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[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Picking up Demos’s Gauntlet

If you are going to argue against libertarian philosophy, you should know what it is before you end up making straw man arguments. Demos (a left-wing think tank) has apparently decided to focus some energy on libertarians, so this reply to them is a helpful start to all people who want to make arguments against libertarian thought. There are especially certain people in this forum who don't seem to understand some of these points.

These two points in particular are consistently gotten wrong on here:

We care deeply about the poor, the helpless, and the marginalized. In fact, the forebears of libertarianism practically invented it. Many attacks on libertarians fall short because they imply that libertarians are libertarians because it hurts the poor and the marginalized while helping the rich and the establishment. These charges are laughable.

This one tends to happen because people want to demonize their opponent when they don't have a good argument themselves.

We are not “market fundamentalists,” a term many have used to describe us. We are “strong market presumptionists,” some stronger than others. We presume that markets will supply goods and services more efficiently than governments, create more innovation, engender more harmony, and be more congruent with what people actually want...Governments are very good at providing things that only a select few actually want, whether it is statues of dictators or roads to nowhere, and then making everyone else pay for them.

This may seem like a mere terminology distinction, but it is a difference that matters. The first inaccurate term is vague and allows for all kinds of knee-jerk reactions. Most libertarians are not extremists, just like other philosophies.

There are other points in the article, feel free to respond to any of them, not just the two I highlighted. If you want more personal opinion, read the article; everything it says I could have said myself.