December 24, 2011   85 notes

The Trunk: Libertarians and Racism

squashed:

… I think The Callus is right—at least to the extent that the Libertarians’ race issues go beyond some awful things that Ron Paul may or may not have allowed to be said in his name. I would lay it out a bit differently, though.

  1. Any real-world political ideology should grapple…

Jeff, despite our (persisting) disagreement, I’m always thankful for your thoughts on an issue. I’m also a bit time limited—so I’ll offer the quick response.

First, I don’t know that a comparison of pedigrees is helpful. One problem is that we can pick out some horrible folks (or statements) on both sides of the divide. Granted, my side of the divide is a bit bigger. But it wouldn’t be to hard for either of us to dredge up a paleo-libertarian or two. The bigger problem, however, is that I’m not a very good Democrat. (I don’t think I’m even registered as a Democrat—and if the Republicans can ever get together something that I’d consider a credible approach to poverty, I wouldn’t be adverse to voting for them.)

Second, we agree on a lot of the civil liberties issues regarding police issues, incarceration, and so on. I’ll grant that the libertarians have a partial solution there. I’d implement it if I could.

I think we can agree that race and racism are a tough issue. I think huge gains have been made in the past fifty years—but we’ve still got major problems. We may simply disagree on whether the libertarian approach to the problem is credible or whether it would work better than the democrats approach.

With all that said, I like your phrasing here:

Libertarian ideology holds that the government (that is force) should not be used to correct every social wrong.

That’s where our central disagreement is. I don’t believe that the government has any kind of monopoly on force—particularly when we’re willing to let the government enforce property rights at the direction of private individuals. Second, I think the decision not to use government action to correct specific (or even categories) of social ills is a morally relevant decision.

(Source: thecallus)

  1. rantingnraging reblogged this from greenstate
  2. theworldisnotenough1 reblogged this from squashed
  3. themotormouth reblogged this from versaria
  4. versaria reblogged this from thecallus
  5. jerrybear reblogged this from daisysnotebook
  6. inbonobo reblogged this from thecallus and added:
    massive logical (and ethical) failure. Racist individuals tend...be less educated and...
  7. closer-than-heaven reblogged this from greenstate
  8. thatprettyoddfeminist reblogged this from greenstate
  9. istellar reblogged this from greenstate
  10. xtremecaffeine reblogged this from greenstate
  11. bananaeggroll reblogged this from thenoobyorker
  12. greenstate reblogged this from thenoobyorker
  13. hairtrending reblogged this from azspot
  14. untoldhistory reblogged this from azspot
  15. freebroccoli reblogged this from thecallus
  16. This was featured in #Politics
  17. dyoachim reblogged this from azspot
  18. thenoobyorker reblogged this from azspot
  19. azspot reblogged this from thecallus
  20. cdaisey reblogged this from jeffmiller and added:
    Holy buckets. Before I rant, note the following: this is all about Libertarians and Racism. The libertarian, right off...