To be fair an awful lot of libertarians I know are against drink driving laws. The reason being that the drinking doesn’t harm people it’s driving dangerously that does.

Sounds like he may have been driving dangerously though, which is often correlated with drinking. I don’t think drink driving should be illegal in itself but it is a pretty stupid thing to do anyway and could well be illegal on libertarian grounds in many contexts. Not great but isn’t going to stop me reading him.

>>> Not great but isn’t going to stop me reading him.

No, but a magistrates might…

Haha I was going to blog this over at PP but every draft I wrote was just me going: AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! And I don’t think Sunny would stand for such childish gloating….

Anyway, imagine if he actually goes down? How fucking funny would that be!

I’m confused – are liberals not in favour of the rule of law?

Or do we not like Guido because he runs stories about your Labour friends?

Chris,

To be fair an awful lot of libertarians I know are against drink driving laws. The reason being that the drinking doesn’t harm people, it’s driving dangerously that does.

And I’d be willing to bet the same libertarians would argue for the right to carry guns too, and on the same grounds. Put these ideas together and you have the Wild West.

How come you know lots of them?

The reason being that the drinking doesn’t harm people it’s driving dangerously that does.

There of course being no increased risk of perpetrating the latter once one has indulged in the former.

Or do we not like Guido because he runs stories about your Labour friends?

Oh I have other reasons for not liking Guido. But don’t you worry your pretty head about that.

The trouble with many libertarians is that they overestimate peoples intelligence; this case shows that Guido’s intelligence may have been overestimated as well.
Humanity has always needed rules to protect us from ourselves!

Do we have hanging, drawing, and quartering for drink-driving?

Douglas,

“And I’d be willing to bet the same libertarians would argue for the right to carry guns too, and on the same grounds.”

Yup.

“How come you know lots of them?”

I should have said ‘an awful lot of ‘the’ libertarians I know’, which isn’t very many. The sort of people who think the Police should be run privately and that global warming is a communist plot to increase taxes.

“Put these ideas together and you have the Wild West.”

Better the Wild West (not quite as wild as shown in the movies, by the way) than the soviet union. I am personally sceptical about the right to be armed in the UK (especially in cities) because it is still relatively rare for common criminals to be carrying guns. So I would settle for gun control so long as police themselves remain unarmed (as they are ordinarily in the UK). I don’t think state officials should be given special preference.

Chris,

Despite the influx of Libertarians to this site, I’d have thought that, in general, they could hold their next AGM in a teacup. You said:

The sort of people who think the Police should be run privately and that global warming is a communist plot to increase taxes.

Which was why I asked. I’m not saying they are stupid, or just conspiracists, just yet, although all the evidence points that way. It is politics free of pragmatism, a view that if you arm me, I will be sensible, which is really, really daft.

Nick,

Just so’s we can joust a bit, are you actually a libertarian?

You can’t be. You are already seeing too much sense.

I agree with you that the Police should be disarmed, Which I think comes somewhat after the gangsters are disarmed. You really see the opposite of stupidity as communism? C’mon, even DK argues better than that.

You know there are libertarians and then there’s libertarians. Not all are rightwing mouthy fucktards like DK or Guido; there are many on the left too.

Let’s not dirty the word and treat it as only belonging to one part of the political spectrum…

Leon,

Sorry mate, I disagree. The word, and the idea ‘libertarian’ have being appropriated by mouthy fucktards like DK and Guido for a specific, selfish agenda. And I use the word selfish deliberately, because that is all it consists of, a me first, me right, you wrong mentalist ideology.

There is nothing that suggests their philosophy (fucks sake it ain’t politics) is anything other than their ego writ large.

I was going to say you, but I’d say it this way:

In my view these are the idiotic little children of Aleister Crowley, who said:

“Do what you you wilt, let that be the whole of the law.”

That is their definition of libertarianism, not mine. Whilst they might not like it, it is what they are shilling for.

There is no arguement., from me, that you have to be personally responsible, nor that you you should be suspicious of the state, but DK in particular takes that a step too far. This is the idiot that thinks I worry about global warming whilst he can sit back on a sun lounger at the North fucking Pole. He is only interested in politics, not reality.

Let the fucker be eaten by the last Polar Bear.

Sorry dude but you’re on a wrong un if you lay down and let turds like that define your political definitions for you.

Now go read some good Chomsky and rediscover how libertarianism actually belongs to the left.

Jesus Leon!

What I’m saying is that – for most folk – the brain dead DK has stolen any idea that you had about what Libertarianism was about, and bent it to his own aims. He now defines the word.

It is that sad.

Nope, he doesn’t. Just like Iain Dale doesn’t ‘define’ what blogging is or should be. You’re giving up far too easy and (due to the respect I have for you) I hold you to a higher standard so not letting this go.

Those ‘most people’ need reasonable folk to defy the perceived wisdom, to say no it’s actually like this and/or to provide alternatives.

Don’t take it laying down mofo!

Leon.

The respect is mutual. The problem we have here is that we are being told what mainstream libertarianism requires of us, for instance:

agree with the mofos’ that global warming is a plot by cheese eating surrender monkeys to limit the actions of right wing neo fascist arseholes. Viz the total shit that was in their manifesto.

agree that drunk driving is OK, as long as on this occasion no-one dies. Lack of potential consequences.

agree that gun ownership is a good thing and that it will save lives. Well, it might. Most gun deaths in the US are suicides, so if we could just insist that only libertarian party members were allowed guns, we’d have a Darwinian solution.

These concrete examples of madness, and I am up for debating any of them, are what the neo-con tits who have clothed themselves in an otherwise respectable idea of minimising the state, would have you agree to! It has moved from a philosophy to a creed. Run by megalomaniacs.

The sort of people who think the Police should be run privately and that global warming is a communist plot to increase taxes.

I find the private security guards who patrol my square most reassuring!

And while global warming might not be a plot, it’s proving to be a bloody good excuse </i).

Well from my perspective, it doesn’t matter whether you are mouthy or quiet. If you are for reducing the size and scope of the state and enforcing the rule of law while respecting our hard won civil liberties and don’t wish the state to prescribe what sort of lifestyle is acceptable, then you are a libertarian. It combines the best of the left and the right! Belief in anthropogenic global warming doesn’t really shift that definition.

This is really quite funny: DK: The one man who “defines” libertarianism. Don’t be so f*cking stupid.

cjcjc, #5

I’m confused – are liberals not in favour of the rule of law?

Or do we not like Guido because he runs stories about your Labour friends?

I’m confused by your reasoning. Why are liberals not in favour of the rule of law? Isn’t Guido the one who broke it, and put other drivers and their families at risk by driving under the influence?

I would be grateful if someone could clarify this.

All Political creeds are misrepresented.

Guido, by allying himself with the Tories and lionising Thatcher, has little in common with what I consider libertarianism.

The thing is, it’s difficult to define what libertarianism is here in the UK. It’s a small country with a large population. What works in sparse states like New Hampshire and Vermont, wouldn’t work here, where you live in each other’s pocket. Like all ideologies, there has to be compromises.

“The thing is, it’s difficult to define what libertarianism is here in the UK. It’s a small country with a large population. What works in sparse states like New Hampshire and Vermont, wouldn’t work here, where you live in each other’s pocket. Like all ideologies, there has to be compromises.”

Agreed. I suppose you have to consider individual rights to be the starting point of organising government in more densely populated areas and, in practice, you may find people consenting to relatively strong municipal governments (that still respect private property). You can’t grossly apply frontier homesteading-style libertarianism to Greater London!