Libertarians have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Obama, so in this article I will discuss my own views of, not Obama, but libertarians for an original change, this being for both those learned in politics and for those who are just interested.
It does not take literati to link libertarianism, to liberty, to simply freedom. This does form the simple basis of Libertarian policy and belief; freedom in every scenario. This does mean; Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Choice, Freedom of Action, Freedom from Interference, generally pro-individual freedom in every scenario. This would mean low taxes and high emphasis on the private sector as opposed to the public sector; the only exceptions to which would be elementary education and the police force. Freedom is something that can easily be considered universally good, so can there be any flaws in policies surrounding freedom? The simple response from any point of view (even libertarian) is yes, there can be flaws, as in any political ideology.
Firstly, a society that relies on individual freedom as opposed to the assistance of some from others, to work ideally, implies that all individuals are equal- not equal in the social sense, but in the sense that everyone could get to where they strive to be if they really wanted to and put the effort in. This is the economic theory of equity, which is the concept of equal opportunities for all within a society. This is fundamental for libertarianism to work at a flawless level, because if everyone would get to where they deserved to be. Those who strove to get to the top get to the top, and those who slacked fell to the bottom. Some readers at this point are nodding their heads, thinking ‘Yeah, that’s the way things should be.’ And do you know what? I wholly agree with you on this point.
I wholly support the concept of a society where those who got to the top deserved to, and those who got to the bottom deserved to, here’s the thing: I just don’t think its existence is humanly possible. See, for such a society to exist we would need every human being to be brought up absolutely equally. I mean equally in almost every kind of way, in terms of intelligence, finance, education, health, ideals, and family. If I believe if this were a plausible achievable state of any society, I would be libertarian. But because human beings are not equal in any of these aspects, you can’t even claim (as you could cheekily mutter) Siamese twins to be equal in all these aspects. I do not want to live in a society that believes that celebrities deserve all the money that they inherited from their parents, or that the university graduate living with his parents is unable to find a job because he is incapable. That same graduate may have graduated with a final year economics degree from LSE.
I can’t disagree with libertarian virtues. This article can NOT claim to ‘cover’ libertarianism, it merely analysis the fundamental values. I simply don’t see the means as possible, practical, or humane. That is my review.