Liberty 101

The tone of this post may be a bit harsh. It is a rant. Either deal with it, or click away now before going any further. Your jimmies may be rustled if you read on. Freedom is for people who are willing to accept responsibility. If you aren't willing, maybe freedom isn't for you, but don't try to drag the adults down to your level. Go in peace, and let the grown-ups talk.

Libertarianism is not "socially liberal and fiscally conservative." It is not a set of policy positions. It is not drug use and free love. It is not supporting a third party that can't even get 5% of the electoral vote. It is a set of basic principles that rational individuals need to learn to apply to any given situation to discern the right approach. This applies to "small-L" libertarianism, as opposed to the "big-L" Libertarian Party. Don't confuse the two. The Libertarian Party is a failure and will always be a failure because it has no sound philosophical or moral foundation.

Libertarianism as a philosophy is based on a few fundamental principles that are easy to understand, yet some people deliberately misunderstand them and respond with every fallacy possible. I've had enough of that garbage on various other forums. This isn't to say that questions aren't welcome, but try to understand the position presented and don't go off half-cocked with a bunch of straw man arguments or absurd lifeboat scenarios.

1. The Non-Aggression Principle
It is always immoral to initiate coercive force against a peaceful individual. Never violate someone else's right to life, liberty or property. This obviously does not mean surrendering the right to self-defense, because proportionate force in defense of self or others in response to apparent aggression is not in and of itself aggression.

Don't be an idiot who tries to create excuses for aggression. Don't conflate defensive force and aggression because both can be "violent" or "use force." Don't try to argue that because some scenarios can be difficult to analyze, the principle is somehow at fault.

2. Property Rights
All rights are property rights. You own yourself. I own me. We each own our respective actions and the consequences of those actions. If I transform un-owned resources into a form more useful to me, I own that new form. This is the fundamental principle of property rights in external goods, also known as "homesteading." I can gift my property to someone else, transferring right-of-use to them. I can barter my property with someone else for mutual benefit. Since I own my actions, I can even trade my capacity to act in exchange for property someone else has already acquired as a wage. All of this is covered under the umbrella concept of market production.

Neither of us has the right to expropriate the property of another without their consent. That is theft of property, and an illegitimate claim of superior ownership over whatever the other individual produced. Fraud is theft, too. Suppose I agree to sell you an original mint-condition Babe Ruth baseball card. If you pay me, but I provide a counterfeit card, or fail to deliver anything at all, I have robbed you of the sum you paid for the card. This is easy to understand. If you don't get it, what is your mental roadblock?

Property is not theft, so sit down and shut up instead of mindlessly parroting Proudhon. He also said that property was freedom. The question is whether a property claim is a just expression of economic production as covered in the previous paragraph, or an unjust result of plundering the productive.

3. Voluntary Association
This one should be obvious if you understood the previous points, but it bears its own entry. The market process requires voluntary association. If party A and party B agree to something that doesn't violate the principles of property rights and non-aggression, the opinion of parties C, D, and E is utterly irrelevant. Homosexual or interracial marriage, trade in mind-altering substances, posting NSFW material on the internet, hiring someone for a wage rate that someone else doesn't approve, or any number of other scenarios fall under this same principle.

The corollary is that if party A declines to associate with party B, then Party B does not have the right to compel party A against his or her will. Coercion is not cooperation, it is aggression. Compliance under duress is not consent. This is kindergarten-level stuff. Why isn't it obvious?

Conclusion
Free speech, gun rights, gay marriage, and every other hot-button issue needs to be understood through the principles of voluntary association, property rights and the non-aggression principle. You don't have the right to shout at me through a bullhorn in my living room. I don't have the right to threaten you with a rifle, although presenting my rifle to defend my property rights if you show up with a bullhorn in my living room may be warranted. My ownership of a rifle or your ownership of a bullhorn is not ipso facto aggression.

If I don't have the right to threaten you with violence in order to coerce you into obeying me, surrendering your property, or foregoing a voluntary association, then I don't have the right to vote for someone else to do that on my behalf either. This isn't rocket science. Politics is antithetical to progress. You can't "vote the bums out and vote good guys in" when the office is built on a foundation of usurpation.

There are a lot of thorny problems in this world. There are people with mental or moral handicaps. Property claims are disputed. People commit fraud. People violate the rights of others to life, liberty, and property in numerous other ways. But government is not a solution to these problems. Governments operate through aggression against peaceful people. Governments impose involuntary associations and exchanges. Governments fund everything through theft in such forms as eminent domain, taxation, and inflation.

The logical conclusion of consistent libertarianism is anarchy. Not "no rules," but "no rulers." Good rules are discovered by people at the grassroots level. Good solutions are discovered by crowdsourcing with voluntary association and market exchange. Progress is the result of liberty, not authoritarianism. Good intentions are never a valid excuse for tyranny.

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Now, if anyone wants to have a productive conversation, the comment section is open.