For all the talk of guns and self defense, rationalist libertarians are basically social pacifists.
Well, two points come to mind.
First, libertarians are by definition social pacifists if “social pacifism” is defined as refusal to the use coercion to propagate your own memes and values.
Second, rational libertarians who happen to be upper-middle-class college kids living in big coastal cities—these might be social pacifist. But I bet I can find some pretty rational pretty libertarian guys somewhere in Wyoming and they won’t be pacifist at all.
Libertarians are supposed to refrain from initiating force, while pacifists refrain from using any force. That’s theoretically the distinction between pacifists and libertarians. In practice politically, very little difference.
As for the boys in Wyoming, I don’t think they’re much better. Maybe worse. Sure, if you show up with an actual gun and shoot at them, they’re likely to shoot back. But for all the huffy talk about how government initiates force against them, what do they actually do to retaliate? At least City Beta Boy Snowden actually did something.
If all their “eternal vigilance” amounts to is bitching and moaning when their liberty is infringed, what good are they?
Remember the context—we’re talking about persuasion in the social setting, about meme and value propagation, basically. In this context “pacifism” means “tolerance” in the sense of “you don’t believe the same things as I do and that’s fine”.
And my point was that not only in that context, but in other contexts as well, rationalist libertarians are pacifists until the bullets flying at them are actual bullets.
Well, two points come to mind.
First, libertarians are by definition social pacifists if “social pacifism” is defined as refusal to the use coercion to propagate your own memes and values.
Second, rational libertarians who happen to be upper-middle-class college kids living in big coastal cities—these might be social pacifist. But I bet I can find some pretty rational pretty libertarian guys somewhere in Wyoming and they won’t be pacifist at all.
Libertarians are supposed to refrain from initiating force, while pacifists refrain from using any force. That’s theoretically the distinction between pacifists and libertarians. In practice politically, very little difference.
As for the boys in Wyoming, I don’t think they’re much better. Maybe worse. Sure, if you show up with an actual gun and shoot at them, they’re likely to shoot back. But for all the huffy talk about how government initiates force against them, what do they actually do to retaliate? At least City Beta Boy Snowden actually did something.
If all their “eternal vigilance” amounts to is bitching and moaning when their liberty is infringed, what good are they?
Remember the context—we’re talking about persuasion in the social setting, about meme and value propagation, basically. In this context “pacifism” means “tolerance” in the sense of “you don’t believe the same things as I do and that’s fine”.
And my point was that not only in that context, but in other contexts as well, rationalist libertarians are pacifists until the bullets flying at them are actual bullets.
I don’t believe this to be true. At least according to my understanding of rationalist libertarians.