Intro to libertarian philosophy animation

[bluesbassman]

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Dump or don't dump...I don't care. If you choose to dump, then you can do so, but you do not have the right to choose to dump your sewage such that it enters my property, unless I say it is okay. As to the means of keeping your sewage out of my section of creek, I could care less, so long as it gets done. Getting it inspected or it costing $10,000 is not my concern, nor is it an impinging of your rights. In fact, it is simply the cost of exercising those rights responsibly. No one ever said freedom was free.

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My point is that this is actually an incredibly restrictive philosophy. If you want to guarantee that no one is ever affected negatively by anyone else's actions, that necessitates an enormous and intrusive government for enforcement. Your utopia of liberty actually turns into a very restrictive society where no one can do anything.


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The error in this "criticism" is that you claim a logical consequence of a libertarian philosophy is that it implies no one may do anything which "negatively affects" to any degree another person or his property. The damage must non-negligible; that is decided in context on an individual basis. This criterion is already common in criminal and civil law, and there is nothing non-libertarian about that.

Most libertarians would agree, for example, that one does not have the right to emit fatal concentrations of poisonous gas which may waft into another person's property. This obviously is a non-negligible initiation of force. On the other hand, the mere act of breathing produces a small amount of carbon dioxide, but that is not sufficient to claim a libertarian philosophy demands that your neighbor must hold his breath.

To what degree constitutes "non-negligible" harm is certainly a legitimate matter of debate, and those issues may indeed be complex, in which both parties of a dispute may have legitimate claims. Libertarianism maintains that such issues should be untangled and decided on the basis of individual rights, including property rights. Similarly, government regulations regarding pollution should be defined on that same basis.

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I agree with you about gay marriage, etc. It's just that in the real world, people have overlapping and conflicting rights, and it's naive to simply say, "Everyone has rights and they should always be respected."

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In the real world, libertarianism implies that such complex issues should be decided on the basis of individual rights. There is nothing "naive" about that, and your characterization is a strawman.