Thursday, December 30, 2021

Politically speaking...

I'm a libertarian. Which is always a weird group to be part of, because there are left-libertarians and right-libertarians, with very little overlap between them. Indeed, that they share a name is somewhat ironic. Both are anti-authoritarian, but it is the... sort of authority each wants independence.

 'Minimal state interference' is in general common. But what form that takes... It's not a matter of taxes/laws--that's much more a rich/poor distinction than a left/right distinction. If you are rich, you pay people to know what the laws are, and which ones can be circumvented, and how much so. (If you are poor, you find out the hard way). So if you are rich, the restrictions of law are pretty minimal. So for the rich, the interference to be resisted is taxation. But perhaps this is naive--actually trying to do things in a business (some of which are innovative and non-standard), the restrictions of laws are still grating. 

It's also the basis of a moral compass. Empirical research suggests that conservatives and liberals reason from different moral premises--that liberals don't care about certain things that conservatives care deeply about. They share the same premises, but 'weigh' them differently in moral reasoning. Hence, left-libertarians differ from right-libertarians. L-libs care far more about individual liberty (in the abstract and the concrete), while R-libs care far more about customary liberties.

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And your thoughts on the matter?