this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 85 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (49 children)

I considered myself a Libertarian for a few years. I was a disillusioned Republican during the George Bush days and Libertarianism really grew on me. I voted for Gary Johnson twice.
As I became more concerned about climate change, I could not see a viable Libertarian solution to it. Private business is more than happy to keep chugging away with fossil fuels until it's far too late.
For Libertarianism to work, these same private businesses need to do the right thing voluntarily. In Atlas Shrugged, those businessmen and women are doing what is right for their business and it just so happens to be what is right for everyone else, that isn't always the case. All too often, what is right for business goes against what is right for society. Once I realized this, everything unraveled for me.
So anyway, here I am, years later, voting for Democrats because I've got no other option as the GOP became more and more insane since I left.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Anyone who is a libertarian is unfamiliar with game theory. Some problems happen when individual people act in their own self-interest, but the collective outcome is harmful. Climate change is a prime example.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It seems to me like American libertarianism isn't truly libertarianism - its focus is on freedom for capitalists, not freedom for people (corporations are not people). In theory, libertarianism is guided by the principal of non-aggression. Passing laws to fight climate change does not violate the principal of non-aggression, despite what the capitalists claim.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

I wish this were true, but what you are describing is more akin to the Democratic party's platform. Laws by the Democratic party are passed so people and companies don't violate the principle of non-aggression. For example, besides climate change, regulation on banking is to prevent banking from taking people's money and just going out of business.

The Libertarian party doesn't support the principle of non-aggression in practice. By this definition, the Democratic party would be the true libertarians or liberals.

For example:

Australia: https://www.libertarians.org.au/wa_platform

Ending Climate Alarmism Policies: Repeal state laws and subsidies tied to net-zero targets. Let the free market decide the energy mix.

And like you said, the US one too: https://lp.org/environment-energy-resources/

When governments try to tackle environmental issues (which is hypocritical, as governments are the largest polluters), they use a punishing approach that rarely, if ever, solves the problem

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Progressive policies tend to line up with classic Libertarianism.

Also, modern Libertarians tend to be literally just the dissolution of the federal government and their own personal rights at the expense of other's rights, none of which is Libertarianism.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

You said this much better than I did. One of the reasons why Democrats are called liberals.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

I think you misunderstood my point. What you're referring to as "libertarianism" and "the Libertarian party" is what I referred to as "American libertarianism."

I don't believe true libertarianism exists in the USA. I agree with your point that the Democratic party most closely aligns with the theory of libertarianism. It sounds like you agree with the point I was trying to make, but maybe misinterpreted it.

Edit: I want to add that the Libertarian party in America doesn't follow the principal of non-aggression as I understand it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The closest thing the US has to a true libertarian is Bernie Sanders.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Very true, at least at that level in politics.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Oh yeah, I think I was confusing in my response. I should have said:

All libertarian parties both in and outside of the United States don't ascribe to your interpretation of the theory of libertarianism.

I included Australia as an example, but here is Canada's platform as well.

https://libertarian.on.ca/platform/2011/environment Agreements among neighbours would be another factor that would replace top-down regulations.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

That's disappointing. Maybe "modern libertarianism" would have been more accurate than "American libertarianism." According to Wikipedia, in the 1950's libertarianism was synonymous with liberalism, which seems to align much better with my interpretation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology

I wonder if Penn's (old) interpretation of libertarianism was the same as mine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I love how they just drop the statement that governments are the largest polluters with no sources, supporting evidence, or even explanation. Just saying something obviously does not make it true.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Or they're so used to their privilege that they don't understand how protected they are by society.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Exactly, they ask why they should have to contribute to letting disabled people not have to work. I ask why people too disabled to work should have to beg for sustainance or live in poverty

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

American Libertarians have no experience dealing with other people and are incredibly naive. At least one customer service job would be very horizon-broadening for them.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

As I became more concerned about climate change, I could not see a viable Libertarian solution to it.

The libertarian solution to climate change would involve privatizing the commons: sell off the atmosphere to some private entity which would then issue licenses for emitting, have standing to sue unlicensed polluters for violating its property rights, etc.

In other words, basically cap & trade but with a for-profit corporation in charge instead of the government, for no good reason.

At least, that'd be the theory. In reality, that's how you get Spaceballs.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 days ago

Libertarianism also was my first stop out of my childhood religious right upbringing. I still tend to see issues from a libertarian framing -- i.e., if it's not hurting anybody why should the government care? -- but most US libertarians seem weirdly fixated on ideas like "why can't I dump 5,000 gallons of hydrofluoric acid into a hole in the ground if the hole is on my own property?" or "why shouldn't I be allowed to enter into a contract with somebody that allows me to hunt them for sport?" or especially "why can't I have sex with a minor if they say it's OK?", where there's really obvious personal and societal harms involved and the only way that you can think otherwise is if you've engaged in some serious motivated reasoning.

Whereas my thinking these days is more like, "who does it hurt if somebody decides to change their outward appearance to match how they feel inside?" and the like -- i.e., the right to personal autonomy and free expression, rather than the right to do whatever I want to others as long as I can somehow coerce them into agreeing to it. I don't have much patience for the anarchist side of left-libertarianism -- in my experience you need robust systems in place to keep bad actors from running amok, and a state without a monopoly on violence is simply ceding that monopoly to whoever wants to take it up for their own ends -- but that starting point of libertarian thought, that people sold be free in their choices until those choices run up against somebody else's freedoms -- is still fundamentally valid.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

I always say it's not crazy to become a Libertarian as much as it is to remain one. It just astounds me that anyone could debate those positions for a length of time without starting to realize how tenuous most of them are.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The problem with Communism is that if requires non greedy people.
The problem with Libertarianism is that it requires non greedy rich people.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Exactly. We're nothing but monkeys in trousers. We have a lot of evolving yet to do, psychologically speaking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

One of the biggest failings with a lot of idealist political systems (anarchism, libertarianism, communism, etc.) is that they try to do away with hierarchies and bosses. But, those are inevitable for great apes. A good setup provides a way to limit and manage the bosses that will inevitably appear. Yes, it legitimizes their power, but by acknowledging it, it also provides a way to limit it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You guys are wearing trousers? I find it slows down the whole process of throwing feces at my enemies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Oh, so it’s faster for you to take a shit on command than it is to have trousers to collect the shit so you can just reach back and grab it when you want to?

If so, I’m impressed.

I imagine you haven’t flung much shit or spent much time thinking about it. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can just shit when you want to. You’re probably just a beta trying to impress the shit flinging alpha shit veterans though. :p

If I’m wrong though, all hail floofloof. We’re not worthy!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Disclaimer: I support pigouvian taxes on greenhouse gas emissions.

Long ago, one libertarian solution to climate change was insurance. So you'd buy disaster insurance for your house, then the insurer would bet that pollution would go up. This creates a financial incentive to reduce emissions. Best case scenario, your insurance payments are a slight reimbursement for a voluntary reduction. Worst case scenario, your insurance payments essentially bribe their workers to sabotage.

However, the Coase Theorem says this only works while transaction costs are low. And you'd need long-term contracts that aren't realistic with today's interest rates. So it would take decades to establish the financial infrastructure necessary.

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