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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Wharf Rat who wrote (228517)7/29/2013 11:47:05 AM
From: neolib  Read Replies (1) of 543331
 
I think its even simpler than that. Collective action is anathema to Libertarians, and so they cannot admit to ANY compelling evidence that collective action is obligatory, and in particular it cannot be morally obligatory. This must be denied at all costs, otherwise it is a moral refutation of Libertarianism.

I once read an excellent article by an well known Libertarian (but who I don't recall, and I don't have the article), that was pontification on some social welfare issue. The article was basically a prayer that there be no "right" answers to whatever problem he was pontificating on, because if there were a "right" answer, then he would be obligated to collectively support the solution. It was the best summary of Libertarian thought I've ever read: An ideology predicated on ignorance, and hoping that enlightenment doesn't exist.

Douglas Adams had a more succinct version of this prayer in one of his books:

“Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.

And the corollary prayer:


Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.”

That is what Libertarianism is, sans the honesty.
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