 'governments'.

Libertarianism is an idealist philosophy which elevates individual rights over that of the collective. This is not a logically inconsistent position, but the real world is not required to conform to what you think is logical. In the real world, rights don't exist if they're not enforced, and you'll note how that word is also inseparable from violence. It would be nice if we lived in a world where libertarianism were possible, or communism too for that matter. Unfortunately such is not the case.

> I still mind paying taxes and always will

Fair enough.

> anyone who doesn't is a doormat.

Don't be ridiculous. Can you really not imagine any other reason for a rational person to approve of government programs, at least in principle?

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