I have had many debates with libertarians over the decades and have yet to meet one who believes in either practice or theory to "literally to let everyone be themselves".
Libertarianism fails really hard in situations where you have a lot more overall prosperity if you limit everybody. Libertarianism misses these opportunities because of its blindness to anything but individual freedoms. In economic terms it mostly refuses to deal with the tragedy of the commons. And it likes to pretend negative externalities don't exist, or that the most free markets would make negative externalities magically disappear.
Let's get concrete with a real life example.
Air pollution will very likely shorten my life by a couple of years (if the science is to be believed). A very moderate libertarian might be willing to discuss preventative regulations, but the vast majority of libertarians' response is "oh well, you can only sue after the damage has been done". Which puts the entire burden on the victim and after preventable damage has already been done. It's too late.
It's far cheaper and more effective for me to support a government that stops them from damaging my health and stops them from inteferring with my freedom to breath clean air. The complaint from libertarians is that I'm interfering with their freedoms using the threat of government force. Damn right I am! Because the only thing that has worked over the decades to clean up the air I breath is government regulations interferring with the freedoms of car manufactures, and the freedoms of consumers to buy and operate excessively polluting vehicles. Along with government interference in other polluting industries. Government inference 1, free markets 0. If I could find viable candidates who would intefere and regulate at a much faster pace, they would get my vote. Because it increases a freedom I deeply value.
Libertarianism would be a lot more interesting if the libertarians I talk to were actually interested in my freedoms and priorities (which are often collective freedoms to enjoy a shared resource) instead of only being interested in maximizing individual freedoms and their own priorities.
As far as asking "woke stars on their views of libertarianism" can you give examples and sources?
You would do well to talk to minarchists, who are libertarians who believe in small governments that only perform a role of setting regulations and enforcing them, rather than governments being active market participants
I've talked to a few minarchists and I remember them being against almost all regulations and only supporting court systems, the military, and other institutions that could be corrupted if privately owned. This article seems to support my memory of those debates.
Minarchy as described in that article would do a very poor job of regulating negative externalities and the criticisms I made in my parent post still apply. I know it's a big world our there and I could probably find a minarchist or even a libertarian who has a reasonable take on regulation of negative externalities, but so far I've been consistently disappointed. And it's not like it's tough to find debates around these subjects.
Libertarianism fails really hard in situations where you have a lot more overall prosperity if you limit everybody. Libertarianism misses these opportunities because of its blindness to anything but individual freedoms. In economic terms it mostly refuses to deal with the tragedy of the commons. And it likes to pretend negative externalities don't exist, or that the most free markets would make negative externalities magically disappear.
Let's get concrete with a real life example.
Air pollution will very likely shorten my life by a couple of years (if the science is to be believed). A very moderate libertarian might be willing to discuss preventative regulations, but the vast majority of libertarians' response is "oh well, you can only sue after the damage has been done". Which puts the entire burden on the victim and after preventable damage has already been done. It's too late.
It's far cheaper and more effective for me to support a government that stops them from damaging my health and stops them from inteferring with my freedom to breath clean air. The complaint from libertarians is that I'm interfering with their freedoms using the threat of government force. Damn right I am! Because the only thing that has worked over the decades to clean up the air I breath is government regulations interferring with the freedoms of car manufactures, and the freedoms of consumers to buy and operate excessively polluting vehicles. Along with government interference in other polluting industries. Government inference 1, free markets 0. If I could find viable candidates who would intefere and regulate at a much faster pace, they would get my vote. Because it increases a freedom I deeply value.
Libertarianism would be a lot more interesting if the libertarians I talk to were actually interested in my freedoms and priorities (which are often collective freedoms to enjoy a shared resource) instead of only being interested in maximizing individual freedoms and their own priorities.
As far as asking "woke stars on their views of libertarianism" can you give examples and sources?