What Makes People Become Libertarians?

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If there is any such thing as a basic human right, it is the right to associate or not associate with other folks according to one's choice. THEREFORE discrimination, in the sense of refusal to associate with others for any reason whatsoever is an exercise of a basic human right. In short, "discrimination" in the sense of not associating is not only permissible, it ought to be legal. If I own a business I have a right to hire or not hire on any basis whatsoever. I have a right to sell or not sell to a potential customer on any basis whatsoever. Who I associate with or not associate with is my choice or ought to be.

Having said that, personally I think discrimination based on superficial characteristics such as skin color, hair color shape of nose or other superficial physical characteristic is silly and stupid. That is my opinion on the matter. However I do not have the right to impose my standards of association on others nor do they have the right to impose their standards of association on me.

Racial discrimination should not be prohibited by law when practiced by individuals, but should be prohibited when practiced by governments which are supported by tax loot stolen from everyone.

ruveyn

Ruveyn, this all goes back to a larger issue of positive and negative rights. Many libertarians have strongly held to the concept of negative rights as the only rights, however, I have to say that I think that positive rights is a better conception in some ways, and there are libertarians who also agree with positive rights being more realistic. I mean, after all, there is nothing in free association+property rights that prevents the practical/actual enslavement or relegation to starvation of certain classes of individuals, it might not be likely to happen, but it is not incompatible, but those two issues are negative to the extent that if they can happen, they are a threat to liberty.

The interesting thing about the social-psychological research on libertarianism is that it validates some of the criticisms of libertarianism as well. When a left-winger slurs libertarians as "emotionally stunted," they're referring to the decidedly libertarian preference for systemizing over empathizing, for reason/logic over emotion.

it is funny because a real Asperger MUST prefer systemizing over empathizing and reason/logic over emotion

my opinion,give or take, most left-wing asperger are FAKE ASPERGER(Neurotypical who use AS to justify real life fails) or are left-wing in order to collect welfare checks

You really have no idea how much this wrecks your credibility, do you?

Here’s my quick response to Peter’s post earlier today (because as long as I have the platform, why not?), in which he asks libertarians how they’d deal with “society’s f*ck ups.”

First, libertarians are an absurdly nonconformist, contrarian group. As such, I can’t speak for everybody. Some will say “let ‘em starve,” some will argue for private charity, some will talk about private security companies, and others will give a glib answer involving the second amendment. That disclaimer aside, I think it’s safe to say that libertarians generally agree that the world cannot be sterilized into a place free of all suffering, unfairness, or risk. None of us holds any delusion that we can intentionally engineer society to produce better people, or effectively rehabilitate screwed up people. We’re also convinced that incentives matter, and that creating a large welfare program will, at some point, discourage productive work and create a large underclass of lazy a-holes who live off of the labor of the rest of us. Thus, we’re stuck in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t conundrum. (I’m sorry, I know that answer feels unsatisfying, right? Listen: libertarians take very seriously the notion that power corrupts. If the success of a government program depends on having people in charge who are just a little less flawed than average, that doesn’t bode well for continued effectiveness).

In this way, we disagree with base conservatives, who seem to believe the best motivation is the reward/salvation that comes to the hardworking/righteous, independent of the privilege or disadvantages built-in to different people’s lives (e.g. privilege denying dude). That position also is at odds with the liberal platform, which appears to want government to regulate anything that poses any risk to anybody.

(Back up a minute: I know that not every liberal advocates government involvement in every aspect of our lives. What I mean is that the liberal camp includes many different types of activists who each have a different pet cause that they believe the government must get involved in: net neutrality, fuel standards, tobacco control, providing birth control, etc. Some of these may be more worthy causes than others, but taken as a whole => liberals want government to regulate EVERYTHING. Seriously guys, you need to choose your battles and start policing your own people.)

You are a wilful idiot. And, no, a "real Aspie" doesn't have to prefer systemizing over empathizing, they only have to be better at systemizing. And, the whole "low on empathy" facet of Asperger's may be misleading, as studies that differentiate between "cognitive empathy" and "affective empathy" demostrate no difference in levels of affective empathy between aspies and non-aspies.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16906462

What you call positive rights are duties. There are no duties except as a consequence of a contract into which an individual has freely entered and taken valuable reward in exchange for fulfilling an obligation. Contractual obligations are enforceable and are morally binding.

To put it plainly: No Contract, do Duty. And there is no such thing as "the Social Contract". That was a bogus concept made up out of whole French cloth by Jean Jacques Russeau.

ruveyn

I am not claiming "social contract", but rather I am simply claiming that freedom is ore substantive than what you present as such, and that anybody concerned with liberty has to be concerned about this.

His definition of freedom seems to be lack of legal coercion through the threat of force. More subtle forms of coercion don't exist in his mind.

Or maybe they do exist, but the Government should stay the hell outta social engineering.

Well, one can be a right-libertarian and hold that other forms of coercion are possible, they'd just be skeptical of governmental fixes.

Or maybe they do exist, but the Government should stay the hell outta social engineering.

What the hell is social engineering? Labor laws? Consumer protection laws? Anti-discrimination laws? Where do you draw the line? Your broad declarations don't make any sense at all without going into specific issues.

Also, why should government always "stay the hell out"? You know most laws come about for a good reason. Often there were historical abuses that people eventually decided shouldn't be tolerated. Often people had to fight prolonged political battles to get them in place. We live in a democracy where people do have a say in laws.

I can't stand the lazy black-and-white "business good", "gubbermint baaad" thinking.

Let's start with affirmative action. It is mostly positive rights that are associated with social engineering.

Likewise I can't stand the lazy black and white "Poor good" and "Rich bad" crap. I'll all for guaranteeing negative rights to everyone, but when it comes to most positive rights it is the government getting way too involved in social control. This is bad for many reasons. One of em is that implementation of laws are a reflection of the prevailing cultural/subcultural climate rather than the precedent for change in the prevailing climate.

If you check my posts I'm not a "poor good", "rich bad" type of liberal. You can go after skafather or xenon13 all you want but the majority of "liberals" on here aren't as simplistic in their rhetoric as those two. On the other hand I think I'm accurate to say that ruveyn is a "business good" "government bad" type of libertarian. You obviously aren't nearly as extreme as he is so what's the point in defending him?

Also, for the record I'm opposed to race-based affirmative action in principle even though I think the "white outrage" over "reverse discrimination" is way overblown.