Recently I saw someone make a desperate appeal to their perception of a difference between “legal” and “lawful”. They were attempting to make a “founding father” look like something other than the nasty old statist he was, by their tortured interpretation of something he had said about “lawful authority”.
Author: Kent McManigal
Libertarianism is The Balance
One objection I frequently see against libertarianism is that it’s “too extreme”. “There needs to be a balance between the extremes of libertarianism and fascism” (as illustrated by “border enforcement” and so forth).
Wrong Opinions
Facts don’t care about your opinions. You should care if your opinions don’t match the facts, but for too many people, that’s hard, and it would invalidate their most dearly held opinions. So they won’t do that.
Let People Find Their Own Solutions
The best approach is to let people find their own solutions. Most of their ideas will fail; some will be spectacular failures, but as long as no one’s solution is forced on everyone else, people can keep trying different things. The more ideas that get tried, the more problems will be solved.
Perfection is Not an Option
You are going to have no real choice but to drive on some government roads. You are going to have no choice but to use some things government paid for with money it stole. You can barter and use silver for some trades, but fiat “money” is unavoidable. You may benefit in some roundabout way from government’s unethical (and evil) actions which you oppose. That’s reality.
See What You Can Build on Your Own
To prevent someone from making things on their own is bad in two ways. You show you don’t trust them to be competent, and you keep them from becoming competent; from learning how to do things they’ll value. If you never allow someone to succeed or fail on their own, always doing everything for them, they’ll never really grow up. They’ll never learn responsibility.
Androids’ Rights?
I ran across an interesting question on Quora: When we do start making humanoid androids, should they be afforded civil rights? I answered this way: Not unless you can be sure they are sapient— or at least sentient. But even if they are, they would be a separate species, and rights don’t really transfer across species…
Erich Fromm on “The Authoritarian Character”
He was a supporter of toxic authoritarianism when he obviously– from his own observations– should have known better. Why? Maybe he was just genetically inclined that way. Maybe he wasn’t able to rise above his early brainwashing. But who knows?
Accept Everyone You Can
I try to be accepting of everyone. This doesn’t mean I’m accepting of everything everyone does. Not every behavior is OK. There are lines in the sand I can’t cross, and that when crossed by others, I can’t support.
Don’t Force Your Crutch on Others
Crutches were a good invention. Thousands of years after someone came up with the idea, they are still useful. Using a crutch may not be ideal, but it’s better than the alternative. It allows someone to get around when they might not otherwise be able to without crawling. If you need a crutch, use one. However, not everyone needs a crutch.