Apparently, Lots of Libertarians Don't Think Women are People Either

[paft.livejournal.com]

So The Mercatus, a right-wing think tank, has declared North Dakota -- which recently passed an incredibly restrictive anti-abortion law, one of the free-est of all the fifty states

Once again, we see that when right wing libertarians use the word "liberty," they're using their own extra-special definition of it. As Salon has pointed out reproductive freedom apparently isn't even entered into the calculations,

Women, you see, just don't count.



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Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Except that's not really slavery, as slavery is involuntary. Many libertarians have floated the philosophical concept of "voluntary slavery," but I assume that's not what you were thinking.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Of course it's slavery if you sell yourself into it. That's frequently how Roman slavery worked -- destitute people who felt they had no other choice.

Once again, someone here proves my point -- and as an added bonus, expands on it. We could have an equally interesting talk about the twisted definition some libertarians apply to the word "voluntary" and "choice." (As in Mark Price's "choice.")

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Once again, someone here proves my point -- and as an added bonus, expands on it. We could have an equally interesting talk about the twisted definition some libertarians apply to the word "voluntary" and "choice." (As in Mark Price's "choice.")

Which is really the key problem. Choices aren't choices if you don't like all the options, right?

[paft.livejournal.com]

b: Which is really the key problem. Choices aren't choices if you don't like all the options, right?

Once the options reach a certain level of dire, choices are no longer "choices." Or do you consider pointing a gun at someone and saying, "hand over all your money or I'll shoot you" an example of being offered a "choice?" Does the person "voluntarily" hand over their money in that case?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

...and now you've confused choice and coercion.

[paft.livejournal.com]

bdj: ...and now you've confused choice and coercion.

Don't see how. You're offering the person a "choice."

If someone is faced with the "choice" of starving to death and being a slave, becoming a slave is not "voluntary."

Any more than dying because you can't afford a needed medical procedure is a "choice."

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

So, are you against the idea of "indentured servitude" to go to a new land for an opportunity?

[paft.livejournal.com]

Your question makes no sense. Are you equating emigrating for work to indentured servitude?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's a non-sequitor, and even then that was not choice either. That was attempting to get out of jail quickly and it didn't always work.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

As much as I hate to use wiki, this is the way I learned it in school. Granting I went to school a long time ago, it fits with books I've read in the recent past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That is still a choice, and it is also coercion and not voluntary. That is how government gets our tax money after all.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Based on the way you always answer this issue, I really think I can predict your response: if someone came up to me and told me that they were going to either shoot me in the face, or shoot me in the back of the head, and I get to choose - and that they'd just choose for me if I refused to choose, I honestly feel like you'd actually argue that I made a free, informed choice, and the person holding the gun has no responsibility because I was given options.

And if you rightly think that this is absurd hyperbole, well, it is. I'm intentionally giving the most extreme example possible to try to highlight that you're so focused on freedom on paper that you fail to consider that someone can be absolutely "de jure" free, but be in de facto slavery - that just because someone managed to cross all of some ritualistic "freedom t"s and dot all of the "freedom i"s, this doesn't mean that they aren't, in fact, limiting the freedom of others. Power exists beyond governmental power, and people can be oppressed by things other than a government.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Why wouldn't you tell him to fuck off, run away, or threaten to shoot him back?

[comeonyouspurs.livejournal.com]

Because in the real world we don't always have those choices.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Yes you do.

You may find them unpalatable but you do have them.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Thank you for proving my point.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Indeed. If you remove government power, it's replaced by mob power, and by all accounts it is much worse.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It is still making a choice, even if it's a coerced one. The claim that it absolves the person holding the gun of responsibility though is not something that anyone espouses, so your strawman is noted.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So how is it that slavery can be both involuntary and voluntary at the same time? Comrade O'Brien might want to take writing lessons on how to make irreconcilable concepts mean the same thing by playing semantics from the people who believe both.