Exploring Liberty: An Introduction to Libertarian Thought (with David Boaz) - Libertarianism.org

[@tjnurre]

Way to break it down for us. Thank you!

[@harleyrenfro3766]

I wish i was able to explain Libertarianism this well to others when they ask about it. Thankfully i now have this video!

[@freesk8]

David Boaz is one of my heroes. His "Primer" is really good. I love his Cato Audio speeches as well. Great job!

[@Sanzo84]

Everyone in the world should watch this! I'm from Indonesia, and we have a few similarities with the U.S.: Diverse population, an (emerging) open market economy, (largely) free press and media, a whole spectrum of ideologies but sadly also a very centralized government and a (too) large military. After a long authoritarian regime, many young intellectuals and politicians here are moving towards a more socialist ideology... And we all know where that'll lead. Thanks so much for uploading this!

[@vicoilsteems9764]

Irsan Olii LOL

[@habertree]

Outstanding video. I believe nearly all Americans would agree with this lecture. Spread the word.

[@martnoort]

Libertarianism is having a choice

[@fnjeep90]

I found my new home and finally people that have smiler ideals

[@sandrajminor1045]

Me too..

[@freesk8]

@gigahertz123 I'm glad that is your most substantial criticism of this excellent presentation. The blue stripes are the stripes of liberty. The fact that they are only approximately parallel symbolizes the near harmony arising from a diversity of voluntarily cooperating individuals. Liberty is messy. But it is more beautiful than any other system for society.

[@mlnorman1973]

If you disagree with the definitions of liberty and freedom presented, will you please share yours with us and explain how those offered in the video are "far right"?

[@nthperson]

As the philosopher Mortimer J. Adler wrote, "Liberty is freedom constrained by justice." The problem we experience in every society is reaching agreement on what constitutes behavior justice requires be constrained. Locke attempted just such as distinction, in categorizing behavior beyond the bounds of liberty as licence. In the realm of property, licence is taken when claims to property in nature are protected under law without full compensation to all others in society for what is essentially a privilege. Thus, the great inconsistency of libertarian principles is the acceptance of coercion under law for the protection of claims to what others have produced (i.e., the rent of land).

[@tianieves3207]

TiaAmo+Family thanx You's at this channel and to Mr. D. Boaz for speaking_today in the future: 2019-October25_ ¤ 'Pleasent Tomorrows!' ¤ &Many More Happy Fridays

[@oilhammer04]

I think the error of Libertarianism is that it misses Isaiah 53:6. But I do see that God has given us freedom to decide whether we want to follow Him or not.

[@adona9019]

you need to keep the 2 seperate. they both aim at different life beliefs

[@Forestwitch92]

I hated politics until I found this.

[@Thestarvinstudent]

This guy is the best period!

[@inesiperez]

This is like saying we don't need stripes on the road that humans will just automatically know how to behave at an intersection without any direction.

[@kevinpomerantz4360]

many intersections don't have stripes . . .

[@inesiperez]

+Kevin Pomerantz - I can understand what you are saying. However, we now have years of living with and having experience with intersections. You only need to read about the history of the automobile to know that this wasn't always the case. At first, few people had cars and it wasn't much of a problem, but as more people could afford to own them, there were many incidents at intersections simply because there were no rules and people didn't know how to behave. Slowly, humans began to develop guides, such as traffic signals, signs, lane markings and rules of how people were to behave not only at intersections but on the road in general. Personally, I don't believe in labels such as Libertarianism, Capitalism, Socialism - don't get me wrong, they are great for describing certain aspects of human behavior (something that is very complex), but seldom do they address the whole picture - and that's where the problem lies. As people we begin to argue only for our small piece of the puzzle without being able to see the whole. If you want to see how humans still have trouble with intersections, one only has to look on KZbin to find a video of an intersection in a country that does not have such rules and signals in place, to see how poorly humans manage in the absence of such simple but extremely effective guides.

[@kevinpomerantz4360]

Ines Perez people who know how to drive generally slow down at intersections even if there is no stop sign or yield sign.

[@inesiperez]

+Kevin Pomerantz - people don't even do this when the street lights are out - they are supposed to come to a stop as though it's now a 4-way stop but they don't. it's amazing how a little bulb can help humans behave.

[@kevinpomerantz4360]

Ines Perez yup

[@nicolesaunders7027]

Taxation is theft. Which makes small libertarian government just as immoral. Correct ?

[@GingerBoyee]

+Nicole Saunders read Murray Rothbard's works. He basically founded anarcho-libertarianism

[@ExtractEngineer]

Depends how you understand morality. Is a small harm to prevent a much greater harm still immoral? I agree with you in the end but others won't think so black-and-white, and those are the people we need to convince.

[@vaibhav2k13]

I think people can choose to not pay taxes at the expense of their rights not being protected. Meaning if someone stole their property they can't ask for police help. However emergency services can be more than accomplished with a small sales tax so that means people who produce can choose to not include sales tax on their products which would mean anyone can steal them resulting in nobody buying their product and therefore no sane business person would choose to do something like that.

[@RepublicConstitution]

Nicole Saunders Minarchists just want fewer skulls broken

[@moribundmurdoch]

Voluntary Donations to a government is possible. A government couldst run as a non-profit or you could go down the anarcho-capitalist route. [See: Merchant Venice]

[@janaprocella8268]

Give me give me freedom.!!

[@ColonelSchafer]

I'm with you. I have to watch this for a Poli-Sci class, and damn. If we wasn't so well groomed, I'd say this guy was high.

[@Mike10four]

The only Rights we have are our unalienable Rights and they come from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” The scientific method as well as “spontaneous order” comes from our unalienable Rights. As for “limited government,” that is not possible, because of our unalienable Rights. The book titled “Scientific Proof of Our Unalienable Rights” highlights the spectrum of these Rights and their relationship between the Laws of Nature and social systems.

[@rstevewarmorycom]

Total religious superstition. Rights come from what we all let each one of us do, period. There is NO "Nature and Nature's god" given rights, that's 18th to 19th century bollocks. The State of Nature is dog eat dog, kill or be killed, Darwin's "War of Nature". If we wanted to live that way, just get rid of government, you'll die that way. Libertarians are greedy immature adolescent simpletons. ALL rights are granted SOLELY by the democracy, awarding rights to one another based on what we each want for ourselves as well. Without the democratic government protecting our awarded rights, no one could be assured of anything, brigands could steal from you, rape your women, kill you. Law of the Jungle, dog eat dog, the War of Nature, as Darwin put it. For that protection each person owes the rest of us the costs of defending and protecting them. The People also realize that wealth inevitably steals by usury and investment without labor, and progressively robs the less able of their right to their very lives, homes, and property. Thus the very fiscal system which we set up among us to assist the lucky in their acquisitions, itself justifies additional cost upon the lucky and the proud. Thus the people, democratically, though this Social Contract, has the right to confiscate wealth beyond a certain level, in order to provide for the needs of the ill, the malformed, the ignorant, the elderly, and those being underpaid for their labor due to the greed and connivance of the lucky. Without this Social Contract, we would invariably see a vastly wealthy nobility occur and most of the rest of us be living in filth in the streets or become their serfs, servants or slaves again. Absolute rights of wealth and property which are beyond a certain socially controlled level constitute nothing but organized criminality. Thus, actually Libertarianism is nothing but only barely disguised greed and barbarianism. If you cannot devise a FAIR fiscal system by which to live wherein you will not know in advance your fortunate or unfortunate place within it, then you are simply dishonest and disingenuous. Nature is not fair, which is why we do not use the state of nature as our governance. We took over the world and defeated all of its predators and adversities ONLY by our affectionate mutual cooperation, and those of us who did not Evolve to cooperate together on the plains of Africa were eaten one at a time and are NOT our ancestors.

[@sandrajminor1045]

Prayers for the USA.

[@apollodionysus2194]

Undefined freedom, when not established in the context of social justice and a baseline of economic equality, is not a sound basis for a free and harmonious society. When you strip away all the flowery language and ill-defined ideals, _economic libertarianism_ becomes just a dystopian fantasy of the corporate ruling class. The motto of the French Revolution was *Liberty, Equality, Justice.* You can't just pick one ideal and discard the others, or you won't have a truly free society. Had the French revolutionaries been libertarians, as the ideology is commonly understood today, and their motto was simply _Liberty. period,_ then when they seized political power from the monarchy, then they would have simply allowed the aristocrats to keep all their ill-gotten wealth; because freedom. That's the essential absurdity of modern libertarianism

[@I0MSammy]

In all fairness it was only 10 years after that revolution that Napoleon became first consul of France and made it auhoritarian, so the French Revolution is not a good example of freedom.

[@TheUltimateRage]

@manbehindbars Heard 'em all before, didn't hear a lot of logic in there. The first 3 minutes are enough to show why libertarianism is inherently flawed to begin with.

[@janaprocella8268]

Most of our founding fathers were all about this... At least in the beginning. Thomas Jefferson with this ideal down when he didn't free black people when he had the power. That's probably the only thing that I came to disrespect about him. I'm sure he's been turning over in his grave ever since.!

[@Tressym66]

Privileged? It only appears that way to you because they didn't decide to make themselves out to be a victim and cry for the government to save them. I'm not rich, far from it. By some standards I may not even qualify as middle class. But I am a true libertarian and strongly support their ideas.

[@vicoilsteems9764]

Acesfool you need to educate yourself,,,reason.com/archives/2015/04/12/libertarians-must-get-history-right

[@JacobPaprotskiy1]

1.there are no such thing as rights only privileges granted to you by a government 2. the free market needs to be regulated and funds sometimes need to be redistributed because as anyone who understands evolution(darwinian) can tell you it has a tendency to create specialized systems that are prone to collapse...

[@Cerabix]

To your first point you would have to look at the individual. If there is only one person in a society then he has the freedom to do whatever he pleases and is totally free. If you were to add another person to this society then no government is still possible without one side using aggressive (immoral) force, both parties free, while it doesn't violate the other persons liberties. Rights superseded the government and therefor cannot be privileges granted by the government but instead can only be rights it choses not to violate. As to your second point, it is wrong to think of a market as darwinian (survival of the fittest) as long as it is solely comprised of voluntary trade. In a voluntary trade both parties can benefit while in darwinism competition eliminates the weaker and grows the stronger. Our standard of living constantly rising since the introduction of liberalism in the early agrarian revolution is proof of such. In a capitalist society the only way to make money is to provide a service in which people value. Systems that fail to provide a service or do so ineffectively to other systems will collapse.

[@JacobPaprotskiy1]

Greg Westphal 1. ok say a 3rd person comes along and enslaves the first 2 then their "rights" fly out the window... to me it is not a right if it can be overturned so easily and its not even a privilege if there is no one to say that is an illegal thing to do... 2. it is not wrong to think of the free market as darwinian(survival of the most adapt).... that is why it works to an extent... let me build a quick model for you: you, among many, are a consumer. tom and frank provide services that you may want to purchase; you choose tom's because it fits your needs better.... ok say a lot more people choose tom's instead of frank's... and now frank is doing poorly compared to tom... say jim comes alone and he wants to provide an Identical service he sees that frank is doing poorly so he decides to adapt toms business model(with a little variation) and we have darwinian evolution were services are being selected for... personally I do not like to look at it as services being selected for but a much broader view in where individual behavior is being selected for(which I refer to as strategies)....

[@JacobPaprotskiy1]

***** what is usually true in oligarchies? I agree that is what the founding fathers wanted, but what they wanted is irrelevant and obsolete in this day and age... we have what we have and looking back will only slow us down... that's the thing you cant enslave someone because a government forbids it. in the hypothetical greg gave there was no government, no laws and what not to guarantee that one cannot be enslaved.... on frank and tom: all we need to know is that tom is getting more costumers and therefore more profit in a given time everything else is essentially a constant and can be thrown out of my extremely rudimentary model and if you were to start a business of a similar service you would adapt a business model similar to tom's and so would other people so one can say that there will be more copies of tom's business model in the next generation when compared to franks and thus it is Darwinian evolution... do you agree that the free market is Darwinian? do you have a problem with my assertion that the free market creates systems that are prone to calapse?

[@5to22a]

Rights are recognised through rationale. We have parts of our brain, which we call our conscience, we enable us to perceive concepts like self-ownership, property rights and the evil of depriving another of life, liberty or property.

[@iamgodofhumancollective5968]

I understand evolution very well and am Atheist, you are absolutely wrong. Every human is born with natural rights, if you dont like FREEDOM and LIBERTY, then move out of the only country in the world that has been able to obtain it and stop trying to change this country into something its not. You either SUPPORT FREEDOM AND LIBERTY or you are a god damn nazi tyrant who needs to GTFO.

[@TheUltimateRage]

@habertree You'd be ridiculously wrong lol

[@MarkColdren]

Gary Johnson 2012. Join us. Donate $10 today.

[@khaimgulkovich3368]

Satisfaction of foolish wants of immature personalities.

[@chessmaster2649]

What is libertarianism? The only role for government is funding the military. You're welcome. You don't have to watch the video.

[@sandrajminor1045]

I am for the SNAP program.