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Life in a Libertarian Paradise
Oh, wait … there isn’t one
Libertarianism infests a lot of political discourse. Maximum Freedom! Liberty! No onerous government telling you what to do! Collectivism is evil! Government is evil! Individualism is good! Stand on your own two feet! Taxation is theft! Deadbeats want free stuff!
These arguments are frequently co-opted by the right wing and the Republican party when convenient to do so and discarded when it’s not. It’s immoral to use tax money (taxation is theft) to pay for school lunches or to house the homeless but if a company is too big to fail, it’s perfectly moral pay billions to fix their problems. It’s proper to shovel trillions into the military and Homeland Security. Ask for Medicare for all and people go crazy asking you how you are going to pay for such a massive expenditure. Deficits are a horrible calamity but when it’s time to cut taxes for the rich? Deficits don’t matter. Belly up to the bar, boys!
Few people seem to know how to argue back to libertarians.
Anti-libertarians focus on the vast suffering that removal of government redistribution would cause. Without food stamps, people would begin to die of malnutrition-related diseases. Without Medicare or Medicaid, people would simply die. Without social security, people work until…
