I’ve actually met one… or someone who claimed to be one, anyway. I think what he said was: “It’s in the Constitution; if the government wants you to go kill some people, then you’ve got to go kill some people.”
They were probably serious. Extreme libertarianism (as well as many other ideologies) judges the terminal value of a law based on the law alone; the system by which the laws get made (absolute democracy? constitutionally-limited democracy? benevolent dictator?) is then just a means toward that end. The belief that a financially-limited franchise would infringe less on liberty might still be wrong, but it’s not inherently self-contradictory.
We tend to lump ideas like “freedom”, “democracy”, and “self-government” into a big halo effect box of happiness, despite there being serious historical and modern conflicts between any pair of them. If a majority of people desire to ban flag-burning, under what conditions is it right for a minority to ignore that desire? If a large majority of people in some locality want strict enforcement of a particular religion’s edicts there, does it matter if they’re greatly outnumbered by non-locals who disagree? Does the answer to the previous question change if I insert “don’t” before the word want?
I’ve actually met one… or someone who claimed to be one, anyway. I think what he said was: “It’s in the Constitution; if the government wants you to go kill some people, then you’ve got to go kill some people.”
I met a libertarian who was allegedly in favor of the poll tax. It was sort of a Poe’s law situation.
They were probably serious. Extreme libertarianism (as well as many other ideologies) judges the terminal value of a law based on the law alone; the system by which the laws get made (absolute democracy? constitutionally-limited democracy? benevolent dictator?) is then just a means toward that end. The belief that a financially-limited franchise would infringe less on liberty might still be wrong, but it’s not inherently self-contradictory.
We tend to lump ideas like “freedom”, “democracy”, and “self-government” into a big halo effect box of happiness, despite there being serious historical and modern conflicts between any pair of them. If a majority of people desire to ban flag-burning, under what conditions is it right for a minority to ignore that desire? If a large majority of people in some locality want strict enforcement of a particular religion’s edicts there, does it matter if they’re greatly outnumbered by non-locals who disagree? Does the answer to the previous question change if I insert “don’t” before the word want?