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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (26865)	8/19/2006 11:01:51 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 543356

But then one concerning "minarchism" which I would have termed central to libertarian thought. I thought I had addressed that as my "corollary." Looking back at it I can see how my expression of it was insufficient to make that clear. It assumed too much. In any event, libertarians are no more immune to angels dancing on pin heads than anyone else so you'll find lots of that sort of navel-gazing activity. At it's core, though, I think it's a pretty simple notion. Sort of like the golden rule. Simple at its core but applied by individuals with variation. >>Some believe that minarchism is inconsistent with libertarian belief and is a contradictory philosophy. Libertarianism, by definition, opposes the initiation of force or fraud against person or property. In order for a state to fund itself, it would have to tax people, which requires coercion and thus an initiation of force.<< That's what I referred to as moderate vs extreme libertarianism. The libertarian utopia just isn't achievable so, while interesting in the abstract, it isn't very useful. Taxes don't make me itch. If we're stuck with this monster government, we ought to at least pay for it, seems to me, because to let debt build is irresponsible and libertarianism needs responsibility.