Quote:The story in the link is more an indictment of people's naivete than an indictment of libertarianism. Those people got scammed. That's the story.


On the subject of libertarianism, libertarians like to say we have an over-regulated society and we need fewer regulations. My opinion is, why would anyone want an unregulated society when they have a neighbor? The regulations people rail against are not just regulations over what you can do, but also over what your neighbor can do. I don't want my neighbors to own farm animals in their back yard. I don't want them drilling for oil or mining for minerals. And I don't want people dumping pollutants in the river. So I want some regulations.


And if anyone thinks we are over-regulated, the logical first step would be for them to name specific regulations they want to repeal. Every time I talk to someone who says we are over-regulated, I ask that question. Which specific regulations would you want to repeal? I'm sure there are thousands that I would be willing to repeal, but no one can ever seem to name any. And without naming any specific unnecessary regulations, saying we are over-regulated is just a bunch of empty rhetoric.


Besides, I would ask the libertarian, wouild you rather live in Switzerland or Taiwan? Taiwan offers the kind of unregulated freedom libertarians covet. Switzerland is heavily regulated. I've been to both places. I would much rather live in Switzerland, because Taiwan, much as I love it, is messy and polluted.

For starters libertarians for the most part have problems with regulation at the federal level. You don't want farm animals fine live in a suburban community with those regulations but someone somewhere might want the farm animals so they can live in areas without those regulations.


For starters I have a problem with federal regulations in education, I have a problem with federal regulations prohibiting private acts such as consumption of substances, prostitution, marriage regulations between adults, regulations demanding how private business operates and who they serve, and so on.


People tend to mix libertarians with anarchist and while some of our beliefs overlap with anarchist principles we are not anarchist. We for the most part preach the more local you can create government and regulations the more effective and less oppressive they tend to be.


If you haven't talked to anyone that has a problem with specific regulations you probably haven't talked to any libertarians people don't accidentally identify third party they tend to be very specific.

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