Supple Cow

Was there ever a question as to how you got into the college you went to, as if perhaps you were only there because of Affirmative Action? I sure know what's that's like and I bet a lot of other non-white people have experienced something similar in their lifetime.

For a more general example, there's the whole social security disaster: to be plain, it's not a sustainable system. Do you think it is? Would you feel better leaving your elderly mother in the hands of a public healthcare system funded by your tax dollars (double or triple the taxes you pay now)? Do you see how you would be achieving the same goal and probably doing a better job of it by having that money to save and invest yourself?

For the elderly who do not have family members to help care for them, do you think there aren't people out there who are just like you who would like to see them cared for? That is why nonprofits and charities exist - because people care.

Do you think that the existence of kind and caring slaveowners made slavery a good system? It sure made those lucky slaves happier and helped them to live in better conditions unlike those poor free blacks up North who had that all pesky discrimination to deal with in trying to find work and places to live. I am not saying that not adopting Libertarian ideas will lead to slavery again; I guess I'm just confused why you're arguing that people should be less free and most especially because you're doing it in a way that makes it sound like "bad" and "happy" are not completely relative terms.

From reading your arguments, it seems like you are convinced that Libertarians are all out to fuck everybody else in their own self interest. First of all, the amount of wealth and opportunity on this planet are not fixed the way our natural resources are. To act like they are is silly. Think of how many new jobs were created when computers were invented, and then the internet... I mean, a friend of mine is going off to grad school to study video game design--a master's degree in VIDEO GAMES. Just think that one over for a minute.

If someone can do that, I have a hard time seeing how one can believe that there is a limited supply of jobs for people, especially at the rate technology is being developed.

Second, a lot of Libertarian ideas (for me anyway) are about using smarter tools (systems) for achieving the values I hold. You and I may not agree on everything, but I think we can both agree that fewer people going hungry or suffering without medical care is a good thing. I just happen to see a different and, I think, better way of getting there; I believe that liberty is a prerequisite for equality. By giving true liberty to every individual, we can stop robbing people of their victories (both a rich man's profits and a non-white student's accolades) and a more true equality would result than in a system where the majority of people are either being punished for their success or having their sense of agency and self-confidence taken from them, leaving them to be less and less equipped to survive in a competitive world.

As it is now, the systems we have in place in our democratic republic encourage the bad behavior of the elite (not that I excuse them) and discourage poor, minority people from taking ownership of their good ideas and talents, setting them up for failure in the long term. Could you be where you are in your life if you believed that nothing you did was solely the fruit of your talents or that somehow deep inside, your ideas and anything you produced were somehow inferior because you had help in getting to where you are?

I think it's this last part that makes liberty ring so true for me. I don't have any statistics or studies to back it up, but I have a hard time imagining anyone ever convincing me that there is such a thing as a successful (by any measure) AND fulfilled person who made it through life without a sense of agency and self-confidence. The very nature of collectivist and authoritarian governance takes those most precious things away from the people who can withstand it the least - those who were dealt less comfort and security in this life than the Jenna Bushes.

I also don't understand why you seem to think that 'competition' is such a dirty word. The root, competare, means 'to strive together'. Despite the popular connotation involving breaking down others in order to build yourself up, a more literal interpretation means that everybody strives together (as in at the same time) to be their personal best. Competition is how humans and all of life as we know it on this planet evolved and it is how we will continue to evolve, even as a society. Libertarians (the smart ones anyway) don't wish to live as islands. They just understand the conditions in which human life is best able to thrive.

__________________
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)