Left Libertarian: A Tradition That Champions Equality and Social Justice

[libertasbella]

Can libertarians be of the Left?

Many would laugh at such a question. After all, libertarianism tends to be a fervently pro-free market ideology. But all ideologies have their shades of grey. With libertarianism being no exception to the trend.

The left libertarian tradition is one that champions equality and social justice under the framework of a free-market economy. The leftist libertarian political economy stresses a separation of economy and state while championing mutual ownership of resources in a voluntary manner.

Left Libertarians’ Unique Views

A strong skepticism of the prevailing mixed economy defines what is a left libertarian.

Their beliefs on ownership are particularly nuanced. Natural resources such as land, oil, and trees can be subject to collective ownership. While left libertarians respect private property more than most of the prominent forces on the left, they do not fully eschew collective forms of property ownership.

Voluntary co-operatives, communes, and other worker-driven arrangements can be used to empower workers and allow them to enjoy material benefits without having to face capitalist exploitation.

Going back to natural resources, individuals in a leftist libertarian order can still use the aforementioned commonly-owned goods. But there’s a catch: The use of such resources can only occur after society grants these individuals permission. In order to gain permission, individuals must make a payment to society at large.

The Intellectual Basis for Left Libertarian Economic Thought

Such logic is inspired by the thought of 19th century economist Henry George, who pushed for a land tax. George’s views on property rights were somewhat unique by United States standards, which tended to be more rooted in classical liberalism or free-market conservatism. In contrast, George saw land as a commonly-held resource and could not be held exclusively by an individual.

This conception of land ownership stood in contrast to the views of John Locke, who believed that land could be privately owned and homesteaded by individuals. Lockean views of private property tend to be more prevalent among Republicans, right-wing libertarians, and other classical liberal adjacent movements.

The Overlap and Differences Between Leftist Libertarians and Anti-Property Movements

Left-wing libertarians have a lot in common with collectivist and Marxist views on private property, at least in a conceptual sense. Although the similarities have limits. Advocates of collectivism on the authoritarian left are more likely to use state power to achieve their ends at the expense of individual freedom.

At the end of the day, left libertarians come in all shapes. They don’t generally dismiss the insights of Marxism and incorporate some of the anti-property beliefs of the renowned left anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

Proudhon is widely viewed as the father of the political philosophy of anarchism and is famous for his quip “property is theft.”

Like libertarian socialists, the libertarians of the left go beyond concepts of self-ownership and stress the need for voluntary institutions that close inequality gaps. Left-wing libertarians sympathize with economic redistribution of resources, albeit in a voluntary manner to correct disparities in inequality.

American philosopher Gary Chartier is a prominent anarchist who blends certain facets of libertarian thought with an anarchist agenda to create a stateless society. Chartier’s brand of anarchism doesn’t take a statist approach to addressing the question of allocating resources, but his vision for a stateless society remains rather unique.

Continue reading Left Libertarian: A Tradition That Champions Equality and Social Justice on Libertas Bella

[Anti Globalist]

Nice article.

[ClaytonB]

Nice article.

[Swordsmyth]

Be sure to use a ten foot pole.

[ClaytonB]

Be sure to use a ten foot pole.

I highly recommend the video. Long explains the historical background to how conservatives and libertarians became aligned in the US (mainly as blowback from the ascendancy of authoritarian communism in the 20th-century) and why libertarianism is not exclusively conservative. Many of the left's critiques of conservative cultural idiosyncracies are actually correct and we ignore those critiques to our peril.

There will always be people who make life-choices that make us feel uncomfortable but it doesn't follow that they will devolve into full-blown Sodom and Gomorrah. Not everything is a slippery slope. Yes, it's a delicate balance in some cases and yes there is the chance that some people go over the cliff into abomination. But if we are not "jealous of our liberty", as I heard Doug Wilson put it, we soon end up in a de facto prison-world just like the one we see today. In other words, part of the reason we are in a global tyranny today is precisely because conservatives are too content to stand by and watch as liberties are removed, just so long as they are liberties that most conservatives don't happen to care about.

Artistic censorship that happens to serve the propaganda interests of the State is an excellent example of this. The State sees the danger to its power in political satire; conservatives just see naughty pictures. I'm not saying "anything goes" but I am saying that gas-chambers are much worse than boobie-mags and when conservatives cheer blanket censorship of things they find objectionable as a matter of taste, the State is more than happy to ram its own censorial agenda through, under cover of camouflage. Conservatives need to own the damage they have passively permitted the State to cause in this way, and many similar ways.

PS: This is not just a fine point of preserving delicate luxuries that don't really matter. The Prohibition and the "Drug War" are two great examples of how the State hijacks the misguided conscience of conservatives for its own tyrannical ends. And the result is that mass numbers of people are killed -- people who are, from a civil standpoint, completely innocent of any real crimes. Within the church, I have seen this termed "the tyranny of the weaker brother" and that's a perfect description for it. If your conscience is weak, that's fine, you should refrain from any activity that would cause you to stumble. But the leadership of the church must not permit a "race to the bottom" to form, where the public life of the church is regulated by all those with the weakest consciences. Rather, part of normal spiritual growth is an initial over-reaction against sin (burning all your "worldly" LPs, for example), and then a gradual return to freedom as God teaches you how to discern the difference between those things that can only bear bad fruits because they come from a bad tree, and those things that bear good fruits, even though many falsely claim that they come from a bad tree.

[Brian4Liberty]

The left libertarian tradition is one that champions equality and social justice under the framework of a free-market economy. The leftist libertarian political economy stresses a separation of economy and state while championing mutual ownership of resources in a voluntary manner.

“Championing equality and social justice” in a “voluntary manner” is almost an oxymoron. It always leads to state enforced solutions.

Left-wing libertarians have a lot in common with collectivist and Marxist views on private property, at least in a conceptual sense.

That may be true.

Voluntary co-operatives, communes, and other worker-driven arrangements can be used to empower workers and allow them to enjoy material benefits without having to face capitalist exploitation.

I don't see that as uniquely “left” libertarian. Are there any libertarians at all that oppose your ability to set-up a voluntary commune or shared business?

Overall, left-libertarians are not fans of corporate power.

This is in line with long-standing traditions of left anarchism and libertarian socialism that do not automatically praise big business and see corporations as extensions of state oppression.

Methinks that is backwards. Most right libertarians and paleo-libertarians oppose crony corporatism, and government power being exercised via proxy through corporations. On the other hand, many left libertarians praise censorship, discrimination, and bans if they are done for the “correct” reasons, with the excuse that corporations are “private” business.

In light of these basic principles, the typical libertarian doesn’t spend much time talking about social justice.

True.

Proponents of left libertarianism believe that there are structural forms of inequality and injustice that certain disadvantaged groups have faced in society. For the sake of maintaining a dignified society, they believe that these social problems must be addressed.

Social justice warriors.

Those of the libertarian left persuasion are staunch non-interventionists. On this issue, they are in line with the overwhelming majority of libertarians. The only time war is justified is when a political community suffers a direct attack.

Not so sure about that. Left and beltway libertarians tend to remain silent on war these days. How many of them have a Ukrainian flag somewhere on their social media?

The libertarian left agreed with the New Left on the opposition to conflicts such as the Vietnam war and would form transpartisan alliances to rise against the warfare state. One of the most well-known figures from the New Left that served as an inspiration to the libertarian left was the American linguist Noam Chomsky,

Ah, so we are talking about the past. A lot of people on the left “opposed” the Vietnam war. But today those same people support nearly every foreign war. They opposed the Vietnam War because of the draft. They would rather have others fight, suffer and die for their global ideals.

Which brings up something that does define the left. They are globalist by nature. Their ideas need to be enforced globally. Diverse opinion is not allowed. Nations are anathema. “We believe in voluntary Democracy that enforces social justice for those special groups that we identify. Join us or die.”

[CaptUSA]

//

Brian, I think you're conflating "left libertarians" with "leftists". Not only do I think that's wrong, I don't think it's wise for the liberty movement. Why push those people further away when they can be useful allies.

Left libertarians that I know are still opposed to military adventurism and foreign wars.

Yes, they see the government as having policies that are detrimental to "social justice", but they don't see social justice in the same way the left does. They see the State as being the main perpetrator of policies which harm the underprivileged the most. (Schooling by zip code, affirmative action, barriers to entry...) Whereas the "left" wants government to "help" the people in these communities, left libertarians want the government to stop hurting them.

Left libertarians are very much opposed to corporate power, too. Where the left wants the government to limit corporate power (with government power??), left libertarians want to end the government controls that enable that corporate power to grow. As for censorship, yes - left libertarians are apt to say that these are private businesses, but they also have a rationale that says if it weren't for the barriers to entry created by governments, they could do whatever they like on their platforms and free people could choose to not use them.

Now, you can argue with those points of view and promote your own, but that really misses the point. That there are multiple points of view that people can have that are still valid. And that people with the left libertarian view are like-minded enough that we can work with them. They want to maximize human liberty and reduce the influence of the state. You say "globalist", but that term is bandied about recklessly. They oppose global governance (although some of them may allow for global governance of what political leaders can do to their citizens) but they usually support global trade. In other words, the alignment is too good to drive these wedges needlessly. Just accept that they see things from a different point of view and engage them on areas of agreement.

[Brian4Liberty]

Brian, I think you're conflating "left libertarians" with "leftists". Not only do I think that's wrong, I don't think it's wise for the liberty movement. Why push those people further away when they can be useful allies.

Left libertarians that I know are still opposed to military adventurism and foreign wars.

Yes, they see the government as having policies that are detrimental to "social justice", but they don't see social justice in the same way the left does. They see the State as being the main perpetrator of policies which harm the underprivileged the most. (Schooling by zip code, affirmative action, barriers to entry...) Whereas the "left" wants government to "help" the people in these communities, left libertarians want the government to stop hurting them.

Left libertarians are very much opposed to corporate power, too. Where the left wants the government to limit corporate power (with government power??), left libertarians want to end the government controls that enable that corporate power to grow. As for censorship, yes - left libertarians are apt to say that these are private businesses, but they also have a rationale that says if it weren't for the barriers to entry created by governments, they could do whatever they like on their platforms and free people could choose to not use them.

Now, you can argue with those points of view and promote your own, but that really misses the point. That there are multiple points of view that people can have that are still valid. And that people with the left libertarian view are like-minded enough that we can work with them. They want to maximize human liberty and reduce the influence of the state. You say "globalist", but that term is bandied about recklessly. They oppose global governance (although some of them may allow for global governance of what political leaders can do to their citizens) but they usually support global trade. In other words, the alignment is too good to drive these wedges needlessly. Just accept that they see things from a different point of view and engage them on areas of agreement.

Certainly, we should ally and work together on issues that we agree upon. No doubt about that. And the OP article is probably more about historical definitions.

My opinions mainly come from watching the battle within the Libertarian Party (via Twitter, videos, beltway libertarian publications, etc), and watching what issues seem to be important to those who are essentially "left libertarians". I have seen them side-step and avoid topics like war and leftist authoritarianism, and at the same vehemently attack other libertarians on social justice and globalism issues. Everyone is an individual, and your mileage will vary based upon who you interact with.

IRL, the two libertarians I knew the longest, including someone whose father introduced me (via a book) to Harry Browne quite a long time ago, moved to becoming left libertarians, to now being full blown socialist Democrats. It was the same online with many former Ron Paul supporters who went to Bernie Sanders.

We should be more than willing to work with people on shared issues, but always aware that those allies can change over time, they can have hidden agendas, and they can stab you in the back. And once again, it always depends upon the individual, so it does not apply to everyone that may consider themselves a "left libertarian".

I question the use of the term "left" at all. Why use that (other than for historical reasons)? How about "liberal" instead? I am not a fan using "left" or "right" in front of libertarian. The use of one of those terms in itself is driving a wedge among libertarians.

[Cleaner44]

The left = statists

The end.

[ClaytonB]

I have seen them side-step and avoid topics like war and leftist authoritarianism, and at the same vehemently attack other libertarians on social justice and globalism issues.

Right, but this is only the most superficial analysis, you're neglecting the game-theory here. The big-L Libertarians are a threat to both R and D parties, so both parties are allied in opposing L. But the Republicans have more to lose because of the 20th-century alliance of conservatives and libertarians that Long discusses in the video above. For this reason, the Democrats have long used the Libertarian party as a wedge against the Republican vote. The LP is infested with political operatives who are secretly professional partisans. If working on behalf of the GOP, their only real job is to ensure that the LP never builds momentum towards any non-negligible number of votes. If working on behalf of the Dems, their job is to pump generic libertinism and wait in the wings until they receive the signal from HQ to start promoting the crap out of LP in order to split the GOP vote. Left-"libertarians" promoting authoritarianism are not libertarian at all, and may very well not even be leftists. Their job is to hold the line until they get orders from HQ to move the battle lines one way or the other in order to shift the "real" election between Red and Blue. In short, the LP is (or was until the MC takeover) little more than a proxy battlefield for the GOP and Democrat parties.

I have quite a few friends who are garden-variety leftists, but with massive libertarian tendencies, usually undiagnosed until I point it out to them. "But you do realize that it's government power that supports all of that [conservative tyranny that you hate]?" I can't count the number of times I've gotten the doe-eyed look that means, "wait a minute, something in my leftist programming is out-of-whack." This especially happens when they find out you have conservative values but you enjoy art/entertainment that is traditionally considered the domain of the godless left. If a leftist paints a great painting.... well, it's a great painting, dammit. What else should you call it? The political views of the artist have nothing to do with whether it's a great painting or not. Conservatives often have a hard time with this; it seems that they struggle to separate a work of art from its provenance, as though evil people can only produce bad art, or as though there was ever an artist who was sinless.

IRL, the two libertarians I knew the longest, including someone whose father introduced me (via a book) to Harry Browne quite a long time ago, moved to becoming left libertarians, to now being full blown socialist Democrats. It was the same online with many former Ron Paul supporters who went to Bernie Sanders.

But that's a separate phenomenon, that's a result of the polarization of society being generated by the divide-and-conquer tactics of the globalists. The political-map is a major revolution in thinking for most people when it comes to politics. The idea that you can be a left-libertarian or left-authoritarian is a mental revolution for many conservatives, and vice-versa. Each side tends to see only the authoritarians in the other side (because those are the ones who might just kick in your door if the other side gets into power). But it's just classic divide-and-conquer strategy. And in reality, even a 2-dimensional map of the political terrain is just a cartoon, because there are dozens or hundreds of relevant dimensions in the political space that uniquely affect the actual political order as it emerges in the real world.

We should be more than willing to work with people on shared issues, but always aware that those allies can change over time, they can have hidden agendas, and they can stab you in the back.

I like how the MC is uniting people on shared goals rather than shared issues. Our goal is to secure freedom in the most general sense, freedom in the sense it was understood by the Founding Fathers. Freedom includes the freedom to be stupid, and on any issue where you're stupid, I'm probably going to disagree with you. But I don't care if you're stupid about Issue X or Issue Y, so long as you share the goal of bringing about popular freedom in the most general sense. The leftists tend to call it "democracy" and the conservatives tend to call it "law & order". But all those among the left or right who understand what liberty is, and value it, are all really talking about the same reality, viewed from different angles.

The old-school hippies were generally useful-idiot leftists, but at least they had the freedom to be such, and they understood that they had that freedom (and valued it). I want people to be free to be dumb hippies. That's the real freedom, the freedom even to be dumb. That way, you have the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. The lessons you learn that way will actually stick with you unlike when I try to decide for you what you should and shouldn't do, and then just dictate it to you. "Don't be a hippy. That's leftism, and leftism is Marxism and Marxism is evil." If you want to go live naked in a tent in the woods, suit yourself. As long as you're not committing any crimes or damaging property or causing injury, etc. it's your god-given choice to be stupid or not. You're not going to get any smarter for me telling you, "Stop being stupid!"

I question the use of the term "left" at all. Why use that (other than for historical reasons)? How about "liberal" instead? I am not a fan using "left" or "right" in front of libertarian. The use of one of those terms in itself is driving a wedge among libertarians.

(a) They call themselves that (Alliance of the Libertarian Left)

(b) Some of them are motivated by cultural libertinism and that is definitely a part of the cultural left (e.g. homosexual rights, etc.)

(c) Most of them are refugees from the actual Left, and they got tired of being told that Marxist authoritarianism is actually freedom and that flatulence has actually been fact-checked to smell of flowers and they need to ignore the "alternative facts" from their nose

As a concrete example of someone who was once a leftist (extreme green leftist), consider Paul Kingsnorth. Today, he's a cultural conservative but he openly admits his leftist tendencies and still holds that most of the left's critiques of the right are correct. I don't know if he'd apply the label "left-libertarian" to himself, but I would argue that it's an applicable label.

[WisconsinLiberty]

"Equality" and "social justice" can only exist within a non-corrupt big centralized government system, but these government systems naturally get corrupt and abuse the people.


"Equality" and "social justice" doesn't happen naturally.

[libertasbella]

You could have saved us a whole lot of trouble writing so long an article.

[Swordsmyth]

The left = statists

The end.

Leftarians prefer mob rule and corporate feudalism but it's all the same in effect.

[Swordsmyth]

New political compass just dropped

[Anti Federalist]

Proudhon is widely viewed as the father of the political philosophy of anarchism and is famous for his quip “property is theft.”

There can be no alliances with people who think that.

Hard stop.

[jmdrake]

“Championing equality and social justice” in a “voluntary manner” is almost an oxymoron. It always leads to state enforced solutions.

That's because inequality and social injustice has almost always stemmed from state enforced problems. The idea that one man could own another man and that mans descendants in perpetuity and if the slave or his progeny escaped it was the duty of other free men, slave owners or not, to recapture him is state enforced. The laws that gave "free land" to whites in western states such as Oregon while banning blacks from going there at all was state enforced. Racial disparities in state funded education was state enforced. Patent laws which allow for insanely high drug prices are state enforced. Corporate personhood which allows for a soulless organization to grow to obscenely powerful level and be accountable to no one is state enforced. Road systems designed to segregate and suppress black communities ON PURPOSE came from the state. Militarization of the police is state enforced. The farm subsidy system which led to the rise of agribusiness at the expense of the small farmer is state enforced. There is indeed systemic racism. That's what the "critical race theory" crowd gets RIGHT! And (some) in the libertarian movement, even some so called "conservative" libertarians, will admit parts of this. But then they'll be like "White communities get screwed over too." True. But not BECAUSE they are white! And yes, that makes a difference. If a toxic waste dump gets put in your backyard just because it had to go SOMEWHERE, then if you move somewhere else there's little chance of that happening to you in the other location. But if an urban planner used road contruction to purposefully segregate and devalue a black community in one city (and that's happened) there's a GOOD chance that will happen in another city.

Methinks that is backwards. Most right libertarians and paleo-libertarians oppose crony corporatism, and government power being exercised via proxy through corporations. On the other hand, many left libertarians praise censorship, discrimination, and bans if they are done for the “correct” reasons, with the excuse that corporations are “private” business.

I've seen RIGHT libertarians argue same thing HERE! The first time I saw that argument was HERE! Back in the good/bad old days conspiracy theories where HEAVILY censored under the excuse that they would hurt Ron Paul's chances of winning (like he actually had one and like being against the Iraq war wasn't his real elect-ability problem). Just my arguing against the censorship was by (from some) with a "How dare you complain? It's private property!" To which I would reply "My complaints are within the rules." I've laid out the legal roadmap for taking on Facebook / Google / Twitter and their censorship based on the publicly available evidence that Facebook / Google and Twitter colluded with each other to violate consumer rights by conspiring to deplatform people and that's a violation of anti trust law and Fauci later conspiring with Zuckerberg on COVID censorship violates 42 USC 1983. Who attacks my antitrust idea? Why CONSERVATIVE libertarians! "Oh....don't ever use antitrust law. Because sometimes other people misuse it." Earth to stupid! Just because someone else misuses a tool doesn't mean you can't use it when appropriate! I've even had to argue against CONSERVATIVE libertarians about the fact the 2nd amendment applies to the states. (And you've even got one trying to throw away the 9th amendment off the most bizarre logic ever.) People making stupid legal arguments have nothing to do with conservative or liberal.

Not so sure about that. Left and beltway libertarians tend to remain silent on war these days. How many of them have a Ukrainian flag somewhere on their social media?

https://www.isidewith.com/candidates...policy/ukraine

Jo Jorgensen’s policy on ukraine

Should the U.S. provide military assistance to defend Ukraine from Russia?
JO JORGENSEN VOTERBASE No, we should stay out of conflicts that do not directly threaten us

Now I'm sure you'll find SOME "left libertarian" somewhere that supports the war in Ukraine. And I'm sure I could find some "right libertarian" somewhere that does as well. I also have seen people that I know IRL, conservative and liberal, who've started having second thoughts about that war.

Ah, so we are talking about the past. A lot of people on the left “opposed” the Vietnam war. But today those same people support nearly every foreign war. They opposed the Vietnam War because of the draft. They would rather have others fight, suffer and die for their global ideals.

The left tends to oppose war when republicans are advancing it and the right tends to oppose war when liberals are advancing it. Trump brought us close to war with Iran by scrapping the Iran nuclear deal, a deal that Ron Paul supports, and killing the Iranian general, a move that Ron Paul opposed. I was highly disappointed with Rand Paul for signing the infamous Tom Cotton letter, which seems to be a violation of 18 U.S.C. 953.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

Which brings up something that does define the left. They are globalist by nature. Their ideas need to be enforced globally. Diverse opinion is not allowed. Nations are anathema. “We believe in voluntary Democracy that enforces social justice for those special groups that we identify. Join us or die.”

Diverse opinion is not allowed? Pot calling kettle?

[jmdrake]

"Equality" and "social justice" can only exist within a non-corrupt big centralized government system, but these government systems naturally get corrupt and abuse the people.


"Equality" and "social justice" doesn't happen naturally.

Equality and social justice only occurs within a group of perfectly moral people. That's why it could happen in the early Christian church. They held property communally and even instituted *gasp* racial affirmative action to make sure the white people didn't get shafted. (Greek deacons). Here in the good ole U.S.A. the founding fathers TALKED about all men being created equal and then put a statist measure in the constitution so that if one man acted on his "created equality" and tried to escape chattel slavery, other men who were already free were duty bound to try to catch him and return him to his master. You've got to admit that's pretty fvcked up.

[Brian4Liberty]

That's because inequality and social injustice has almost always stemmed from state enforced problems. The idea that one man could own another man and that mans descendants in perpetuity and if the slave or his progeny escaped it was the duty of other free men, slave owners or not, to recapture him is state enforced.

Slavery is wrong, no doubt about that. But it existed long before the US, and existed before powerful, central states. Many of the Founders wanted to get rid of it right at the beginning of the US, but southern agriculture wanted it’s cheap labor. Blaming the founders for slavery is disingenuous. Saying that slavery is systemically part of modern America is just part of the grievance, race-hustle industry and leftist political victimhood and divide and conquer strategy.

The laws that gave "free land" to whites in western states such as Oregon while banning blacks from going there at all was state enforced.

No one is claiming that state actions are benevolent. And that one sounds racist, but historical at this point.

Racial disparities in state funded education was state enforced.

School systems are the worst in Democrat dominated areas. Maybe schools shouldn’t be state funded. Money does not equal education. Education and learning can be nearly free. So yes, bad education probably does come from government, on which all libertarians would agree.

Patent laws which allow for insanely high drug prices are state enforced.

Sure, that and government restrictions on competition. Who doesn't agree?

Corporate personhood which allows for a soulless organization to grow to obscenely powerful level and be accountable to no one is state enforced.

Ok. What are we debating now?

Road systems designed to segregate and suppress black communities ON PURPOSE came from the state.

Not a subject I’ve studied. And I have never been to the South, so I don't know what examples exist there. I do know that race hustlers in California have tried to say that freeway placement was somehow racist, and I know that’s complete nonsense.

Militarization of the police is state enforced. The farm subsidy system which led to the rise of agribusiness at the expense of the small farmer is state enforced. There is indeed systemic racism. That's what the "critical race theory" crowd gets RIGHT!

We will have to agree to disagree. I don't see “systemic racism” in many of your examples. Crony corporatism and government incompetence is more likely.

I've seen RIGHT libertarians argue same thing HERE! The first time I saw that argument was HERE!

There have been many Democrats and “left libertarians” on this forum. Anything might get posted in an open forum.

IMHO, in more recent time, government action and programs have hurt many poor communities, but under the guise of “helping” them. Those government programs were demanded as a remedy to past injustice, but in reality, they made things worse. And I won’t quote that scumbag LBJ, but suffice it to say, there were nefarious political strategies behind the scenes, so it wasn’t all good intentions. If you want to say that the outcome of many current government programs tends to adversely effect some communities, I’d agree with that. I’ll also stand by my assertion that social justice warrioring inevitably lead to calls for more government “solutions”.

I’d also point out that it is the left that tends to support globalism and globalist objectives, and those objectives are to make almost all of us essentially “slaves” to a small global oligarchy of the elite.

[jmdrake]

Slavery is wrong, no doubt about that. But it existed long before the US, and existed before powerful, central states. Many of the Founders wanted to get rid of it right at the beginning of the US, but southern agriculture wanted it’s cheap labor. Blaming the founders for slavery is disingenuous. Saying that slavery is systemically part of modern America is just part of the grievance, race-hustle industry and leftist political victimhood and divide and conquer strategy.

Straw man argument. I never said the founders created slavery. The false claim that anyone telling the truth about how slavery was intertwined in U.S. history is somehow attacking the founders is a right wing "race hustle." That said, abrogating the rights of supposedly "sovereign and independent states" so that free states had to recapture and return slaves to slave states and doing this in a document that was supposed codify the ideals of another document that preached "all men are created equal" (you HAVE read the DOI right?) is uniquely American. When the colonies were under British rule there was no such thing as a fugitive slave law. You should re-watch what Thomas Sowell had to say about the history of slavery. Mr. Sowell makes the very valid point that slavery is not the product of racism but rather America's unique version of racism is the product of slavery. The early history slavery was people on the same continent enslaving each other. Modern technological advances made intercontinental, and hence interracial slavery possible and America's brand of racism grew to justify it.

It's funny (almost laughable) how you pivoted from "People seeking equality always equals statism" to ignoring the fact that the DOI championed the same call for equality that you maligned but the very next document, the U.S. constitution, abrogated states rights in order to elevate slave owners rights to a place they had not been during the age of the colonies and then you accused me of attacking the founders. Nice!

No one is claiming that state actions are benevolent. And that one sounds racist, but historical at this point.

Communism is also historical so I'm not sure what your point is. And history has ongoing consequences.

School systems are the worst in Democrat dominated areas. Maybe schools shouldn’t be state funded. Money does not equal education. Education and learning can be nearly free. So yes, bad education probably does come from government, on which all libertarians would agree.

School systems tend to be the worst in red states. (See: https://www.forbes.com/sites/reneemo...h=438a05773897) So try again.

Sure, that and government restrictions on competition. Who doesn't agree?

Conservatives running around enforcing intellectual property rights. Abrogating those particular property rights are something that leftist libertarians tend to champion more than libertarians on the right. But there is crossover.

Ok. What are we debating now?

That's something that leftist libertarians are against. You seem to have taken the position that leftist libertarians are inherently statist. But if you want to abandon that position then fine.

Not a subject I’ve studied. And I have never been to the South, so I don't know what examples exist there. I do know that race hustlers in California have tried to say that freeway placement was somehow racist, and I know that’s complete nonsense.

Would you call @Anti Federalist a "race hustler?" And note that New York isn't the South.

In regards to racist roads, as they relate to amount of trees, Tucker Carlson shot himself in the foot tonight.

He should have read up on Robert Moses.

I just heard about him last week for the first time. Racist white progressive that destroyed black neighborhoods through urban planning. Hew would build highways straight through black neighborhoods in order to destroy them and he built bridges so low that buses couldn't get through because a lot of blacks in New York didn't own cars. The left has been trying to rehabilitate him recently. What did Tucker say about him? Or did he just miss the opportunity to bring him up?

I've known about Moses for years, anybody that grew up in and around NYC probably did, having to navigate through some of his designs, and insane limits on "parkways" and "thruways" and "expressways".

The last segment of his show today, he was mocking a press conference that was held with Pete Buttplug, where a black reporter asked what his dept. was planning to do about undoing "racist roads", and specifically was laughing at and pooh poohing the idea that roads had been constructed specifically to limit movement of blacks in NYC by limiting road clearances for buses.

I'll be the first to call out in the harshest of terms politically correct, race baiting woke Marxism, but in this case, there is truth to the complaint.

Robert Moses was a racist crank who used roads and civil engineering projects to wall off and isolate and ruin black neighborhoods.

@jmdrake

This was the press conference and the specific reference to Moses, although he doesn't mention him by name, I was well aware of who he was talking about.

At the same time, this is nothing new, nor is it restricted to just racism against black communities.

Read up on the thousands of poor white people and communities, not just subject to roads being built through them, but being utterly destroyed by aggressive dam building projects by the TVA and other government agencies.

This would also call into question the wisdom of government "solving" a problem it created in the first place...like trying to recover the Florida Everglades, after the fact.

I'm a railfan guy...and here's another example of private run railroads being better than massive government road projects: as far as I know, even at their worst, the railroad robber barons of the 19th century never pulled stunts like this. They would build a railroad anywhere there was market for it.

One last bit of information on this: it was this subject that John Cougar was singing about 40 years ago in his song, (which, like "Born in the USA" by Douche Springsteen, was often considered a "patriotic" song, but was actually a harsh critique of life in the US), "Pink Houses".

"There's a black man with a black cat
Livin' in a black neighborhood
He's got an interstate
Runnin' through his front yard
You know he thinks that he's got it so good"



Pete Buttigieg: Biden Infrastructure Bill Delivers Swift Action to Fix Racist Highways

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...cist-highways/

CHARLIE SPIERING 8 Nov 2021

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg celebrated President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill on Monday, specifically referring to provisions in the bill to address infrastructure deemed by the federal government as racist.

Buttigieg noted that fixing racist infrastructure was a priority of the Biden administration, as a billion dollars was passed as part of the Reconnecting Communities Initiative in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Buttigieg spoke about the program during the White House press briefing, criticizing Americans who even questioned the idea that racist infrastructure projects existed.

“I’m still surprised that some people were surprised that when I pointed to the fact that if a highway was built for the purpose of deciding a white and a black neighborhood,” Buttigieg said.

Some infrastructure projects of the past, he argued, were specifically designed to separate neighborhoods, apologizing for the federal government’s role in the project.

“Sometimes it was federal dollars that divided a community often along racial lines,” he said, pointing to “racism that went into those design choices.”

After a reporter asked Buttigieg how he could “deconstruct racism that was build into the roadways,” the secretary said the administration would “get to work right away” on the project.

“I don’t think we have anything to lose by confronting that simple reality and I think we have everything to gain by acknowledging it and then dealing with it.”

Buttigieg has a history of talking about racist infrastructure, beginning in his campaign and continuing through his Senate confirmation hearings for the cabinet level position.

“There is racism physically built into some of our highways, and that’s why the jobs plan has specifically committed to reconnect some of the communities that were divided by these dollars,” he told the Grio in April.

The only disagreement I have with Anti Federalist on this issue is the idea that since since oppression happened to poor white communities it somehow evens out. It's one thing if something if you get screwed over because someone wants to mess up your neighborhood because "the road has to go somewhere." If you move to another neighborhood then chances are you won't get screwed over the next time. But if you're getting screwed over because you're black...then you can move as far away as New York to get away from racism in the South (a lot of black people did) you still can face the SAME racism. Put it another way. I have a white friend who's pissed off a lot of people in a certain city. I've joked with him that he gets treated worse than a black man in that city. (He's done nothing wrong. Just made some politically powerful people mad). He move an hour away. Nobody knows him. No trouble. He doesn't carry his burden with him. Granted the burden black people carry is MUCH less than it was 50 years ago. But that doesn't mean what happened 50 years ago doesn't have an effect. If you inherited property that was devalued by racist acts done by Robert Moses in New York then you have less net worth than someone in a different neighborhood in New York that was favored by Robert Moses.

We will have to agree to disagree. I don't see “systemic racism” in many of your examples. Crony corporatism and government incompetence is more likely.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

There have been many Democrats and “left libertarians” on this forum. Anything might get posted in an open forum.

Right. Another straw man argument. I specifically gave you the example of 9/11 conspiracy theories which continued to be censored long after it no longer made sense for them to be censored. Ultimately when Donald Trump made very strong overtures to the 9/11 truth movement and when QAnon may conspiracy theories "mainstream" among republicans, the shadow ban of conspiracy content was lifted. I never said Democrats or "left libertarians" were censored. The point I made is that censorship among private groups has been championed here just like it's been championed other places. The only time I remember a true "censorship free" corner of the Internet is when I was on USENET which was (is?) not owned by anyone. The more the Internet went the "private property" route...the more censorship there has been. Kind of funny when we're supposed to believe that private property cures all our ills. And yes, censorship at RPF is different that on Facebook because there's no direct contact from people in government. But conservatives were complaining about "big tech" censorship before there was any proof of government collusion. How many times have I heard some conservative say these private companies represent "The new public square?" If you want a public square....it should be public.

IMHO, in more recent time, government action and programs have hurt many poor communities, but under the guise of “helping” them. Those government programs were demanded as a remedy to past injustice, but in reality, they made things worse. And I won’t quote that scumbag LBJ, but suffice it to say, there were nefarious political strategies behind the scenes, so it wasn’t all good intentions. If you want to say that the outcome of many current government programs tends to adversely effect some communities, I’d agree with that. I’ll also stand by my assertion that social justice warrioring inevitably lead to calls for more government “solutions”.

While the poor were given a pittance the ultra rich were given billions. Look at how much money gets spend on farm subsidies every year. Look at which groups benefit from those farm subsidies. And that doesn't even begin to touch to military industrial complex.



That said, LBJ sucked like a shotgun wound to the chest. And this is one area that, surprisingly, Donald Trump gets high marks. He actually DID something about the fact that black land grant colleges got the shaft decades ago by pushing through permanent funding of HBCU land grant colleges. His "platinum plan" proposal also would have gone a long way to address the issues Dr. King brought up. But alas blacks again voted against their own interests.

I’d also point out that it is the left that tends to support globalism and globalist objectives, and those objectives are to make almost all of us essentially “slaves” to a small global oligarchy of the elite.

Oh..but you don't like Bush and Cheney? How about good ole Ronnie Reagan? Why did we invade Grenada again?

[Anti Federalist]

The only disagreement I have with Anti Federalist on this issue is the idea that since since oppression happened to poor white communities it somehow evens out. It's one thing if something if you get screwed over because someone wants to mess up your neighborhood because "the road has to go somewhere." If you move to another neighborhood then chances are you won't get screwed over the next time. But if you're getting screwed over because you're black...then you can move as far away as New York to get away from racism in the South (a lot of black people did) you still can face the SAME racism. Put it another way. I have a white friend who's pissed off a lot of people in a certain city. I've joked with him that he gets treated worse than a black man in that city. (He's done nothing wrong. Just made some politically powerful people mad). He move an hour away. Nobody knows him. No trouble. He doesn't carry his burden with him. Granted the burden black people carry is MUCH less than it was 50 years ago. But that doesn't mean what happened 50 years ago doesn't have an effect. If you inherited property that was devalued by racist acts done by Robert Moses in New York then you have less net worth than someone in a different neighborhood in New York that was favored by Robert Moses.

@jmdrake

I see your point...mine was not so much as to "equalize" past oppression, but merely to point out that any ethnic group can find itself on the short end of the government stick.

As to the larger problem of inter ethnic race relations, I have nothing else to offer.

I think the problem is so broken and so much distrust and hatred on each side (seems like every day goes by now that some black supremacist professor is on some campus hollering for my extermination) that there is no solution but separation.

[oyarde]

Personally I doubt there are unique left libertarian views .

[jmdrake]

New political compass just dropped

Interesting. More than one way to look at it. Individuals verses groups. (Spider and sloth vs wolf pack and gazelle herd). Predator vs prey. (Spider and wolf vs gazelle and sloth). Each has it's own survival instinct. The sloth is like the donkey character in Animal Farm. He represented the intellectuals who survived communism by trying to go unnoticed. Some sloths live in trees inhabited by viscous ants who will attack devour anything that gets on the tree but leaves the sloths alone because they mistake the slow moving sloths for part of the tree.

Personally, I prefer the musk ox. Not a predator, but no easy prey. Weak in the center of the protective circle.

[jmdrake]

@jmdrake

I see your point...mine was not so much as to "equalize" past oppression, but merely to point out that any ethnic group can find itself on the short end of the government stick.

As to the larger problem of inter ethnic race relations, I have nothing else to offer.

I think the problem is so broken and so much distrust and hatred on each side (seems like every day goes by now that some black supremacist professor is on some campus hollering for my extermination) that there is no solution but separation.

As long as you get all the Ezra Miller's of the world you get no argument from me.

[Anti Federalist]

As long as you get all the Ezra Miller's of the world you get no argument from me.

Ugh...fair is fair however.

I'll deal with the Ezras but you have to take all the Justines.

[Anti Federalist]

[Anti Federalist]

Straw man argument. I never said the founders created slavery. The false claim that anyone telling the truth about how slavery was intertwined in U.S. history is somehow attacking the founders is a right wing "race hustle."

But they are...attacking the founders and the entire nation, its founding history and its core documents and its philosophy as nothing more than "racist trash".

And they base their arguments on the fact that antebellum America had chattel slavery embedded as law and part of the structure and its society.

That fact is not questionable...although I wish with all heart and soul that it never had. But, as you mentioned, technology moved on...Europeans became to the first peoples on the planet to successfully and repeatedly manage global marine transportation and navigation.

This is critical. Many cultures managed to go to sea, from Romans to Greeks to Chinese to Vikings and Polynesians. But ancient navigation was an entirely "hit or miss" coastal trade affair, usually never out of sight of land for any great length of time. It was the Portuguese and Spaniards and French and Dutch and in particular the British and their navy, that managed to make high seas, oceanic, marine navigation reliable, accurate and repeatable meaning the use of accurate charts, soundings and precise celestial navigation to return to a location or port, on the other side of the world, again and again.

And of course, what are they going to carry in the hulls of these vessels that now can return on time and follow regular trade routes and schedules, but things of value?

And in the North Atlantic, for 400 years or more, those items of value were distilled spirits...rum, which when you think about it, is to sugar cane what crack is to coca leaves, tobacco, sugar, salt cod and slaves.

So yes, there is no denying that slavery was intertwined in the history of North America.

That is not the question.

The question is: do we throw away 2000 years of history, The Five Thousand Year Leap, do we deconstruct and tear down the entire canon of Western Civilization, because of the never ending black fury and black anger and dimwitted white guilt over the fact that chattel slavery was an integral part of the history of America?

Because make no mistake, that is what these Marxist revolutionists and neo-Jacobins are after.

The utter and total annihilation of the West and everything it stands for, including such fusty old ideals like "the Rights of Man" and individual liberty and government from the bottom up instead of top down, representatives instead of rulers, Bills of Rights, faith in an omnipotent God, family, children, thrift, education, and so on and on and on.

I do not want to live in their world, that is not securing the blessings of liberty for my posterity, it is, in fact, a nightmare.

Other than a peaceful separation, I can see no other course or outcome other than a bloody internal war, which will probably be dealt with by our oppressors with the release of the REAL gain of function bio engineered plague, and just killing off 90 percent of all of us.

Because no matter what those same dimwitted guilty whites bring to the table, it will never, ever be enough.

No amount of reparations or government handouts or 40 acres and mules is going to be enough.

Because again, the people that are running this $#@!show do not give one frog's fat ass of concern about the well being of your average black person.

Look at what their policies have wrought...they have destroyed the black family, they have decimated your black men, they turn a blind eye towards the violence they themselves enabled...for $#@!'s sake, there's a Uvalde shooting death toll every $#@!ing weekend in Chicago.

@jmdrake and I know you know all this...I'm just ranting in the wind, so that maybe my digital dust will be noted some day in the distant future.

[ClaytonB]

But they are...attacking the founders and the entire nation, its founding history and its core documents and its philosophy as nothing more than "racist trash".

And they base their arguments on the fact that antebellum America had chattel slavery embedded as law and part of the structure and its society.

That fact is not questionable...although I wish with all heart and soul that it never had. But, as you mentioned, technology moved on...Europeans became to the first peoples on the planet to successfully and repeatedly manage global marine transportation and navigation.

This is critical. Many cultures managed to go to sea, from Romans to Greeks to Chinese to Vikings and Polynesians. But ancient navigation was an entirely "hit or miss" coastal trade affair, usually never out of sight of land for any great length of time. It was the Portuguese and Spaniards and French and Dutch and in particular the British and their navy, that managed to make high seas, oceanic, marine navigation reliable, accurate and repeatable meaning the use of accurate charts, soundings and precise celestial navigation to return to a location or port, on the other side of the world, again and again.

And of course, what are they going to carry in the hulls of these vessels that now can return on time and follow regular trade routes and schedules, but things of value?

And in the North Atlantic, for 400 years or more, those items of value were distilled spirits...rum, which when you think about it, is to sugar cane what crack is to coca leaves, tobacco, sugar, salt cod and slaves.

So yes, there is no denying that slavery was intertwined in the history of North America.

That is not the question.

The question is: do we throw away 2000 years of history, The Five Thousand Year Leap, do we deconstruct and tear down the entire canon of Western Civilization, because of the never ending black fury and black anger and dimwitted white guilt over the fact that chattel slavery was an integral part of the history of America?

Because make no mistake, that is what these Marxist revolutionists and neo-Jacobins are after.

The utter and total annihilation of the West and everything it stands for, including such fusty old ideals like "the Rights of Man" and individual liberty and government from the bottom up instead of top down, representatives instead of rulers, Bills of Rights, faith in an omnipotent God, family, children, thrift, education, and so on and on and on.

I do not want to live in their world, that is not securing the blessings of liberty for my posterity, it is, in fact, a nightmare.

Other than a peaceful separation, I can see no other course or outcome other than a bloody internal war, which will probably be dealt with by our oppressors with the release of the REAL gain of function bio engineered plague, and just killing off 90 percent of all of us.

Because no matter what those same dimwitted guilty whites bring to the table, it will never, ever be enough.

No amount of reparations or government handouts or 40 acres and mules is going to be enough.

Because again, the people that are running this $#@!show do not give one frog's fat ass of concern about the well being of your average black person.

Look at what their policies have wrought...they have destroyed the black family, they have decimated your black men, they turn a blind eye towards the violence they themselves enabled...for $#@!'s sake, there's a Uvalde shooting death toll every $#@!ing weekend in Chicago.

@jmdrake and I know you know all this...I'm just ranting in the wind, so that maybe my digital dust will be noted some day in the distant future.

The real crime of the United States is not that we had slavery -- every nation had slavery when the US was founded -- but, rather, that we abolished slavery, not just in word, but in deed. The abolition movement begin in England and spread to the US and basically the entire sphere of Christendom, broadly conceived. John 8:36 -- "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!" Galatians 3:28 -- "There is neither ... slave nor free ... for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The Gospel is the Exodus made universal. It is the escape from Egyptian slavery but, this time, the Israelites are all who choose to believe in Jesus and join in the escape, and the Egyptian slavers are the invisible spiritual rulers of this world. Revolutions they can accept. National independence they can tolerate. Civil war, rebellion, insurrection.... all just part of life. But throwing down the gauntlet and making a universal challenge against human slavery, as such, and backing it up with action... that's unforgivable. It's an act of war, ultimate war. And so we skid ever faster down the slope into the real Armageddon...





"Who gets blamed for the practice of slavery? ... The people who first outlawed it, who first put a stop to are the ones who are blamed for inventing it." <-- THIS

[Swordsmyth]

There can be no alliances with people who think that.

Hard stop.

^^^THIS^^^

[Swordsmyth]

Personally I doubt there are unique left libertarian views .

The only principle that leftarians have is that they should be allowed to indulge whatever vices and crimes appeal to them.

[Brian4Liberty]

Relevant to this thread. Dave Smith has a hypothesis that much of the hyper social justice attitude is generational. In other words, older libertarians may come from a time (or region) that had real institutionalized discrimination, while younger libertarians as represented by the Mises Caucus don't have that background. As I have said, to them it is historical, but not relatable to anything they experienced or saw in their lives. I would add to Dave Smith’s take that it would also be a regional phenomenon. A person from the south would be much more likely to have witnessed this than someone in California or New York.

So an older libertarian is more likely to do anything and everything to avoid being called names, including being SJWs themselves and virtue signaling, while younger libertarians are not as sensitized. As a matter if fact, I would also add to Smith’s idea here that younger people have seen the opposite. They see social justice as being institutionalized, and being used by the state and it’s minions as a way to unfairly attack people. If anything is “systemic” today, it is wokeism and social justice warrioring.

A Response To The S.P.L.C - Part Of The Problem 882
On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave responds to an article by the Southern Poverty Law Center accusing the Libertarian Party and Freedom Fest of being harbors of extremists and radicals. This Episode Was Recorded On 7.17.22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF68d1-zXCM