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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: Grainne who wrote (99580)3/26/2005 4:23:21 PM
From: cosmicforce  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
I find this kind of discussion very annoying. First, there will be a statement about how more industrial countries shouldn't have national health insurance or how great it is that exploitive child labor satisfies a societal need for employment. This is all viewed through a very narrow lens and accepted as though such a thing is intrinsically good. We are then asked to watch a development of the proposition that minimal government is good without any conjecture about the consequences of overturning the basic human rights assured by government or recognition that government is always expensive but provides great benefit. For instance, in the Utopian libertarian universe, where would the uninsured get treatment or where would retarded or mentally ill fit into the picture? I end up feeling dissatisfied because I see that, in the proponent's eyes, arguing the correctness of the philosophy is more important than considering any negative consequences of implementing it. What would prohibit individual actions that have no immediate harm but produced emergent systems that had considerable long-term social or financial harm?

Years ago I became a Libertarian because I was disgusted by government. It is a young man's vision: to be without external constraints or obligations! However, as we age and have families, we start to realize that there are people without families or, worse, abusive families, and that where an utter lack of safety nets exist, there is no pit too deep into which people can fall. The libertarian offers voluntary charity and market forces as the fix - I just don't see that. Freedom of interaction is elevated above any social responsibility for a greater good. Libertarian philosophy suffers the same limitations as any other Utopian philosophy in that it is divorced from true human nature and is just as impractical as a Marxist communist's world view.

I'm left completely unwilling to entertain it for this reason.
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