Comment by jokit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jokit | Hacker News Reader

I hope and doubt this will change JRE much.

On the topic of libertarianism..

Almost all statists share some libertarian perspective on some issues. No libertarian has statist perspective on any issues. There are a lot of self proclaimed libertarians, Christians, Muslims, or people of any principle, who are incorrect. Unlike "Republican" and "Democratic" which don't mean anything, "libertarian" means something. You can claim you are "libertarian" just like you can claim you're a "martian", but it doesn't make it so.

Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla are not the only two who mistakenly call themselves "libertarian" at times. They just don't know what it means.

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.

Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." — L. Neil Smith

This is a little "no true Scotsman," no?

Self-identification is probably the best indicator we've got for whether a label applies to a person. If enough new people label themselves a thing, and use the word to mean something different, I'd argue the word itself has begun to change, or at least has aquired multiple definitions.

Coopting a label in the political sense sucks (see: "liberal"), but from a linguistic perspective it's silly to pretend language doesn't evolve.

Like "Literally" "evolving" to mean "metaphorically"?

When "X" becomes "Not X", that's not evolution but coopting. It's degradation, and it's often purposeful.

"Libertarian" means something, which is why the "Libertarian Party" required an oath to adhere to the non-aggression principle. The fact that statists moved in to ruin the "Libertarian Party", take the oath and betray it, may make them "Libertarian Party" members, but doesn't make them libertarian (in fact, the opposite).

Are you a Christian if you're not Christian but call yourself "Christian"? Are you an atheist if you believe in a god? Are you "blind" if you have perfect vision?

I realize that this assault on reality/truth is at the heart of many issues today.. We have no language if things can mean both a thing, and/or the opposite of that thing.

...which is the point.

You may have a libertarian perspective on an issue, or a group of issues (as almost everyone does), but that doesn't make you libertarian, which means liberty in all issues. There is a line between minarchist and anarchist, and a reason for both terms.

>I realize that this assault on reality/truth is at the heart of many issues today.. We have no language if things can mean both a thing, and/or the opposite of that thing.

Contronyms exist in many languages[0]. They're not part of some nefarious scheme to corrupt Libertarian identity or anything of the sort.

That is how language works. The language you're typing your prescriptivist nonsense in has become bastardized and corrupted from its Latin and Germanic roots over generations, after all.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym

Reply on news.ycombinator.com