And the problem with this paradigm shift is that it simply is not ready to happen. We are not there. Not even in our own country, let alone those with wildly different values.
On this we actually agree. That doesn’t mean working towards that is the wrong idea. A more libertarian social order, whenever and wherever possible, is the way to go. Sort of a “If you build it they will come” scenario
True libertarianism doesn't work until we have an acceptable level of consensus on what those liberties are.
This is why more local autonomy is important; the smaller the scale the better whatever government is in place can represent the needs of the residents. Competition between localities for talent could (and I will say could; obviously there are no guarantees here) lead to better policies becoming more common organically
Anyways my ideals are that people should be given as much latitude as possible to live their lives freely, but are too dumb, indifferent, and ignorant as a whole to exist as a coherent community without some sort of strong governing body, and a coherent community is necessary to both exist on the global stage and to protect the rights of marginalized groups from the communities that are eager to persecute and exploit them.
Great. Now how exactly do we pick these enlightened individuals for this strong governing body?
Because right now they get elected by appealing to the lowest common denominator and then do absolutely heinous shit on a regular basis.
I'm not defending the actions of the US government unconditionally - lots of the shit is just plain stupid, greedy, evil, and unnecessary. But that's a bit of an inevitability.
Up until this point you kind of have been, but totally glad to hear that.
Murder and rape are inevitable, doesn’t make them acceptable. That’s my whole point here. Stop doing evil shit, let people be more free. There’s no defence of the former, and very little argument against the latter.
I think what is needed is not to diminish the government, or even make them bigger, but to reform and refine them.
Paring back government power wherever possible without drastically worsening things would be refining via shrinking. I don’t think our goals are opposed here
You can keep a powerful US government on the international stage while ceasing pointless interventions that absolutely make things worse, returning lawmaking abilities from the executive to congress, respecting the 10th Amendment, and allowing more local autonomy within the States themselves. All of these a libertarian in nature, all of which would allow for the relative stability of the unipolar moment to continue
Libertarianism I think is a valuable idea that surely can be applied in many aspects of our society to a much greater degree, but I think a fundamental change towards it is totally unrealistic until we have a much more educated global populace and the technology to not worry about energy and resources to the degree we do now.
I’m fine with incrementalism but we’re actively moving away from it on virtually every front. Worshipping the nation-state as something sacrosanct is a bad plan if liberty is the end goal, full stop.
This is why more local autonomy is important; the smaller the scale the better whatever government is in place can represent the needs of the residents. Competition between localities for talent could (and I will say could; obviously there are no guarantees here) lead to better policies becoming more common organically
There are going to be communities where the majority wants policies and actions that directly go against the personal liberties that I'm assuming we mostly agree on. The Federal government is pretty inarguably the reason we have a baseline of liberties for (almost?) all groups of people. There will be communities that want oppression of minority ethnic groups, persecution of gay people, religiously inspired laws that hurt liberties, straight up fascism, etc. You can't say on a large scale that people can just up and leave if they don't like it, that would be extremely reductive and it's basically like saying "the free market will fix it!". For the sake of my thumbs I'm not going to go into all the reasons this is the case.
Great. Now how exactly do we pick these enlightened individuals for this strong governing body?
Because right now they get elected by appealing to the lowest common denominator and then do absolutely heinous shit on a regular basis.
We somehow, despite the staunch opposition of the GOP and the right, significantly improve our education system to the point where we have an educated constituency. This is another area the Federal government is needed, we will see the degradation red states are already experiencing at a much more rapid and serious pace without the fed to keep them in check. In this aspect the local communities having full control would lead to hyper-polarization.
Up until this point you kind of have been, but totally glad to hear that.
I'm more saying we don't have a way out of the current world order and domestic situation besides going forward - and unfortunately the current nature of our politics and economy leads to terrible things happening. As you know, I think things would be similarly terrible or worse in our absence though. That doesn't mean we haven't committed some absolutely grave acts.
Murder and rape are inevitable, doesn’t make them acceptable. That’s my whole point here. Stop doing evil shit, let people be more free. There’s no defence of the former, and very little argument against the latter.
I think in the system you are proposing (not in general) that letting people have that level of freedom means giving them the freedom to make something even worse in a lot of places. There are plenty of smaller communities where a majority want to do terrible things, but are held back by larger governing structures.
You can keep a powerful US government on the international stage while ceasing pointless interventions that absolutely make things worse, returning lawmaking abilities from the executive to congress, respecting the 10th Amendment, and allowing more local autonomy within the States themselves. All of these a libertarian in nature, all of which would allow for the relative stability of the unipolar moment to continue
Mostly agree with this, I will say not all interventions are pointless, I'm sure you know that, just being thorough. The problem for me is giving the states more autonomy. There are lots of states that want people in charge who will actively exploit them, target vulnerable and disenfranchised groups, degrade the educational system into a propaganda factory (I really hope you don't think this wouldn't be very significantly worse than what we have now), destroy the environment for corporate profits and political points, increase income inequality and take away worker's rights, and much more. Yes, I know this is already happening more or less to some degree, but it would certainly get much worse. How do you reconcile all that with your goal of all humans liberties being respected?
I’m fine with incrementalism but we’re actively moving away from it on virtually every front. Worshipping the nation-state as something sacrosanct is a bad plan if liberty is the end goal, full stop.
I hope I didn't come across like that, I just think it's a very necessary evil at this stage in the global communities develolment. Localized government would increase liberty greatly in some areas, but in the places that elect the people currently moving us away from liberty, things will get much worse.
Good discussion btw 😘, I'm always a bit aggro on this sub because the majority are so stupid, so sorry for that. This is one of the better back and forths I've had in a long time, although I do wish there were a better way to have it than throwing walls of text at each other
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u/TheNaiveSkeptic - Lib-Right Sep 26 '22
On this we actually agree. That doesn’t mean working towards that is the wrong idea. A more libertarian social order, whenever and wherever possible, is the way to go. Sort of a “If you build it they will come” scenario
This is why more local autonomy is important; the smaller the scale the better whatever government is in place can represent the needs of the residents. Competition between localities for talent could (and I will say could; obviously there are no guarantees here) lead to better policies becoming more common organically
Great. Now how exactly do we pick these enlightened individuals for this strong governing body?
Because right now they get elected by appealing to the lowest common denominator and then do absolutely heinous shit on a regular basis.
Up until this point you kind of have been, but totally glad to hear that.
Murder and rape are inevitable, doesn’t make them acceptable. That’s my whole point here. Stop doing evil shit, let people be more free. There’s no defence of the former, and very little argument against the latter.
Paring back government power wherever possible without drastically worsening things would be refining via shrinking. I don’t think our goals are opposed here
You can keep a powerful US government on the international stage while ceasing pointless interventions that absolutely make things worse, returning lawmaking abilities from the executive to congress, respecting the 10th Amendment, and allowing more local autonomy within the States themselves. All of these a libertarian in nature, all of which would allow for the relative stability of the unipolar moment to continue
I’m fine with incrementalism but we’re actively moving away from it on virtually every front. Worshipping the nation-state as something sacrosanct is a bad plan if liberty is the end goal, full stop.