Why are YOU a libertarian? – LearnLiberty Meme

LearnLiberty started a meme yesterday by asking “Why are YOU a libertarian?”

Here is the photo I submitted:

I am a libertarian because I do not believe that governments have political authority, as argued by Professor Michael Huemer in his book, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey.

Here are two other answers I came up with:

I am a libertarian because majority opinions, elections, flags, anthems, rituals, traditions, badges, uniforms, charismatic orators and neoclassical architectural buildings have all failed to conceal from me the truth that threatening peaceful people with violence through governments is still wrong.

I am a libertarian because I apply the same moral standards to governments as you apply to all nongovernmental persons and organizations in society.

Many of the people who participated in the meme are anarchist libertarians, but most appear to be minimal government libertarians. This may therefore be a fun way to expose many people to new views.

A few peoples’ photos received over a thousand “likes” on Facebook. Professor Steve Horwitz‘s received 820 “likes” as of the writing of this blog post:

I’m a libertarian because I do care about the poor… and I don’t care how good your intentions are

You can see all 140+ peoples’ answers here. For an archive of thumbnails of everyone’s answers see here.

“Beyond Democracy” – Short, Accessible and Highly Readable

Following is my Amazon review for Frank Karsten and Karel Beckman’s book Beyond Democracy, which I received when I made a $25 donation to Tomasz Kaye’s crowd-funding campaign for his wonderful short animated film You Can Always Leave, the sequel to the famous George Ought to Help:

The main merit of this book is its short, accessible, and highly readable defense of the view that there are better ways to organize society than democracy. Any friend, co-worker, or family member could get through this book, even if he or she has no interest in politics.

I am a libertarian anarchist and strongly agree with the authors’ opposition to democratic governments. I fully understand that there is a shortage of libertarian books that are accessible to the general public. In fact, the only other libertarian book I am aware of that is of comparable accessibility and readability to “Beyond Democracy” is Dr. Mary J. Ruwart’s book Healing Our World.

You may thus be wondering, why am I giving “Beyond Democracy” only three stars?

My reason is that I do not think that the arguments contained within the book are good enough to persuade scholars, academics, or even average passionate supporters of other political ideologies to support libertarianism and oppose democracy. I think more rigorous arguments must be provided to defend the libertarian position.

You might point out that the purpose of this book was to reach a general audience, not to persuade intellectuals, so my low rating is not deserved. But, the reality is that that some of the people who read this book who support democracy and are skeptical of libertarianism may not be persuaded by the simple arguments contained within the book.

It is to them I wish to say: this is not the best book out there. Do not conclude that the views expressed in “Beyond Democracy” are “laughable” until you have read more rigorous defenses of them, as can be found in such books as Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty, Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy–The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order, and Michael Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey.

Note that I have not read Hoppe’s “Democracy–The God That Failed,” yet I listed it anyway since my understanding is that many libertarians who have read it believe it provides a strong argument against democratic governments. In fact, it is mentioned in the postscript of “Beyond Democracy”:

Mises and Rothbard never produced a rigorous analysis of the phenomenon of democracy. The first libertarian thinker to do so is the German economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who lives and works in the US. His book Democracy — The God that Failed (2001) is for the time being the standard libertarian work in this area. [page 91]

George Can Always Leave, But Taxation Is Still Theft

George Ought to Help is a wonderful short animation made by Tomasz Kaye that illustrates the fact that the organizations called states or governments are all guilty of theft or extortion. People call this legalized theft “taxation,” but Tomasz shows why taxation is no different than theft and suggests that it is consequently illegitimate.

After over two years of discussing the short video with people in the comment section on YouTube, Tomasz made a new sequel animation called You Can Always Leave to address many of the common objections to the first video. Bryan Caplan called it, “One of the best philosophy videos I’ve ever seen”:

I would be happy to discuss anything in either video here, however I also encourage you to check out the comment sections on YouTube to see what discussions have already taken place.