this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Libertarians are just Republicans who don't understand how taxes work.
Some of the funniest shit in the world to me is watching a libertarian talk to pretty much anyone remotely competent in discussing policy and watching in real time as the libertarian reinvents things like taxes and liberal democracy trying to make their policy prescriptions make sense.
The argument is generally to favor non-coercive solutions to avoid centralized power breeding corruption (admittedly with a caveat that wealth can also create centralized power). I'm not clear how that would entail more taxes. Or exactly what you mean by "liberal democracy", which in the conventional use isn't something they disagree with?
I don't mean more taxes I mean taxes at all. Pretty much every libertarian I've ever heard talking about it says "Taxation is theft," then the ones I'm talking about will for example get asked to describe their ideal society and when asked how to say maintain some key infrastructure they essentially describe collecting taxes from the citizens for it. Things like that.
That's a special breed of American right-wing libertarianism. It's not indicative of the ideology worldwide, nor does it reflect the beliefs of the more academic libertarians.
Do those True Libertarians live in Scotland?
Australia.
The True Scotsmen are hanging out with the True Libertarians in Australia. Good to know. Are the True Christians there as well?
I understand you're being snarky with the No True Scottsman parable, but what I said is accurate. Libertarian has taken on a different meaning in America than it has in most of the world. There are Libertarians in most developed nations. I chose Australia because there's an Australian commenting on this very post, expressing his surprise at what Americans view as libertarian. I'm sure you can find his comments if you look.
So Australian Libertarians don't believe in the free market above all else and that governments basically should only exist to enforce individual property rights? Awesome.