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Comment by spindritf | Hacker News Reader

the paradox of the deeply conservative anti-federal government types who work for the government - directly or as a fed contractor

Those are the people who have a realistic, first hand understanding of the government innerworkings.

Also, a contradiction between believing that allocation of capital would be more efficient under a less centrally-influenced system, and being willing to accept higher pay and benefits from one of the central institutions only exists if you believe that individuals should strive for public good even at great personal expense. Which strikes me more as a moral view taken by nationalists than libertarians.

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I think what your proposed cognitive model of anti-government government workers is missing is something Upton Sinclair pointed at:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

I've worked for financial trading companies and for advertisers before, but I can't do that work anymore because I think those industries mainly make the world worse. Not won't do it, but can't. The daily conflict between my principles and my actions would be too painful.

Cognitive dissonance is really uncomfortable. I don't think most people can live with the cognitive dissonance of being an anti-government government worker. Not without falling into what user omegaham correctly identifies as doublethink.

And I think that would be especially true of the libertarians I have known. If I were to generalize about them, I'd say that on average they're unusually thoughtful and unusually principled. Most people don't even try for a coherent political philosophy. I just don't know a lot of people who will think that deeply and then be totally ok not living by those principles.

>>And I think that would be especially true of the libertarians I have known. If I were to generalize about them, I'd say that on average they're unusually thoughtful and unusually principled. Most people don't even try for a coherent political philosophy.

Libertarianism will look like a "coherent political philosophy" only if you're a young white kid from an affluent family.

This is the most original and convincing argument against libertarianism that I've heard.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but it's about as original and convincing as saying that "liberalism is a 'coherent political philosophy' only if you are a poor inner-city black kid whose parents are on welfare".

They make for witty-sounding quips, but both are ad-hominems[0] that do little to actually address and argue against the tenets of either philosophy.

[0] (In before someone points out that this is not a true ad-hominem because it attacks a stereotype (and a straw man at that) rather than a specific individual).

This definitely isn't an ad hominem, and it isn't even analogous to one. Enraged_camel is implying that libertarianism is missing something that is easy to miss if you have led a relatively comfortable and unchallenging life. The criticism is oblique rather than explicit, but that doesn't make it anything like an ad hominem, because ad hominems are essentially distracting with irrelevancy.

Yeah, I certainly think people in the libertarian end of the pool tend to value coherence more than completeness. But the conflict between coherence and completeness is much smaller for people who have led very comfortable lives. So that would fit.

Or someone from a former soviet block country, or Cuban/Venezuelan expats.

Libertarianism will look like a "coherent political philosophy" only if you're a young white kid from an affluent family.

Or, anybody else.

I think a lot of people seem to be confusing Libertarianism with Anarchism. Libertarians typically do see roles for SOME government, and those roles are typically the military, judges, roads, police, and the like.

Not other things though, so no Social Security, no Obamacare, no National Endowment for the Arts, and no space program (other than for space weapons, so get rid of NASA and establish some sort of "US Star Force.")

So with that world view, working at a defense contractor isn't a conflict at all, instead, it is the one "true and legitimate" reason for government in their eyes.

My understanding from my Libertarian Ron/Rand Paul friends is that they believe the Federal government should not have a single program that's not explicitly specified in the U.S. Constitution.

It's not really a viewpoint I totally agree with, but people who are really deep students of the philosophy come across as pretty internally consistent in their viewpoint.

I think their's a good place for this type of politic. But I'm afraid far too many people who self-identify with it, don't understand it deeply enough or the implications of the ideas.

> My understanding from my Libertarian Ron/Rand Paul friends is that they believe the Federal government should not have a single program that's not explicitly specified in the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitutionalist argument is mostly an outer limit on their support for government programs. They also believe that the federal government shouldn't do many things that it is expressly empowered to do in the Constitution.

Libertarians view of government is, 'I want to be allowed to do whatever I want while everyone else is restricted to doing what I want them to do.' It's a dumb ideology that falls apart with literally any amount of thought.

Where on earth did you find the "while everyone else is restricted to doing what I want them to do" part?

Libertarians who don't themselves do any drugs (eg, Penn Jillette) still want drugs to be legal for other people. Libertarians who are themselves pacifists still want gun ownership and self-defense to be legal. And so on. It seems to me that this view you think "falls apart" with so little thought doesn't have much to do with libertarianism.

No idea why you're being downvoted. Parent's comment is completely false.

Ouch, that straw man must be hurting now. Can you throw in something about roads and Somalia?

"It's a dumb ideology that falls apart with literally any amount of thought", except that it is not libertarianism. Before putting any amount of thought into demolishing a "dumb ideology" you should probably put some amount of thought into correctly defining and characterizing what that ideology is. In your terms, libertarian's view of government is more along the lines of 'Everybody should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as what they do doesn't violate the rights of others'.

Apparently for you it still didn't fall apart as you failed to apply any amount of thought to it. If you did you would know there are basic principles in libertarianism from which it is deduced what government can and can not do, and it's not "whatever I want them to do" at all. But that, of course, requires educating oneself about it instead of dismissing it as "dumb ideology", which is obviously much more than many are willing to do.

Libertarians view of government is, 'I want to be allowed to do whatever I want while everyone else is restricted to doing what I want them to do.'

No it isn't. You're either badly misinformed, or trolling. That is nothing like the libertarian viewpoint.

I don't think he's confused, its just that online you tend to get more of the anarchist type who oppose the government's monopoly on violence. I think there has been a trend away from "statist" libertarianism because that ideology puts you in the awkward position of arguing that we should have military and police to keep people in line, but shouldn't subject that government to democratic control (because otherwise people would vote themselves universal healthcare and social security).

ITYM "no government-sponsored space program".

Right. The whole SpaceX/Armadillo Aerospace/etc. situation that is developing now is almost definitionally Libertarian.

Except that, as far as I know, their main source of revenue is government contracts.

And Elon Musk just testified to Congress to propose having SpaceX put military satellites in orbit at much lower cost (and with more American-built parts...) than Boeing/Lockheed Martin's "United Space Alliance".

I'm just noting nothing in libertarianism opposes space exploration per se, unlike National Endowment for Arts which is a direct antithesis to libertarianism.

definitively* just tryin to help bra

> Not other things though, so no Social Security, no Obamacare, no National Endowment for the Arts, and no space program (other than for space weapons, so get rid of NASA and establish some sort of "US Star Force.")

NASA for most of its existence was pretty much was a platform for military research and demonstration of military capacity with a civilian/exploration PR veneer.

If the public was more less interested in non-military functions of government, we'd still probably have had something doing most of what NASA did, it just would have been more overtly military.

It's true that most self-identifying libertarians would not self-identify as anarchists. But it's also true that the origins of a lot of libertarian thought comes from anarchism.

Libertarians strongly believe in both human rights and property rights. This includes legal/judicial enforcement of contracts and a court with the authority to mediate disputes and punish criminals. Also this includes a police force to help enforce these rights.

> This includes legal/judicial enforcement of contracts and a court with the authority to mediate disputes and punish criminals. Also this includes a police force to help enforce these rights.

Not necessarily. Libertarian anarchists propose that those services can be provided by private enterprise.

more commonly known as Anarcho Capitalism, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism AnCaps are to Libertarians as Richard Stallman is to Linux users.

They are an extreme minority. Most people that identify with libertarianism are simply fiscal conservatives who also support decriminalization of victimless crimes, human rights, a reduced military budget, less invasive foreign policy etc. nothing as extreme as anarchy.

Ultimately most of us end up voting republican because they are seen as a "lesser of two evils".

I'm well aware of anarcho-capitalists, as I consider myself one.

> AnCaps are to Libertarians as Richard Stallman is to Linux users.

There are plenty of ways to interpret that, but I presume you mean that you don't like Richard Stallman and you don't like anarcho-capitalists. Incidentally, I like Richard Stallman and anarcho-capitalism, so I suppose the analogy still holds.

> They are an extreme minority.

Perhaps, but they are an extremely powerful influence in libertarian ethical and economic thought. Murray Rothbard and Benjamin Tucker are (in my view) the fathers of the modern American libertarian movement, and they happen to have been anarchists. Even some popular conservative constitutionalist limited-government libertarians like Ron Paul and Andrew Napolitano are anarchists who essentially lie about their views in order to deliver libertarian principles to a wider audience (I don't really approve of that technique, by the way).

I'm saying that AnCaps and RMS are both ideological extremes and do not represent the vast majority of their respective movements.

But I suppose I did paint with too broad a brush. My statement about law enforcement is the equivalent of someone saying "Democrats don't believe in a totalitarian communist regime where we are all forced to have vegan diets", By and large it's true and for the sake of brevity it makes sense to say it, because those views are not a good example of what the Democratic party as a whole is actually about. This also helps some of the more naive people in this thread get a more realistic perspective on what most self identifying libertarians actually believe.

Cheers.

Out of the things you just listed, I don't think the Republican party supports _any_ of them.

And you'd be wrong for a good number of representatives. I suppose I should have also added "Small Government" and "less taxes" which is what the republicans are at least ostensibly for.

As a federal/state contractor myself. That's what happened to me. My job has driven me to a libertarian viewpoint over a period of years after seeing inefficiency and wastefulness of the organizations I deal with. This is across many state and federal departments.

And I do make an effort to push them toward more cost effective technologies and processes but the sad truth is they don't want to hear it because they prefer to waste money on oracle licenses and aligning text on reports nobody will ever read, than have their budget reduced.

There really ought to be incentives/bonuses built in for employees in govt who can successfully cut their budget and perform the same job at the same level of quality. We would instantly see a drastic reduction in the cost of our government.

The thing is... you'd likely see inefficiency and wastefulness in most private sector jobs as well. Almost guaranteed.

There are some types of services, like crucial infrastructure, where failure is not an option, hence government, hence sacrificing efficiency in favor of dependability.

Except that I also work in the private sector as well. I have both private and public clients. It's MUCH MUCH worse in government. Also if you're seen as wasteful at a large company you're more likely to be shown the door.

The larger the organization the more room there is for waste within its ranks. No organizations are larger than the government.

Speaking as a government employee, not a contractor, we are actually more efficient than my previous private sector jobs. But then again, we have a "build it don't buy it" culture here with a lot of love for open source throughout our services and really only use consultants on ultra specific jobs, due to head count caps from our legislature. Sure there's some union cruft here and there but I've seen similar dead weight in the private sector.

Perhaps you should consider consulting for less well-funded segments of the Government? The constraints make for ingenious solutions.

your department sounds pretty awesome. I've never seen anything like that. Unfortunately I don't have the option of choosing our clients. I am but a humble developer for an 8a contractor.

If you don't mind me asking. What state/department do you work for?

Minnesota education. There is obviously years of cruft to deal with, but there is a desire here to constantly do things better. Honestly, the tech attracted me to the job. They're using some cool stuff. I was pretty surprised when I interviewed. Went from seeing the interview as practice to really wanting the job.

Nationalist and libertarian are not orthogonal in practice. Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor.

On the theoretical side it goes back to the whole Trotskyism/Stalinism debate.

> Nationalist and libertarian are not orthogonal in practice. Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor.

Okay, I give up: What are you expecting to find upon doing that? Most libertarians I know are in favor of free movement of labor and open immigration in general. The current Libertarian Party Platform includes this bit:

"Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders."

(source: http://www.lp.org/platform )

>"Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor."

Are you trying to imply that libertarians are inconsistent? There are plenty of libertarians who believe in open borders, Bryan Caplan being one prime example.[1][2] On the other hand, it is also perfectly self-consistent to believe that citizens of a country are entitled to liberties which are not guaranteed to foreigners.

[1] http://openborders.info/bryan-caplan/

[2] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/10/caplan_on_immig.htm...

> Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor.

I self-identify as a libertarian (with qualifications, if you want details). If you try talking to me about free movement of labor, I think you'll find that I advocate it fully.

Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor.

Just about every self-professed libertarian I know (and I know a lot) support total freedom of movement of labor. Many of them actually oppose the very idea of nation-states and national borders in general.

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