Libertarianism and the Environment

[Berati]

He hasn't dodged anything except your straw man of what a libertarian is.


Sent from Monster Island. Titty sprinkles.

And what straw man is that? I've put up three links from libertarians themselves.

[Berati]

I'm sorry everyone else.  I'm not very good at ignoring trolls.  It's one of my weaknesses.

APA, Berati, you win.  There shall be no discussion of anything libertarian in a forum devoted to free thought.  It shall not be allowed.  Free thinkers aren't allowed to discuss this with you here to disrupt and my difficulty ignoring trolls.  You have decreed that free thought means never discussing anything libertarian.

You have decreed that there shall be no criticism of libertarianism. If there is, just claim that we're not referring to "true libertarianism".
With every criticism and every example of a libertarian policy failure you're one and only reply is to make libertarianism so pure that it becomes unfalsifiable.
Go look up the no true Scotsman fallacy. You're picture will be there.

Oh, and one more thing. YOU are the one who has constantly followed me to everyone of these discussions. Every post I've started with were directed at other people and you trolled in. This can be verified by anyone...troll.
You're weakness is not trolls, you are the troll. Your real weakness is a strict adherence to ideology. That always makes people stupid.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

And what straw man is that? I've put up three links from libertarians themselves.

Anyone can use Google to find a link to a party platform.  Watch, I'll do it to you now.  And here's one of your think tanks. But just because you could find a link doesn't mean you've read anything on the other side of that link, or in the unlikely even you glanced at the written material, understood anything that was written there.

You have decreed that there shall be no criticism of libertarianism.

That is not true.  I don't mind it if people criticize it, as long as they do so intelligently.  Trolls need not apply.

Oh, and one more thing. YOU are the one who has constantly followed me to everyone of these discussions.

YOU started this thread?  I thought The Skeletal Atheist started this thread.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

And what straw man is that? I've put up three links from libertarians themselves.

And you think this means they speak for all libertarians? Do the Democrats speak for all liberals, or the Republicans for all conservatives? Whatever the Libertarian Party has to say has fuck all to do with whether it is a libertarian issue. You are thinking purely in terms of left and right, forgetting that the political spectrum also has an up and a down. Absolutely pathetic.

Liberal vs Conservative speaks to what civil rights people should have. Libertarian vs Authoritarian speaks to how much power the government should have. These four directions are not fixed points, they are slide rules. You clearly do not understand this basic aspect of political theory, and you need to shut the fuck up and do some research before opening that smart mouth of yours again.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

And you think this means they speak for all libertarians? Do the Democrats speak for all liberals, or the Republicans for all conservatives? Whatever the Libertarian Party has to say has fuck all to do with whether it is a libertarian issue. You are thinking purely in terms of left and right, forgetting that the political spectrum also has an up and a down. Absolutely pathetic.

Liberal vs Conservative speaks to what civil rights people should have. Libertarian vs Authoritarian speaks to how much power the government should have. These four directions are not fixed points, they are slide rules. You clearly do not understand this basic aspect of political theory, and you need to shut the fuck up and do some research before opening that smart mouth of yours again.

Actually he did get the links right.  The problem is, his criticisms have nothing to do with the information on the other side of those links.  His criticisms have started and ended with "Republicans are bad in the following ways ........ and there, I just criticized libertarianism."  If you point out that he just committed a colossal Strawman of equating conservatives and libertarians, he accuses you of committing a No True Scotsman.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Actually he did get the links right.  The problem is, his criticisms have nothing to do with the information on the other side of those links.  His criticisms have started and ended with "Republicans are bad in the following ways ........ and there, I just criticized libertarianism."  If you point out that he just committed a colossal Strawman of equating conservatives and libertarians, he accuses you of committing a No True Scotsman.

Exactly, which is why I went ahead and explained to him what the terms he's using mean. Whether or not he reads and comprehends that explanation is another question.

[Hakurei Reimu]

It is the key because they can't stop it from spreading, so therefore can't pollute their own property either.  If their pollution spreads to your property that is an infringement on you and is actionable.

With air and water pollution, this becomes everyone downwind and downstream of you, which will eventually include the entire population of the Earth. But in doing so, the pollutants become more dilute, so as the pollution disperses, proving liability will be difficult. There are too many damn people affected to be realistically handled in any country's court system (except by class actions), and many of those who are affected are difficult to assess in the specific, but appreciable in the cumulative effects. This means that an individual polluter can continue to win individual suits against his pollution events against individual victims, but all the polluters over all of their pollution are causing significant harm to everyone.

Also, this runs into grief when assessing pollution that then goes into and over the no man's land that is the ocean. Who has responsibility then?

No, I'm not seeing any sort of advantage over traditional environmental regulation, which regards pollution as everyone's problem... because it is everyone's problem.

[Berati]

And you think this means they speak for all libertarians? Do the Democrats speak for all liberals, or the Republicans for all conservatives? Whatever the Libertarian Party has to say has fuck all to do with whether it is a libertarian issue. You are thinking purely in terms of left and right, forgetting that the political spectrum also has an up and a down. Absolutely pathetic.

Liberal vs Conservative speaks to what civil rights people should have. Libertarian vs Authoritarian speaks to how much power the government should have. These four directions are not fixed points, they are slide rules. You clearly do not understand this basic aspect of political theory, and you need to shut the fuck up and do some research before opening that smart mouth of yours again.

I'm criticizing libertarianism using the definitions libertarians themselves use, therefore no strawman.
*mod* enough, if you can't handle the discussion then go to the fucking outhouse and leave this one alone-aitm

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Your reply makes no sense dumb ass.
I'm criticizing libertarianism using the definitions libertarians themselves use, therefore no strawman.
If you can't grasp that simple concept then you should shut your striking pie hole.

You didn't even read what I wrote.

[Berati]

Actually he did get the links right.  The problem is, his criticisms have nothing to do with the information on the other side of those links.  His criticisms have started and ended with "Republicans are bad in the following ways ........ and there, I just criticized libertarianism."  If you point out that he just committed a colossal Strawman of equating conservatives and libertarians, he accuses you of committing a No True Scotsman.

Still got it wrong Jason. I've said that conservatives have followed libertarian ideology in making stupid mistakes. You say it doesn't count as libertarian ideology because the conservatives have implemented it. Are you capable of grasping the difference?

This is exactly where the no true Scotsman argument lies. No matter how libertarian policies fail you will always claim they aren't "true" libertarian policies.

[Berati]

You didn't even read what I wrote.

I did. Read it again.

If you want to have a real discussion then act like a grown up and leave the foul mouthed insults for the children.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I did. Read it again.

If you want to have a real discussion then act like a grown up and leave the foul mouthed insults for the children.

The guy who doesn't understand basic political terms and thinks libertarianism exists in a vacuum wants me to "act lkike a grown up." Dude, get off your fucking high horse. You haven't addressed libertarianism once in this entire thread. You go to sources of conservative libertarians, take their conservative views, and try to pass that off as libertarianism. Only someone who is ignorant or just a fucking dipshit would ever confuse the two, as they are two totally different issues in the political spectrum.

When you are ready to actually address libertarianism, and not just the conservative views of particular libertarians, we can begin having a real discussion.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I've said that conservatives have followed libertarian ideology in making stupid mistakes.

And I've shown that what they followed is very inconsistent with anything libertarian.  Unless you judge just by words and not by deeds, which you almost admitted to but backed off at the last second.

You say it doesn't count as libertarian ideology because the conservatives have implemented it.

Now you're lying to cover your tracks, since I said it doesn't count because what they actually did is inconsistent with libertarianism.

Are you capable of grasping the difference?

[The Skeletal Atheist]

With air and water pollution, this becomes everyone downwind and downstream of you, which will eventually include the entire population of the Earth. But in doing so, the pollutants become more dilute, so as the pollution disperses, proving liability will be difficult. There are too many damn people affected to be realistically handled in any country's court system (except by class actions), and many of those who are affected are difficult to assess in the specific, but appreciable in the cumulative effects. This means that an individual polluter can continue to win individual suits against his pollution events against individual victims, but all the polluters over all of their pollution are causing significant harm to everyone.

Also, this runs into grief when assessing pollution that then goes into and over the no man's land that is the ocean. Who has responsibility then?

No, I'm not seeing any sort of advantage over traditional environmental regulation, which regards pollution as everyone's problem... because it is everyone's problem.

Forget what those who came here to debate the finer points of libertarianism has to say, I hear what they have to say in every other thread about libertarianism and I'm looking for specifics, not some overreaching critique of the entire libertarian ideology. I'm looking for more of an answer to something like this. I admit my toxic waste burial example was a bit off the mark. You can easily find out who was dumping toxic waste because the waste is usually on their property. Air pollution, however, is much harder to tack down. Also much harder to tack down is who exactly has a claim. Of course the people directly downwind have a claim, but this sort of thing affects everybody. At the same time, who has jurisdiction when it is dumped in the middle of the ocean? This isn't just a libertarian problem, we're dealing with this sort of thing at the very moment and it's hard to find the answers, I'm just looking for a libertarian opinion on it and other environmental issues.

Hell, let's throw poaching into the mix. Unless you're the sort who agrees that endangered species need to be protected by law, what's to stop me from shooting a rhino and harvesting it's horn for big bucks on the market? What stops me from capturing endangered parrots and selling them on the market? I do realize that poaching is currently a large problem even with government intervention, but I'm not seeing how the alternative could be better.

Edit: The reason I'm using poaching is because I'm assuming, as a natural resource, that the rhino isn't anyone's property, so no one would have a claim to it. On the other hand, what if someone owned the entire area where rhinos live, and decided to kill them all because he wants to sell the horn, he hates rhinos, or any other reason. They're animals on his own property. They may be endangered, but as a property owner wouldn't he have the right to kill whatever animal is on his property endangered or not?

[PopeyesPappy]

The problem with libertarian free market environmentalism is markets generally do not take external factors into account when determining the selling price of goods and services. We are seeing that right now with anthropogenic climate change.

The evidence says humans are causing the climate to change through the release of greenhouse gasses and land use. Some people are going to be negatively affected even if the climate change ends up being a net positive. Property in low lying coastal areas is threatened by inundation. Currently productive farmlands will become arid. Libertarians should be up in arms about this situation because the property rights of people are being negatively affected, but no one has a plan to compensate these people when their property loses value.

Using this example it is actually pretty easy to make a libertarian case for a carbon tax the proceeds from which would be used to compensate the future negative impacts on people’s property rights. This is just about the only way anyone has come up with to ensure that the negative property rights cost of the external to the market effects of anthropogenic climate change are included in the cost of goods and services sold.