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.
good points, all of them.
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