KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (08/25/86)
From: power.Wbst@Xerox.COM
... The few libertarians I know are racist, although they talk
a good non-racist argument.
How did you determine that they are racist? If they are truly
racist, then they aren't libertarian, since libertarians all advocate
a completely colorblind government.
The basic tone of the libertarian philosophy has strong elements
of social darwinism in it, long used as a scientific veneer for
racist thinking.
People who advocate "survival of the fittest my any means" are not
libertarians. They may be anarchists. Libertarians believe that
certain things are just plain wrong no matter who does them, even if
it is a government that does them. These things include robbery,
slavery, rape, torture, and murder. A social darwinist considers all
of these acceptable if you can get away with them.
A consistent a social darwinist ought to support whatever the
current system happens to be. Given their hypothesis, the current
system, whatever it is, is due to the more fit surviving. Many Nazis
were social darwinists. They had no business complaining when we won.
We beat them fair and square by their own rules.
If you do not support social darwinism and racism, fine. Neither do
I. But don't say you don't support libertarianism for that reason.
Those are good reasons *TO* support libertarianism!
(I'm perfectly willing to defend this assesment of social
darwinism if anyone wants to debate it.)
I assume you mean the assertion that social darwinism can be used in
support of racism. I agree completely. It can be used in support of
anything anyone can get away with. Read Nietzche.
It is hard to imagine a philosophy more opposed to libertarianism.
... to evaluate all 'rights' as belonging only to individuals and
never to society goes to the other extreme. The answer lies
somewhere in the middle, but I'm not sure where.
This is one of those sayings that sound good at first, but that are
meaningless or even hateful on closer study. Just who is this
society? There is nobody here but individuals. Can you give some
examples of a societal right?
I contend that the concept of 'rights' are a conveniant tool, a
useful fiction that serves the survival of our species. They are
an abstraction, ...
They are just as real as matter and energy.
and to give all rights to the second abstraction called
'indivdual' (libertarianism)
I am not an abstraction. I am an individual.
Would you justify robbery and murder on the grounds that the victim
was only an abstraction?
is as anti-survival as giving all rights to another abstraction
called 'society' (Socialist communism?).
In socialism the government is everything and the individual is
nothing. So I conclude that by "society" you mean government.
I don't know what it means to "give" rights to someone. People HAVE
rights. They are not GIVEN rights by any government. A government
may recognize those rights or it may fail to do so. But it doesn't
GRANT any rights.
I am trying to figure out what it would mean to "give" rights to a
government. Who is doing the giving? And what does it mean for a
government to have rights, anyway?
A government has the right to do anything that an individual may do.
This right is implicit in the fact that government is made up of
individuals. A socialist government also assumes the "right" to rob
and to imprison innocent people. Is this what you are advocating?
Why?
You assert that the two extremes, total liberty and total slavery
are equally anti-survival. You also assert that "HUMAN BEINGS DON'T
WORK THAT WAY". You fail to provide any evidence for this. To me it
seems as silly as asserting that total accuracy and total inaccuracy
are equally bad, i.e. 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 65,537 are equally bad,
and the best answer lies somewhere between them. Are you trying to
support compromise for compromise sake? Are you one of those who
believe that the US is just as guilty of everything as the USSR and
the Nazis?
Socialists, when confronted with the abysmal failure of all attempts
at socialist utopias often assert that people just aren't good enough.
That socialism would be possible if only people were better, more
selfless, more hard working, more determined to make it all work.
I have no opinion on whether or not a more perfect slave could
someday be bred (for whose benefit?) but it is clear to me that as of
today, at least, human beings really DON'T work that way. Socialism
is doomed to failure if its subjects are humans rather than mindless
unselfish untiring robots.
It is clear that people are interested in their own personal self
interest, and in benefit to their family and close friends. The
libertarian system is the only system that works even in the face of
human selfishness.
In fact, Ayn Rand makes a good case that selfishness is GOOD and
altruism is EVIL. By altruism she doesn't mean doing good deeds for
other's benefit and for no benefit to oneself, she means the
philosophy that says one is MORALLY COMPELLED to sacrifice one's self
interest to the benefit of others.
...Keith
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