Penn Gilette has always seemed to be driven by a level of honesty and compassion and valued the freedom to choose where to direct that compassion. I think earlier on he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it’s become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don’t want to be called Repuiblicans.
I mean in the early 2000s he was calling bullshit on the hysteria over the vaccine autism link saying the alternative of kids dying to preventable diseases is so much worse. He even gave the tenuous link a benefit of the doubt and accepted that even if they did cause autism,t he alternative is so much worse.
he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it’s become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don’t want to be called Repuiblicans
I had a similar progression myself when I was in my teens, maybe even early 20s.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview. It took me a while to realize how common it is for self-identifying libertarians to lack any capacity for nuance. The natural extreme of “libertarianism” is just anarchy and feudalism.
In a sane world, I might still call myself a libertarian. In a sane world, that might mean letting people live their own damn lives, not throwing them to the wolves (or more literally, bears ) and dismantling the government entirely.
I’m all for minding my own business, but I also acknowledge that maintaining a functional society is everybody’s business (as much as I occasionally wish I could opt out and go live in a cave).
One problem with libertarianism and the other selfish philosophies is that humanity absolutely cannot survive at all without a massive amount of cooperation.
Assholes who think they can do it on their own are completely delusional.
If you eliminate everything from your life that required the cooperation of another human being, it’s likely you’re naked, starving, and freezing to death.
"Oh, I can hunt for food.’
Really? With just your bare hands? Maybe your naked ass will get lucky and nail a squirrel with a rock, but what are you going to do when a mountain lion decides you’re the squirrel?
Even if you manage to make some rock tools and weapons, you didn’t figure that out on your own. Someone told you about it.
Knowledge is the biggest advantage humans have going for them. Without sharing knowledge that others discovered, most people wouldn’t last long enough to matter.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview
The problem is obviously that nobody lives in isolation. Everyone takes actions which impact other people.
If there are going to be laws, then the government needs a police force and a judiciary that are big enough to enforce those laws. If there are going to be companies, the government has to be bigger than the biggest company, otherwise it won’t be able to effectively enforce anything. The bigger the biggest company gets, the bigger the government has to be in order to be able to enforce the laws. But, big government is antithetical to the libertarian philosophy. If you want to limit the size of the government but still want government to be able to enforce laws, you need to limit the size of companies. But that’s a regulation, and government regulations are antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.
Arguing for the idea that the government should generally let people mind their own business as long as nobody is getting hurt, or that consenting adults are knowingly and willingly consenting to being hurt, that’s fine. Same with the idea that regulations shouldn’t be overly burdensome. There’s always going to have to be a line drawn somewhere, but it’s fine if you tend to want that line to be drawn in a way that allows for more freedom vs. more babysitting by the government.
The ridiculous bit is when libertarians try to argue that some extreme form of libertarianism is possible. Anarchy is certainly possible, but it isn’t something that most people, even libertarians, think is a great plan.
The extreme forms of Libertarianism or Anarchy are only possible if everyone engages in good faith. They have no built-in protections against bad actors. Someone wants to divert a river for any reason? Sucks to be downstream.
There aren’t many people who are willing to evaluate their entire political decisions and come to the conclusion that they were wrong. Even fewer who will admit it publicly. Even fewer still who will accept responsibility and then do something about it.
Of the people I have respectfully disagreed with, the fact that he’s come around is a huge testament to his willingness to be humbled and corrected.
There aren’t many people who are willing to evaluate their entire political decisions and come to the conclusion that they were wrong
I doubt that his ideology actually changed much, but instead he just realized that the Libertarian Party didn’t actually match it like they claimed to do.
The New Hampshire libertarians went full tea party and dragged the rest down with them. I never expected to see anti LGBT rhetoric from a party that enshrined gay rights in their charter way back in 1972, at a time when the Democrats and Republicans were holding hands and chanting “God hates fags” in unison
Yeah I remember when libertarians were “I want a good old fashioned mom and mom Marijuana farm where they defend it with machine guns if they so choose”. And back then my beef with them was climate change requires everyone to work in tandem and is an existential threat. These days, libertarians are Republicans who know to be ashamed to call themselves that
Penn Gilette has always seemed to be driven by a level of honesty and compassion and valued the freedom to choose where to direct that compassion. I think earlier on he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it’s become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don’t want to be called Repuiblicans.
I mean in the early 2000s he was calling bullshit on the hysteria over the vaccine autism link saying the alternative of kids dying to preventable diseases is so much worse. He even gave the tenuous link a benefit of the doubt and accepted that even if they did cause autism,t he alternative is so much worse.
I had a similar progression myself when I was in my teens, maybe even early 20s.
The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview. It took me a while to realize how common it is for self-identifying libertarians to lack any capacity for nuance. The natural extreme of “libertarianism” is just anarchy and feudalism.
In a sane world, I might still call myself a libertarian. In a sane world, that might mean letting people live their own damn lives, not throwing them to the wolves (or more literally, bears ) and dismantling the government entirely.
I’m all for minding my own business, but I also acknowledge that maintaining a functional society is everybody’s business (as much as I occasionally wish I could opt out and go live in a cave).
One problem with libertarianism and the other selfish philosophies is that humanity absolutely cannot survive at all without a massive amount of cooperation.
Assholes who think they can do it on their own are completely delusional.
If you eliminate everything from your life that required the cooperation of another human being, it’s likely you’re naked, starving, and freezing to death.
"Oh, I can hunt for food.’
Really? With just your bare hands? Maybe your naked ass will get lucky and nail a squirrel with a rock, but what are you going to do when a mountain lion decides you’re the squirrel?
Even if you manage to make some rock tools and weapons, you didn’t figure that out on your own. Someone told you about it.
Knowledge is the biggest advantage humans have going for them. Without sharing knowledge that others discovered, most people wouldn’t last long enough to matter.
The problem is obviously that nobody lives in isolation. Everyone takes actions which impact other people.
If there are going to be laws, then the government needs a police force and a judiciary that are big enough to enforce those laws. If there are going to be companies, the government has to be bigger than the biggest company, otherwise it won’t be able to effectively enforce anything. The bigger the biggest company gets, the bigger the government has to be in order to be able to enforce the laws. But, big government is antithetical to the libertarian philosophy. If you want to limit the size of the government but still want government to be able to enforce laws, you need to limit the size of companies. But that’s a regulation, and government regulations are antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.
Arguing for the idea that the government should generally let people mind their own business as long as nobody is getting hurt, or that consenting adults are knowingly and willingly consenting to being hurt, that’s fine. Same with the idea that regulations shouldn’t be overly burdensome. There’s always going to have to be a line drawn somewhere, but it’s fine if you tend to want that line to be drawn in a way that allows for more freedom vs. more babysitting by the government.
The ridiculous bit is when libertarians try to argue that some extreme form of libertarianism is possible. Anarchy is certainly possible, but it isn’t something that most people, even libertarians, think is a great plan.
The extreme forms of Libertarianism or Anarchy are only possible if everyone engages in good faith. They have no built-in protections against bad actors. Someone wants to divert a river for any reason? Sucks to be downstream.
There aren’t many people who are willing to evaluate their entire political decisions and come to the conclusion that they were wrong. Even fewer who will admit it publicly. Even fewer still who will accept responsibility and then do something about it.
Of the people I have respectfully disagreed with, the fact that he’s come around is a huge testament to his willingness to be humbled and corrected.
I doubt that his ideology actually changed much, but instead he just realized that the Libertarian Party didn’t actually match it like they claimed to do.
The New Hampshire libertarians went full tea party and dragged the rest down with them. I never expected to see anti LGBT rhetoric from a party that enshrined gay rights in their charter way back in 1972, at a time when the Democrats and Republicans were holding hands and chanting “God hates fags” in unison
Yeah I remember when libertarians were “I want a good old fashioned mom and mom Marijuana farm where they defend it with machine guns if they so choose”. And back then my beef with them was climate change requires everyone to work in tandem and is an existential threat. These days, libertarians are Republicans who know to be ashamed to call themselves that