Four Reasons to Reject Libertarianism

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Potato famine time again: the poor in Ireland ate potatoes because it was a nutritious food that was easy to grow on very marginal land, which was the only land that they could afford. Rich landowners also grew great deals of grain for export to England and other areas, on the better land. When the famine hit, some of those rich landowners chose to give some (or much) of their grain to the starving people, rather than see their tenants and neighbors as corpses with green-stained mouths along the hedgerows. Many of those landowners subsequently lost their own land because the needed the profit that the grain would have made in England to stay afloat.
Is that ok? That some landowners had to take the full work of feeding a nation upon themselves because no one else was doing it, and subsequently lost their own land for their compassion?
Or would it have been better if everyone were required to give a little bit, and no one lost their land, and no one starved?

Another example: My parents live on a non-county, and thus non-paved road. When it needed to be re-paved, they went around to the neighbors and asked everyone to contribute $50 to pave the whole road, because it was too expensive for any one person to take on. Most of the neighbors said yes, but two or three said, "No. No, we won't contribute to your paving fund.... but we'll still drive home on this newly paved road, once it's nice and smooth." The consequence was that the road didn't get paved at all; no one wanted to support the freeloaders, so everyone drove over potholes.

Better for whom? Who decides what's best? What if the majority decides that it's better for the aggregate to let the starving people die?

What can't I decide what's best for me?

I don't consider it acceptable to force those other two or three people to pay up through violence or threat of violence, but that's for them to decide.
The neighbors decided that it was more important to them that everyone contributes than it was for them to have a fresh paved road. I don't see a problem here.

Correction. Libertarians advocate a minimal political state that has these functions.

1. Keeping peace domestically --- police and law courts.
2. Maintaining an armed force to protect the body politic: -- army, navy and airforce.

Period!! !! !

Your government should beat the bounds to keep out the lawless and the scoundrels and maintain a constabulary to deal with ruffians, thieves, killers and defrauders. Also it should see to it that the night times are kept quiet so people can get their sleep.

Your government should NOT redistribute incomes nor set up a privileged class such as the current crew in Washington that does nothing but live off tax revenue and the Corporate Cronies that have bribed the government to give them unrightful privileges.

ruveyn

The difference is that government-imposed regulation is done by threat of force. You face violence if you refuse to participate and the parties involved have no ability to resolve things themselves

Let's pretend there is a safety feature for expandable ladders that helps prevent them from collapsing unintentionally. This unintentional collapse has resulted in four deaths and 30 injuries out of 20,000 sold. The safety feature increases the cost of our example ladder from $100 to $120.

In our first case, the government has mandated that all ladders have this safety feature. If you don't have this safety feature, you face fines. If you refuse to pay the fines, you are criminally prosecuted. All consumers must pay the $120 to get the ladder with the safety feature.