Musings on libertarianism

I recently had a conversation with my ever-liberal friend and former teacher that revolved around many concepts, one today which I will speak about is libertarianism.

He started with the I was part of 'mountain libertarianism' a brand he says runs deep in the area around me. I wondered, was this true? Without immediately responding with something smart, I thought about it for a while, and am still unsure. Ask my friends, and they will (probably only half-jokingly!) say 'fascist'.

I don't know though, I'll put my thoughts down here and see what sorts of comments it might generate. First, I do belive that people should be given chances to prove themselves, or maybe I should rephrase that. People are more or less innocent, until the blow the chance society has given them. More like until the betray society.

But regardless, as you may know, I have very little sympathy for criminals. Making them fight on desert prison planets for entertainment is not only funny to me, but actually if it were possible, would seem like a good idea. But that being said, am I libertarian because I am ok with people going on their own, until they screw up? I'm unsure pure Libt. doctrine, but when an individual screws up, do you keep giving them chances?

I don't know. I just know, when you screw up, based on the serverity of your crime or mistake, approraite intervention should be taken. Prison time should only be used to scare the weakest of our ilk. Labor, or forced (yes FORCED) rehabilition should be ok. Anyone read Clockwork Orange? That was a good idea, it was susposed to be a warning novel, but did a poor job. Kind of like how Brave New World actually was a pretty good idea too. But, I digress. After all, like they said in Startrek, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"...or the one.

I also surpport a lot government action in the face of a lot of things. That is one failing of libt. in my mind, is indivduals running around cannot solve a lot of collective problems. How are roads going to upkept unless we have tolls booths every side street? Want to see proof of libt. influnence cuasing what will be a big problem in the future? Take a look at our energy grid. No one owns in (read government doesn't own it) thus no one has the incentive to pay for upkeep. What happens as it decays in the massive blackouts we have seen the last few years.

Realistically, a collective is so much better then a 'collection of individuals'. Ever try pushing a car single handedly? Hard to impossible based on the slope. But only a few people working together (often not by 'choice', but forced by circumstance) it is do-able.

So maybe what I prefer is a collective we are all part of, and in general will leave you alone (you can have your guns, whatever) but when you are called by society, you are there. When you blow soceity's blessings, you pay the price.

Can pure libertarians win a soccer game? Everyone acting in their own selfish desires, without a larger, overaching autrihorty? Probably not. But what about the team, where they are bound by a higher force together. When it is immaterial for you to being doing anything you are free to flirt with the girls on the side lines, but when you are called to press that attack, clear the ball, pass etc, you had better be on point. Punishment works, as does reward. Ice cream or push ups, it doesn't much matter. Soon these 'motivators' won't even be neccessary, for you don't want to fail, not for yourself, but you don't want to fail for you team. That's how soceity should be run.

Of Crime and Punishment

Today, I'm going to talk about the prison system, in particular how flawed it currently is, and how self-reinforcing it is, much to what the true purpose of prison ought to be. I want this blog to be a source of points for reflection on your own ideas, again, consider the points and let me know what you think.

First, let me state some basics, prison is a PUNISHMENT, it is a punishment for violating society's rules and laws. If you do not want to accept society's benefits, and likewise pay its costs (in terms of following the laws, paying taxes, etc.) you are free to go elsewhere (generally) or to go live in the woods. However, by staying around, you implicitly give your consent that you will follow the laws. (Let me quickly throw in another problem is how low-level drug charges are generally flooding the prisons, that is not the crimes I am referring to)

When you break society's contract, why should your punishment not be reflected in this? When you screw up, you should pay the price. How is having a bed, meals, exercise, even TV and books some form of punishment? There are people with worse jobs out there then a prison 'sentence'. Further, by collecting all the individuals together, it does nothing productive, it easily gives these people connections and new ideas upon getting out. Seriously, ask yourself this, can it POSSIBLY be good that criminals and deviants are held together in one tight locale? Why on Earth would you want these people associating together and in such close proximity to each other?

In terms of solutions, I'll leave that for another discussion, some ideas that are definitely better, are solitary confinement, or rehabilitation with dogs (there is a lot of evidence that allowing prisoners to 'show' love speeds their return to society.)

Here is link which contains tons of info on the dog-prisoner rehab programs and ideas: http://www.dogplay.com/Activities/Therapy/program.html


When someone has committed a vile or evil (its not coincidence they are spelled using the same letters) crime, often they are given some laughable multi-lifetime sentence 'behind bars' or straight up death penalty. Now even if they are given the death penalty, we are talking years before any 'death' occurs. Now, WHY do we do this? Regardless if we actually should be giving this much punishment to someone (we can talk about that later) why do we as a society WASTE resources on a small component that has decided it does not support society and would rather hurt it? What I am talking about is criminals slow and impede society, so it is a double-negative that upon being apprehended we waste further money and resources on them. For no preceptiable good! How could ever coming out of a +20 year sentence make someone better for society?

Consider this, would it be better for society if we just eliminated everyone with these large sentences? (Forget for the moment about any humane arguments relating to this) What do we gain as a society? Well, we gain all the resources that would of been waster keeping this individual in a useless state.

One final point of reflection for my readers: in particular I am curious how shooting them in the head could be considered less humane. It is not less humane to drag them to a chair, STRAP them down, then stab them with lethal drugs? This process inevitably takes far longer then setting up a gun, and the consequent trigger pull.

This is a large subject, so I'll return to it again a couple of times. I still need to discuss that prisoners should be subject to manual or state labor, hahaha, until next time...