Atlas Shrugged

Permabear wrote: »

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Aye, well it is the Guardian PB, so there's always an element of what would one expect from a pig but a grunt. If it leaned any further to the leftie trendy liberal side it would fall over.

If I were to buy the house next to yours, even under some hypothetical libertarian system of property rights, I wouldn't have the right to host loud parties all night long and deprive you of sleep. My right to do as I please with my property would be constrained by your right to enjoy your own property, just as my right to throw punches ends at your nose.

Yep and that works where such an example consists of general equals in power. Without oversight up the chain when you have a similar scenario involving inequality of power the problems start. Now the usual response is to revert to the law and that's fine. However there are enough examples where those with the deepest pockets win in law. If the prosecution can only afford one lawyer and the defence can afford twenty things get unequal real quickly. That's already the case with state oversight, remove that and it won't magically go away, it'll likely get worse.

Permabear wrote: »

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True dat, though like any argument there is some merit to it and I am far from a liberal progressive as some might think.

It's also worth noting that progressive liberals, who tend to endorse evolution of the body, strongly reject evolutionary psychology when it points to conclusions about race and gender that they don't like.

Very true. They tend to cherry pick the science that agrees with their worldview. Though in fairness that's pretty much a given with any ism one cares to mention, right, left or otherwise.

One area where I would agree with the Guardian writer is in regard to drug trials. Without external oversight and left to the "market" drug trials would be even more open to BS than they already are. The idea that the market would self regulate, that if you removed the brakes of state oversight they'd apply brakes of their own volition is beyond naive. If they're already pulling scientific strokes with external oversight imagine how little they'd need to worry if there was none. And again the law would tend to favour those with the deepest pockets. Even cases that went against them would be considered an accounting issue.

Progressive liberals can be every bit as ideologically anti-science as members of any other ideological affiliation. It's just that they don't see themselves that way.

Actually this is an area where the libs do tend to suffer more from objectivity failure, while ironically claiming the higher ground on objectivity.

Permabear wrote: »

Unlike government regulators, libertarians don't claim to have all the answers to disasters that haven't happened yet. But it's worth noting that (a) the state did not prevent these situations (among many others) from occurring, and (b) the state has caused many disasters of its own, ranging from two World Wars, the Holocaust, millions of deaths in communist purges, eccocide in Vietnam, nuclear accidents at state-run power plants, and many others. Over the last century alone, hundreds of millions of innocent people have died at the hands of the state.

Yes, but in many of those examples the market was profiting massively, indeed was sometimes driving some of the examples. EG Hitler's Germany would have gotten nowhere without the German conglomerates backing him to the hilt when they reckoned he was "good for business" and there were quite the number of non German companies supporting him too. Who profited from agent Orange? Who profited from arms and munitions? What drove the US industrial complex from the late 30's on? The market was only too happy to jump along for the ride and some would contend that was in the driving seat for quite a bit of it.

jank wrote: »

Seriously though an attempt to equate Putin's Russia with that of a Libertarian Paradise? Meh...its a lazy attempt of humor if nothing else.

I'm with you there J.

Libertarians generally favor small government and state, with limited powers where the rights of the individual remains paramount.

Which sounds great, however how are the rights of the individual protected and by what/whom if you largely take the state out of the equation? The law? Again power/money can "buy" the law more often than it can't and that's with the state involved. You're just removing one more brake from the bottom liners.