Agreed. I suppose you have to consider individual rights to be the starting point of organising government in more densely populated areas and, in practice, you may find people consenting to relatively strong municipal governments (that still respect private property). You can’t grossly apply frontier homesteading-style libertarianism to Greater London!

Guido, by allying himself with the Tories and lionising Thatcher, has little in common with what I consider libertarianism.

The thing is, it’s difficult to define what libertarianism is here in the UK. It’s a small country with a large population. What works in sparse states like New Hampshire and Vermont, wouldn’t work here, where you live in each other’s pocket. Like all ideologies, there has to be compromises.

I’m confused - are liberals not in favour of the rule of law?

Or do we not like Guido because he runs stories about your Labour friends?

I’m confused by your reasoning. Why are liberals not in favour of the rule of law? Isn’t Guido the one who broke it, and put other drivers and their families at risk by driving under the influence?

I would be grateful if someone could clarify this.

I find the private security guards who patrol my square most reassuring! :-)

And while global warming might not be a plot, it’s proving to be a bloody good excuse </i).

The respect is mutual. The problem we have here is that we are being told what mainstream libertarianism requires of us, for instance:

agree with the mofos’ that global warming is a plot by cheese eating surrender monkeys to limit the actions of right wing neo fascist arseholes. Viz the total shit that was in their manifesto.

agree that drunk driving is OK, as long as on this occasion no-one dies. Lack of potential consequences.

agree that gun ownership is a good thing and that it will save lives. Well, it might. Most gun deaths in the US are suicides, so if we could just insist that only libertarian party members were allowed guns, we’d have a Darwinian solution.

These concrete examples of madness, and I am up for debating any of them, are what the neo-con tits who have clothed themselves in an otherwise respectable idea of minimising the state, would have you agree to! It has moved from a philosophy to a creed. Run by megalomaniacs.

Those ‘most people’ need reasonable folk to defy the perceived wisdom, to say no it’s actually like this and/or to provide alternatives.

Don’t take it laying down mofo!

What I’m saying is that - for most folk - the brain dead DK has stolen any idea that you had about what Libertarianism was about, and bent it to his own aims. He now defines the word.

It is that sad.

Now go read some good Chomsky and rediscover how libertarianism actually belongs to the left. ;)

Sorry mate, I disagree. The word, and the idea ‘libertarian’ have being appropriated by mouthy fucktards like DK and Guido for a specific, selfish agenda. And I use the word selfish deliberately, because that is all it consists of, a me first, me right, you wrong mentalist ideology.

There is nothing that suggests their philosophy (fucks sake it ain’t politics) is anything other than their ego writ large.

I was going to say you, but I’d say it this way:

In my view these are the idiotic little children of Aleister Crowley, who said:

“Do what you you wilt, let that be the whole of the law.”

That is their definition of libertarianism, not mine. Whilst they might not like it, it is what they are shilling for.

There is no arguement., from me, that you have to be personally responsible, nor that you you should be suspicious of the state, but DK in particular takes that a step too far. This is the idiot that thinks I worry about global warming whilst he can sit back on a sun lounger at the North fucking Pole. He is only interested in politics, not reality.

Let the fucker be eaten by the last Polar Bear.

Let’s not dirty the word and treat it as only belonging to one part of the political spectrum…

Despite the influx of Libertarians to this site, I’d have thought that, in general, they could hold their next AGM in a teacup. You said:

The sort of people who think the Police should be run privately and that global warming is a communist plot to increase taxes.

Which was why I asked. I’m not saying they are stupid, or just conspiracists, just yet, although all the evidence points that way. It is politics free of pragmatism, a view that if you arm me, I will be sensible, which is really, really daft.

Nick,

Just so’s we can joust a bit, are you actually a libertarian?

You can’t be. You are already seeing too much sense.

I agree with you that the Police should be disarmed, Which I think comes somewhat after the gangsters are disarmed. You really see the opposite of stupidity as communism? C’mon, even DK argues better than that.

Better the Wild West (not quite as wild as shown in the movies, by the way) than the soviet union. I am personally sceptical about the right to be armed in the UK (especially in cities) because it is still relatively rare for common criminals to be carrying guns. So I would settle for gun control so long as police themselves remain unarmed (as they are ordinarily in the UK). I don’t think state officials should be given special preference.

“And I’d be willing to bet the same libertarians would argue for the right to carry guns too, and on the same grounds.”

Yup.

“How come you know lots of them?”

I should have said ‘an awful lot of ‘the’ libertarians I know’, which isn’t very many. The sort of people who think the Police should be run privately and that global warming is a communist plot to increase taxes.

Oh I have other reasons for not liking Guido. But don’t you worry your pretty head about that.

The reason being that the drinking doesn’t harm people it’s driving dangerously that does.

There of course being no increased risk of perpetrating the latter once one has indulged in the former.

To be fair an awful lot of libertarians I know are against drink driving laws. The reason being that the drinking doesn’t harm people, it’s driving dangerously that does.

And I’d be willing to bet the same libertarians would argue for the right to carry guns too, and on the same grounds. Put these ideas together and you have the Wild West.

How come you know lots of them?