Liberalism

Permabear · 21-04-2010 01:49PM

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Macha · 21-04-2010 02:13PM

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes I take your point. But this is because there is a clear market signal. What if it weren't cheaper? What if there is no natural market signal? What about when the market signal is delayed by a number of years?

What if the more sustainable solution is more expensive in the short-term? For example, wind power is more sustainable but is growing because of international, EU and national legislation and market supports. The private sector is doing what it does best - meeting a demand. But that demand has been somewhat artificially created by governments. Yet, it is what is required to move us towards a sustainable future.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes, culture has a lot to do with it.

It's interesting you mention strong property rights leading to environmentalism. Take my favourite example of Sweden - they have an understanding of the benefits of pooling resources far beyond any understanding that exists in Ireland. They use public transport, they use municipal facilities and they recognise that they all gain more than if each individual were to attempt to build his or her own library, etc. In Ireland, there seems to be this "how much can I get out of it for myself?" attitude that results in our poor attitude towards issues of sustainability, in my opinion.

So is it strong sense of property rights? Because I think we have that here and our environmental record sucks. I think the same could be said about the US.

donegalfella wrote: »

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After a few thousand Indian farmers have committed suicide, the lake is in entrophy, etc - sorry that's not good enough for me!

The other issue is that many companies actively hide information from consumers on the products they are buying. So your product contains unsustainable palm oil - whoops! Forgot to mention that. Often the impacts are not felt in the same place that the damage is done. The damage is done to the rainforests in Borneo but because the end consumers of Nestle don't live there, they really couldn't give a damn - even though, obviously, they should as these rainforests provide oxygen that we breathe.

You're making me think donegalfella!

Permabear · 21-04-2010 05:31PM

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Macha · 21-04-2010 05:51PM

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes but that is just one particular example. There will be instances when this doesn't always happen. Sometimes it isn't about supply/demand. For example, how would carbon emissions be dealt with? It isn't commodities that will necessarily be running out the the services that are provided that are running out.

donegalfella wrote: »

I'd recommend reading Energy: The Master Resource, by Robert Bradley and Richard Fulmer, for free-market solutions to our alleged energy crisis. Be warned, though, that they do not agree with you that legislation and market intervention are the best way forward!

I will certainly look it up. I in turn would recommend Amory Lovins as a person who strongly believes in the innovations of the private market, as guided with public policies:

http://www.oilendgame.com/ExecutiveSummary.html

donegalfella wrote: »

Well, there are many cultural differences between ourselves and Sweden—and I don't think it's at all feasible to expect to create a global Sweden. I'm puzzled exactly as to why the Swedes happily submit to collectivism in ways that Americans—and, to a lesser extent, the Irish—would never do. But the fact remains that we won't.

Swedes are hardly "submitting to collectivism" but you know what? They have a fantastic quality of life, far higher than that of many Americans and Irish.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Ah it sucks because we are obsessed with individual short-term gains, over long-term sustainable strategies. Everyone wants to build houses everywhere, own and drive cars, etc.

We also have some weird ideas about quality of life and how materialistic it has to be. So living in the middle of nowhere, owning a car and spending 4 hours a day on the M50 is preferable to renting an apartment in the city centre and taking public transport.

Hah - you musn't know that much about planning if you think the Irish government is very heavily involved. It isn't. We got here by pure accident. You should watch Conor Skehan of DIT talking about this here:

http://www.iiea.com/events/dr-conor-skehan-on-dublin-at-the-crossroads

donegalfella wrote: »

But you seem to be saying now that if consumers were better informed about the products they're buying, they wouldn't buy them, or they would choose more environmentally friendly alternatives. At other times, you seem to be saying that the consumer cares only about satisfying his short-term desires, and couldn't care less about unsustainable palm oil, or endangered tuna fish, or whatever else. For the record, I do think there's a growing market for environmentally friendly products, and more people are becoming more conscious consumers. But you don't seem to think this is happening fast enough?

The market is growing but tiny. And the % extra Irish consumers are willing to spend is minimal. It isn't happening fast enough and to be honest I don't enjoy the idea of leaving this all in the hands of consumers.

I'm sure some consumers would buy more ethical products if they had access to the information but to be honest, the vast majority wouldn't. So I don't really see it as a decent all-encompassing solution.

And um..who exactly would be forcing disclosure from companies on these issues?

Lockstep · 21-04-2010 08:51PM

Just to weigh in for a moment; I know little about environmental matters.

Could a libertarian explain to me how air pollution will be prevented in a free market and with no government regulation?

Memnoch · 22-04-2010 02:11PM

Dongafella:

Is it supply and demand that caused Tobacco companies to try and undermine science that exposed the danger of cigarette smoking? What about their attempts to undermine the issue of health damage caused by passive smoking?

Is it supply and demand that stops cigarette manufacturers and fast food restaurants from relentlessly marketing to our children?

I'm sure it was only supply and demand that forced Eircom to unbundle broadband lines, when they we're purposefully preventing most of us from accessing broadband so that they could charge us ridiculous per minute rates on our land lines (not to mention line rental). Yes, it was all done to the competitors (that eircom locked out) that we were able to get fast, affordable broadband in this country. No intervention or activism to lobby the government to intervene was required.

Was it the spirit of competition that caused food distributors/manufacturers to resist appropriately labelling their products? Is it the reason they still resist attempts and lobby against such attempts for greater clarity in allowing consumers to make informed choices?

I could go on....

While I would support the idea of pure capitalism (in some industries), the fact is that just like pure communism it will never work. The moment a corporation gets a leg up/ahead of it's competitors they do everything in their power to kill competition and subvert the free market principles they all clamour so loudly for.

Ironically, we NEED regulation and government interference to encourage and maintain the competition you claim is the fix for all ills.

dsmythy · 22-04-2010 03:07PM

Poor old donegalfella, always ends up in Q&A sessions when Liberalism is the topic. Here's one that interests me. With regards defence, how would a Libertarian land prevent it's freedoms from being encroached on by neighbouring States?

simplistic2 · 22-04-2010 04:34PM

For people who keep claiming that a free market society has and will never work.
Have a look a this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZi45Mf6jYY

Ireland was a purely free-market capitalist society for thousands of years before the British installed a state and turned everybody into tax livestock.

Sandvich · 22-04-2010 05:40PM

donegalfella wrote: »

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Here's the problem with that. Because of the fact that our telecoms are privatised; there is little to no incentive to spread broadband in rural areas.

In Sweden it's hard to get away from broadband.

Ireland was a purely free-market capitalist society for thousands of years before the British installed a state and turned everybody into tax livestock.

Not as if there was slavery or anything is there?

I'm sure it was fantastic unless you were sick, disabled, poor, or anything out of the ordinary. How was health care? Oh right, there wasn't any, it's medieval Ireland.

Without government enforcement you don't have building regulation, health and safety laws, food safety, guaranteed(more or less) clean water. These things weren't really issues back then since it was, despite what this video said, a primitve society. You can't have the level of technology and health care we have to do in an anarchist/libertarian society.

Just because it was a "working model" doesn't mean it was any good. Society can't really develop from a model like this.

Permabear · 22-04-2010 05:40PM

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Sandvich · 22-04-2010 05:44PM

Statists, by contrast, assume that people are ignorant rubes who cannot process elemental facts such as that smoking causes cancer or that fast food makes you fat.

This sounds about right. If not; why are so many people trying to give up cigarettes and lose weight?

I'm not saying these things should necessarily be heavily regulated. But if you really think otherwise then you're crossing a bit of a line into loony land.

The short answer to all of the above is that libertarians—who emphasize freedom, education, and civic responsibility

Allow me to correct you - Libertarians emphasise freedom from the state. Not from other human beings. A libertarian system only gurantees the most personal freedoms on paper.

For example most discrimination against homosexuals does not come from the government; but from the general public, or businesses(I'm sure you'd fight to the death to protect a business's right not to hire a transsexual based on the grounds of them being too weird).

I know. But that is where extreme believers in this ideology are going. Environmentalism has become a covert way to attack liberal capitalism—by pretending that the only way to save the planet is to shut down all industry.

Okay, this is definitely crossing that line. Do you have any proof of this?

Eliot Rosewater · 22-04-2010 06:16PM

dsmythy wrote: »

With regards defence, how would a Libertarian land prevent it's freedoms from being encroached on by neighbouring States?

Libertarians generally advocate a micro-state, rather than no state at all. One of the few core duties of this micro-state would be to uphold the rights of it's citizens, which would involve the maintaining of a justice system and an army.

Sandvich wrote: »

This sounds about right. If not; why are so many people trying to give up cigarettes and lose weight?

Because they made bad decisions and now they are dealing with the consequences. You think that the state should "protect people from themselves". Fine, but this kind of policy usually involves punishing all. For example, if I want to smoke a cigarillo, which I may do once every few months, I have to pay extra tax because the government feels its it's job to influence others.

Sandvich wrote: »

For example most discrimination against homosexuals does not come from the government; but from the general public, or businesses

Obviously there's going to be a handful of business who discriminate so (such as male only golf clubs) but those occurrences are minuscule compared to the historical tyranny placed upon minorities by overbearing majorities through the government.

But the main point is that discriminating on the basis of sex, sexual preference or skin color is plain stupid business practice. You're just handing over customers to the competition, who will have no problem serving minorities to make money. The profit motive rises above these lame discriminatory standards set by governments.

Permabear · 22-04-2010 06:25PM

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Memnoch · 22-04-2010 06:29PM

donegalfella wrote: »

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Sorry Dongafella, but we're back to the ideal scenario here. To somehow claim that if government wasn't around, that powerful corporations would be able to get away with less? That's just twisting the arm into anatomically impossible contortions.

Maybe when everyone is educated, free, and behaves civilly and responsibly we could live in the kind of utopia you dream of. But the reality of the world and even the western world is far from that. We need someone to keep corporate and individual power in check, and the fact that despite our best efforts corporations are able to influence government is not an argument for removing regulations but one for striving for more robustness.

Humanity is driven by greed and self-interest. Leave that completely unchecked or create a vacuum, and someone will always rise to fill it.

simplistic2 · 22-04-2010 07:14PM

Sandvich wrote: »

Not as if there was slavery or anything is there?

Yes it was horrible but the whole world was engaged in it at that time. The English came in with a better system of slavery afterwards. A centralized one called the state. And now we have a inherited a more advanced system were the state gains to belief of the people through Public schools that rape the minds of children turning them into unquestioning, obedient collectivists. Then bribes are dished out to the poor with social welfare , public servants with creamy paychecks and to the old with healthcare and every single other interest group that are handed subsidies or incentives all sweetly mortgaged on the backs of their children. And by the time anyone realizes they were suckered into ponzi scheme they are 6 feet in the ground.

Sandvich wrote: »

I'm sure it was fantastic unless you were sick, disabled, poor, or anything out of the ordinary. How was health care? Oh right, there wasn't any, it's medieval Ireland.

I dont understand ?Are you suggesting that creating a centralized power in medieval Ireland would have solved this?

Sandvich wrote: »

Without government enforcement you don't have building regulation, health and safety laws, food safety, guaranteed(more or less) clean water. These things weren't really issues back then since it was, despite what this video said, a primitve society. You can't have the level of technology and health care we have to do in an anarchist/libertarian society.

Just because it was a "working model" doesn't mean it was any good. Society can't really develop from a model like this.

Why?

Lockstep · 22-04-2010 09:19PM

simplistic2 wrote: »

For people who keep claiming that a free market society has and will never work.
Have a look a this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZi45Mf6jYY

Ireland was a purely free-market capitalist society for thousands of years before the British installed a state and turned everybody into tax livestock.

Dodgy historical research there, with ridiculous conclusions and misrepresentations.
For one thing, Irish society was remarkable for it's homogenity. This carried over onto it's laws. The classic definition by Binchy held Irish society as "tribal, rural, hierarchical and familiar". Ó Cróinin defined Irish law as having "the edifice of law standing above all local and regional rivalries as a unified system of custom and practice. (Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200, p.112)
Furthermore, it is common knowledge that it is a mystery how the law came about as an edifice. The most likely explanation being that it was preserved over from the times when there was a strong central High King, who even when his kingdom was fragmented, the laws were carried on by the learned order; priests, lawyers and poets.
Crimes against society existed (betrayal of the Tuath to the enemy)
Irish society at the time was also incredibly hierarchial, with four different law tracts determining the different legal grades (and treatment) accorded to different types of aristocrats and so on. Hardly egalitarian.

Eoin Mac Neill noted that in order to succeed kingship, he must belong to the same derbfine of the previous king (father, son, grandson, greatgrandson) Only if he was a member of the derbfine was he electable (along with other criteria like not missing any body parts and be a man of property as he was expected to maintain royal officials). While it would not be the same kind of vast estates as the Merovingian kings had, Ó Cróinín notes that it clearly precluded the common man from being king, ensuring it was a sort of oligrarchical structure.
In addition, the king had numerous other rights which would horrify any modern libertarian such as the right to treasure trove (which was banned from applying to non-monarchs) In addition, the king was to be a judge himself, as the judicial office belonged to the king (although he could delegate this to a lawyer). The king was also usually above the law, as were his muire. If the king was to be chastised, then a whipping boy ('substitute churl' was used to represent him, to prevent dishonour on his office unless he committed an extremely serious offence. In any case, the damages were usually born by the 'substitute churl' rather than the king himself.

Furthermore, Irish society was incredibly patriarchal. Women were subject to their husbands/fathers/ fine head. Most of their rights were constrained to allowing divorce if the husband was impotent/unable to have sex/gay etc. One of my favorite law tracts had it that a woman who went into a mead house unaccompanied and who was then raped was not actually raped. The logic went that only a whore would go into a mead house unaccompanied. Likewise, if a woman was in a relatively public place and didn't cry out then she couldn't claim to be raped. Best of all, if a man was only able to support one parent, he was told to "leave his mother in a ditch and carry home his father to his house.

The basis of the entire society was also based on clientship; the lord advanced a grant/stock/land to his clients and recieved rent and services in return, while the most important unit in society was the familly and not the individual. The law was even based around the preconception that farming would be done cooperatively. Hardly a free market capitalist society as Simplistic 2 claims.

My favorite point is where he claimed that "minor brawls" ensued. Ireland at the time was an utter mess in constant states of warfare.The vikings get a lot of stick for raiding monasteries, when it was usually Celtic Irish who were doing most of the raiding. The reason Ireland wasn't getting involved in large scale warfare as seen across Europe was that they were too busy fighting each other to be able to muster any sort of warfare. Not surprising in a society where clan feuds were recognised as a legitimate and proper part of the legal order.

This is all before the Church is brought into the equation with it's church taxes, paruchiae (which functioned as effective confederate states themselves) and so on. Religious law was also commonplace, which was an effective parallel to secular law.

If you simply must denote this as having the abscence of a state, then some corrupted form of anarcho-syndicalism (communitarianism?) is far more apt. Certainly not capitalist or free market. How a hierarchical and patriarchal society can be seen in any way as libertarian is beyond me.

pagancornflake · 22-04-2010 09:40PM

simplistic2 wrote: »

the state gains to belief of the people through Public schools that rape the minds of children turning them into unquestioning, obedient collectivists.

Explain how what is taught in public schools turns them into "unquestioning, obedient collectivists". I don't know where you went to school, but I (and everyone I have ever met) learned language, mathematics, science, and the basic structures surrounding business in school.

Sergeant · 22-04-2010 09:46PM

From reading this thread, would I be right in assuming that Liberalism is much more than an economic theory, which the topic has seemed to focus on so far?

I mean, one of the great Libertarian texts Atlas Shrugged, appears to the untrained eye to be focused on much more than laissez-faire capitalism, the abolition of regulation, and small government.

Is it not an overarching belief in the clarity of independent thought, the inherent rights of the individual, and the disdain of central control? It is all well and good to discuss the advanced economic theory of all this, but does it not require a moral clarity, a massive change in human thinking to achieve all this?

simplistic2 · 22-04-2010 11:02PM

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Dodgy historical research there, with ridiculous conclusions and misrepresentations.
For one thing, Irish society was remarkable for it's homogenity. This carried over onto it's laws. The classic definition by Binchy held Irish society as "tribal, rural, hierarchical and familiar". Ó Cróinin defined Irish law as having "the edifice of law standing above all local and regional rivalries as a unified system of custom and practice. (Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200, p.112)
Furthermore, it is common knowledge that it is a mystery how the law came about as an edifice. The most likely explanation being that it was preserved over from the times when there was a strong central High King, who even when his kingdom was fragmented, the laws were carried on by the learned order; priests, lawyers and poets.
Crimes against society existed (betrayal of the Tuath to the enemy)
Irish society at the time was also incredibly hierarchial, with four different law tracts determining the different legal grades (and treatment) accorded to different types of aristocrats and so on. Hardly egalitarian.

Eoin Mac Neill noted that in order to succeed kingship, he must belong to the same derbfine of the previous king (father, son, grandson, greatgrandson) Only if he was a member of the derbfine was he electable (along with other criteria like not missing any body parts and be a man of property as he was expected to maintain royal officials). While it would not be the same kind of vast estates as the Merovingian kings had, Ó Cróinín notes that it clearly precluded the common man from being king, ensuring it was a sort of oligrarchical structure.
In addition, the king had numerous other rights which would horrify any modern libertarian such as the right to treasure trove (which was banned from applying to non-monarchs) In addition, the king was to be a judge himself, as the judicial office belonged to the king (although he could delegate this to a lawyer). The king was also usually above the law, as were his muire. If the king was to be chastised, then a whipping boy ('substitute churl' was used to represent him, to prevent dishonour on his office unless he committed an extremely serious offence. In any case, the damages were usually born by the 'substitute churl' rather than the king himself.

Furthermore, Irish society was incredibly patriarchal. Women were subject to their husbands/fathers/ fine head. Most of their rights were constrained to allowing divorce if the husband was impotent/unable to have sex/gay etc. One of my favorite law tracts had it that a woman who went into a mead house unaccompanied and who was then raped was not actually raped. The logic went that only a whore would go into a mead house unaccompanied. Likewise, if a woman was in a relatively public place and didn't cry out then she couldn't claim to be raped. Best of all, if a man was only able to support one parent, he was told to "leave his mother in a ditch and carry home his father to his house.

The basis of the entire society was also based on clientship; the lord advanced a grant/stock/land to his clients and recieved rent and services in return, while the most important unit in society was the familly and not the individual. The law was even based around the preconception that farming would be done cooperatively. Hardly a free market capitalist society as Simplistic 2 claims.

My favorite point is where he claimed that "minor brawls" ensued. Ireland at the time was an utter mess in constant states of warfare.The vikings get a lot of stick for raiding monasteries, when it was usually Celtic Irish who were doing most of the raiding. The reason Ireland wasn't getting involved in large scale warfare as seen across Europe was that they were too busy fighting each other to be able to muster any sort of warfare. Not surprising in a society where clan feuds were recognised as a legitimate and proper part of the legal order.

This is all before the Church is brought into the equation with it's church taxes, paruchiae (which functioned as effective confederate states themselves) and so on. Religious law was also commonplace, which was an effective parallel to secular law.

If you simply must denote this as having the abscence of a state, then some corrupted form of anarcho-syndicalism (communitarianism?) is far more apt. Certainly not capitalist or free market. How a hierarchical and patriarchal society can be seen in any way as libertarian is beyond me.

Thanks for the read very interesting indeed. You have way more knowledge on the topic than I do. I think your right in saying its more a form of anarcho--syndicalism I got it wrong in my haste to try and claim it as a working example of a truly free market.

simplistic2 · 22-04-2010 11:12PM

pagancornflake wrote: »

Explain how what is taught in public schools turns them into "unquestioning, obedient collectivists". I don't know where you went to school, but I (and everyone I have ever met) learned language, mathematics, science, and the basic structures surrounding business in school.

The fact remains that mostly all school learning is rote learning. In all of the subjects you are only thought conclusions and then asked to memorize them and recite them back. You can actually get through school by understanding very little about the actual concepts and how they are formed. All you need to do is just learn blocks of information before exam time.

Here are some of the actual processes that happen during your time in school:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm

Sandvich · 22-04-2010 11:27PM

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Because they made bad decisions and now they are dealing with the consequences. You think that the state should "protect people from themselves".

I like how you very plainly drop things out such -as

"I'm not saying these things should necessarily be heavily regulated."

But; why is it so important people have bad decisions available to them to begin with? And if they're not stupid; why do they make such bad decisions?

You're just rewording the issue to make your viewpoint appear more politically sound. If people continually make these bad decisions; then yes, people must be pretty dumb on average, at least when it comes to certain lifestyle choices.

For the record I'm for legalising a lot of currently illegal drugs. But there should still be regulation, and most importantly; information. It's hard to spread objective information with our without a state - but it doesn't help when you have for example tobacco lobby groups trying to interfere with the science(the same could be said of Global Warming suddenly becoming "controversial"). With a state, you might have an issue with too many safety standards. With an anarchy or under many libertarian systems, you have none. People will die due to this; it's inevitable.

More people will die under a "good" libertarian system than a "good" statist system. This is inevitable. Do the remaining survivors really get a worthwhile increase in the quality of life to justify this? Probably not.

Fine, but this kind of policy usually involves punishing all. For example, if I want to smoke a cigarillo, which I may do once every few months, I have to pay extra tax because the government feels its it's job to influence others.

But; the government isn't stopping you from doing so.

Obviously there's going to be a handful of business who discriminate so (such as male only golf clubs) but those occurrences are minuscule compared to the historical tyranny placed upon minorities by overbearing majorities through the government.

But the main point is that discriminating on the basis of sex, sexual preference or skin color is plain stupid business practice. You're just handing over customers to the competition, who will have no problem serving minorities to make money. The profit motive rises above these lame discriminatory standards set by governments.

That's not how it works at all. First off, you're saying historically. Most first world countries have gotten to the point where while governments are still corrupt; people aren't taken out back and shot for being a member of a minority that overstayed their welcome. I am not denying the horrible things "states" have done in the past. However I think you are purposefully denying the good a "state" can do as well.

I hardly say it's a handful of businesses. A vast amount of businesses would discriminate against transsexuals, open homosexuals(to an extent), and anyone with a non-mainstream appearance.

The government isn't the one forcing them to do this, and the government is the only one that can intervene in this happening.

The issue here isn't just the businesses - it's the people. Most people percieve people with pink hair and piercings as bad workers, when the opposite may the case - in their perspective, they may be losing business hriing such individuals(of course they also do this in jobs that do not deal with the public, which is nonsense, but it's still a global thing more or less and what you say doesn't bode true). Having to compromise self expression for work is exactly the kind of subtle "Mind control" libertarians claim to hate when it comes from the government, but when it comes from corporations, it's okay.

Sandvich · 22-04-2010 11:32PM

I dont understand ?Are you suggesting that creating a centralized power in medieval Ireland would have solved this?

I made the point basically that it's too different to compare.

An anarchistic system probably worked a lot better when there were simply less things that could be regulated anyway. And by "Better" I mean just the same as any other system.

Permabear · 23-04-2010 10:42AM

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Macha · 23-04-2010 10:50AM

I'm still wondering how liberalism would deal with the issue of climate change...

Permabear · 23-04-2010 11:37AM

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Macha · 23-04-2010 11:48AM

donegalfella wrote: »

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Right, so how in a liberal society, would the issue of climate change be successfully dealt with by consenting adults?

Permabear · 23-04-2010 12:01PM

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Sandvich · 23-04-2010 12:02PM

Is it not an overarching belief in the clarity of independent thought, the inherent rights of the individual, and the disdain of central control

Is a man not entitled to the Sweat off his Brow?

Sorry but I think this is just a more complicated version of the "Slogans" US Politics use. Don't worry, socialists do that too. But it still doesn't make for a good argument, of course.

Macha · 23-04-2010 12:08PM

donegalfella wrote: »

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Sorry, that's really not good enough.

And besides - that is already happening, alongside government action, and we're still a long way from our goals. Organisations like 350, Stop Climate Chaos, etc campaign for individual and collective action.

Permabear · 23-04-2010 12:23PM

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Liberalism

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