Common Misconceptions About Libertarians

Today i decided that one post about the subject just wasn't going to be enough, so here i am again bringing up this horrendous topic of political libertarianism.

I suppose that before i move forward, i should quickly reiterate what i said in my previous post about this topic and briefly define what i mean when i say Libertarianism.

I think Libertarianism is best defined as the political belief that the state should remain very small in terms of it's involvement in society and should mainly only focus on dealing with violent crimes rather than every last itty-bitty immoral vice imaginable. This is because giving the state such power makes it very easily prone to corruption and tyranny, besides the fact that coercion against the will of other humans  is logically immoral in general.

Now that aside, over the few years since i converted to a libertarian viewpoint and learned more about it, i have inevitably come across multiple misconceptions of the political ideology coming from those who oppose it. Today i will talk about the top three misconceptions.

1. We dislike the poor and blame 100% of their situation on them
First off, i think we should all simply come to agree that it's idiotic and insulting to just assume that those who you oppose politically must simply hate the poor, and that they can't possibly hold the views that they hold with sincerity.

Beyond that, there really has grown this rather inaccurate caricature that libertarians, as well as conservatives, believe that the main reason that the poor remain poor is simply due to their own laziness, and that if they simply worked even harder, they would finally succeed. This is, at most, only part of the picture.

The reality is we also understand that, in many cases, it is unreasonably difficult for those who are less fortunate to work their way up in the economy despite trying very hard. however, contrary to what socialists would argue, it is not because we don't have enough imposing regulations to "protect" the poor, but rather quite the reverse; everyone, especially businesses (who employ people) suffer greatly from being overwhelmed and oppressed by countless regulations that we are constantly having to work around in order to make a living and generate economic progress.

With all this in mind, us libertarians do indeed care about the poor and the external causes of their economic stagnation, it's just that we believe we have the real solutions to the problems.



2. We are obsessively individualistic and despise the idea of a community
People tend to stupidly think that simply because we disagree that coercive government action is the remedy to every socio-economic problem, then we are simply against the society as a whole working together to help out those least fortunate among us. In line with that, the refer to us (in a negative tone) as "Individualists" implying that we believe people should only focus on helping themselves and not each other and that being charitable is just not the way to go.

On the contrary. Libertarians have no issue whatsoever with helping out the community as a whole and striving for solidarity and the common good, and with that, our obsession is not with Individualism but rather what we refer to as Voluntarism. Voluntarism entails the preference towards voluntary, free human interactions as opposed to coercive. Essentially we consistently uphold the moral idea that it is better to respect people's freedom (given they also respect yours) as opposed to trying to use the state to force some kind of norm on everyone else INvoluntarily.

THIS my friends is the core ideal of political libertarianism; that no person be forced to do something against his/her will, which ultimately disrespects their God-given dignity, and is thus immoral.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the state, just about everything it does (if not simply it's very existence) is predicated on force and coercion and is contrary to human liberty and thus to human dignity. This is why libertarians are usually against the state getting involved in economic or social affairs in order to (supposedly) help those in need, but just because we're against the state doing it doesn't mean we are against it getting done altogether!


3. We are moral relativists or simply have no regard for morality

Finally we come to the main misconception of libertarianism that is especially prominent among traditionalists and conservatives. They mistakenly believe that since we don't agree with the state enforcing every last moral norm of say for instance, The Catholic Faith, then we must simply be moral relativists. In other words, we don't believe any objective moral norm really exists and people can just do whatever the hell they want.

I hope you're not surprised to find out that this is far from the truth. There is total compatibility with being a faithful outspoken Catholic, for example, and being politically against excessive state-imposed 'morality'.

I mean, it's not like the Church asks us to make other religions illegal and make people convert to the faith at gunpoint. No, just because something is right and something else is wrong, does not automatically mean you can resort to aggression to sway people to the right. That itself is deeply morally wrong. That is perhaps our ultimate ethical point.

So no, just because we subscribe to this viewpoint doesn't mean we are "moral relativists", it simply means we are not Jihadists.


With all of that said, it's always important to actually have an understanding of the tenets of your opponents viewpoint before you go spouting off about them. You just might save your reputation.

A Response to The Idea of a Catholic Monarch

So yeah the title is kinda shitty and boring because i wasn't in the mood to be clever.  life goes on.


Anyway, i was honestly quite fascinated and surprised to find out that, beyond the dull and same-old bickering between Catholic Conservatives and Catholic Socialists (Yes i just called them that), there has actually been what appears to be a reviving of the idea of just saying "screw this" and actually going back to having a Catholic monarchial government like we did back in the middle ages.

They present such a proposition due to what they consider to be the inevitable failure of democracies and republics, including the United States.

Unfortunately, i have found just about everything said by such advocates to be logically problematic in one way or another.

First and foremost is simply the claim that modern governments that consist of some sort of direct or indirect democracy have outright failed.
Despite the fact that yes, the United States as well as the European countries are rapidly going up in debt and probably eventually will have to suffer the same fate as Greece, These countries are actually still doing alright.

I think what's more important to point out is that there doesn't seem to be any reason conclude that the problems that modern countries ARE facing are simply due to the fact that they are more or less democratic. It seems to me rather foolish to simply rule out other sensible causes of our societal problems, such as culture and/or economic, political or monetary policies. The way i see it, many modern countries are on the highway to hell because they are increasingly adopting socialist policies driven by the increasing cultural acceptance of socialism.

In line with this, i've heard that the Monarchists' main reason for rejecting varying forms of democracy is because it is "ruled by the mob majority" as they say. In other words; the selfish, evil-inclined average Joes (And Joanns, because we're totally not patriarchs) human beings vote in a way that serves the selfish interest of the majority of themselves. More over, most of them are ill-informed of what the hell's even going on and how to handle it.

Interestingly enough, as a libertarian, myself, I totally agree with their criticism of the "mob rule."

In which case, my objection won't be towards that idea, but to two other things.

The first being that, after Catholic monarchists say that because of the concupiscence of the average human and that he is unfit to make important political decisions, they immediately seem to forget this when they follow up by essentially saying that one among these humans ought to have significant and unchallenged rule over all the rest of them.

But it makes no sense whatsoever to first say that human beings are corrupted by sin (which is true) and that they can't be politically responsible or take care of themselves, then IMMEDIATELY turn around and say that one of these corrupt humans can totally rule over the rest and take care of all of them. This is a plain and simple inconsistency.

Secondly, after they object to our current system of voting, the don't appear to provide any better alternative to determining the who and what of a nation. In the end, as bad as this so called "mob rule" could potentially be, this really seems to be as good as it gets when we're stuck in a world riddled with a fallen human nature. At least with voting we have some degree of political accountability, unlike the typical monarchies that we had in the middle ages.

On the side, i've heard many of these monarchists also object to our modern beloved economic system we know as capitalism; saying it is an evil enlightenment system that has rejected human dignity and brought about exploitation and the like.

First off, when they object to capitalism by virtue of the fact that it supposedly originated from the enlightenment, they are simply committing the genetic fallacy.

In other words, they are judging an idea or system simply based off of it's origin, rather than actually assessing the idea or system itself. This is a clear and easy misstep in logic. Just because something "came from the enlightenment era" doesn't automatically, magically mean that that said idea is either good or bad. Like every other period, the enlightenment also has it's ups and downs.

Now some monarchists do go past this logically fallacy and actually do fire direct shots at the system itself, based of of it's content. However, these objections prove to be oblivious at best.

I think what's important to keep in mind on top of all that is that their really is no fundamental alternative to capitalism other than socialism, despite that many traditionalist Catholics inaccurately attempt to condemn both capitalism and socialism simultaneously. (i spelled that word correctly on the first try. You should be proud of me)

There is much much more i could say on this topic and the ones adjacent to it, but i'll conclude here.

I think my final point simply ought to be that the state, by it's very nature, is in fact an intrinsic evil. Now, that doesn't mean we should get rid of it, for we recognize that it is a necessary evil. Another good example of a necessary evil is killing another person as an act of self-defense. Even though it is totally okay to kill someone in that particular, serious context, you would never stop to say that it is a good thing. Likewise with the state, whose existence is fundamentally predicated upon humans assuming coercive control over other dignified humans, is also a necessary evil.

The important moral distinction between a good and a necessary evil is this: Often we should strive to maximize goods. By contrast, we should always strive to minimize necessary evils, and the state is no exception. THIS is ultimately why small and weak government is better.

Out of this comes my ultimate moral and philosophical objection to a monarchy: we are obliged to minimize the power of the state because it is evil by it's nature. by contrast, a monarchy does precisely the opposite; putting all the power in the hands of a single individual without establishing any opposition or counterbalancing force. Thus the power of the state is maximized, which can only lead to a horrid amount of corruption.