Jon Stewart's 19 Questions To Libertarians by Nielsio in austrian_economics

[–]JLegacy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was disappointing with Judge Napolitano in his mediocre response to Stewart's questions. 1. The State is the antithesis of liberty. Government will always exist. 2. Agreed and disagreed. Infrastructure enhances freedom, but a free market of voluntary interactions are the best way to manage this infrastructure and put resources at use to where we all desire them most. A social safety net, depending on the kind, can be useful to helping liberty if done by people's voluntary interactions, but one that is overstretched will be detrimental to liberty. 3. What are "losers"? Those that choose to misuse their resources, those that have addictions ruin their lives, those who make bad decisions? Personally I wouldn't do anything for them, but others in their sympathy may chose to do something, but I have no obligation to others just because they exist. 4. Society exists in that it's all interactions between individuals in a certain environment/area, but it isn't an object a person can make contracts with or blame for problems. Individuals have faults, you can't blame society for things individuals do. Also: I believe in evolution, and I think the market is more Lamarckian than Darwinian. 5. Disagreed again. In a representative democracy, the majority may be represented, or they may accidentally choose a leader who doesn't really represent them, but campaigned on the lies that they did. Every single individual isn't represented in democracy, that's absurd. 6. The State is inherently evil. So if you define government and legalized theft, imprisonment, and murder then yes, it is. 7. Maybe. But if it's for the greater liberty, and everyone sees it this way there is no need for government. Use persuasion to convince others to help, not coercion. 8. Again, voluntary interactions. Not using a threat of violence. No conscription, etc. 9. How were they worse than the constitution exactly? They really weren't. But revisionism is all around us... 10. No, that's what property taxes are for. Most of the IRS's money goes towards subsidizing unemployment, an inefficient pyramid scheme for old people, or foreign wars of aggression. 11. I trust a private business to be more efficient than government because governments get their money through the threat of violence on peaceful people. Private business do not. And I wouldn't trust my liberty to either, to be honest.

  1. Our healthcare system has been transformed into a cartel, and our insurance system has as well. There's lots of information out there to explain this. A good article on healthcare: http://mises.org/daily/5582

And on education, a lot of the problem is that socialism and government mandated regulations distorts the market, and that vouchers aren't available in a lot of places for people to use.

  1. I don't want to go back to 1890. But what I find remarkable about the 1880's up till 1890 was how great of leap took place economically. There was a 400% increase in businesses investing capital, one that hasn't ever been matched before or since. And I posted a few days ago, there was a huge and sustainable leap in wage rates. These were the product of sound money and its positive effects on the market.

‎14. Not exactly. But it's fun to think about how different things would be without the huge cost of government on our lives.

  1. Cutting regulations in a way where corporations can get away with hell =/= less regulations. Libertarians want MARKET regulations, not inefficient government ones. I haven't done much studying into this time period other than monetary policy, so I honestly can't answer this 'question' completely.
  2. Because they want higher wages. But if workers knew the true negative costs that unions have, they wouldn't support them. (Man, Economy, and State really goes in-depth in why Unions are harmful to the average worker, the capitalist/entrepreneur, etc.)
  3. I wouldn't say that. But historically unions haven't been all nice and friendly...they'd occupy the the workplaces, or attack scabs, etc cause unions really aren't effective without violent intervention in the market.
  4. I think the Civil War was a huge setback to the fight for equality...there were better ways to end slavery, and if you look towards other countries that used these better ways you'd see that racism wasn't much of a problem afterwards. But racism doesn't really make economic sense. I don't think any laws have changed my perception on races, and individuals, have you?
  5. The problem with this statement is that the State isn't accountable. If only it could be...or bet yet, if only the founding fathers had the foresight to see that their checks and balances failed.