A Defense of libertarianism (and response to Zed, etc.)

Re:A Defense of libertarianism (and response to Zed, etc.) by DanielBMarkham on Sunday January 11, 2009 @02:08PM (#429411)

You seem to believe in a weak central government and strong state governments that try new approaches and get shit done. This is nice, except most libertarians believe in weak governments in all levels of government. No, not a government that works as well, not an efficient government, but a minimal government.

To have a minimum, you have to have a set of constraints. There's no reason those constraints could not lead to "weak governments in all levels of government"

I must be misreading you. I keep finding people making these broad over generalizations about libertarianism. Yes, libertarians are for minimal government, but minimal is a term you can drive a truck through. Simply because one libertarian believes that limited government is minimal, tiered, distributed government and another thinks it means single-layer, centralized government doesn't make one person libertarian and another person not.

The terms you mention are not simplistic, they are broad. There's a big difference. It lets a lot of people have libertarian leanings and prompts the individual to continue the definition process at a personal level, which is exactly what you want in a democracy, right?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Defense of libertarianism (and response to Zed, etc.) by ardell on Sunday January 11, 2009 @07:27PM (#429883)

>minimal is a term you can drive a truck through

That's why many Libertarians believe in a _Constitutional_ government. I.e. there is absolutely a standard for what size the US federal government should be (and what purposes it should serve). It's the US Constitution.

[ Parent | on HN ]