“…shooting tresspassers is in no way antithetical to the core philosophy.”

It’s clear you don’t know what the core philosophy is: Do not initiate force upon others. That means avoiding the use of bullets unless my health or life was in danger.

The strikers, sitting on my property have initiated force against me by not leaving when I have asked them to. I would be well within my right to enlist the assistance of police to enforce my property rights. (Of course, willing to pay a per-use fee.) If *government* agents decide to use bullets to finish their job more quickly, that certainly would not be on me, especially since the police have a monopoly on law enforcement. How nice would it be if I could choose a competitor that would guarantee not to use guns?

Like the phony emergencies they make up whenever it’s a slow news day, or the so-called racism some of them blame for all their problems, the notion that leftists are “compassionate” is hogwash, and anyone with a brain knows it. If we ever get a media outlet that isn’t left-biased, I suggest they point their cameras at things we never see now, like Oprah’s mansion or Ralph Nader’s huge bankroll.

This is all quite aside from the question of whether libertarians can be personally “compassionate” of course; I reckon they can be as much as anyone else, even if they show it or express it differently. Why else would libertarians (tend to) care so much about, say, people railroaded by the state’s criminal justice system? There are other motives at play, of course, but often enough I’d guess at genuine compassion and feelings of outrage at perceived injustice.

As an anarchist, I think that the state gets by mostly by playing on peoples’ cruelty and callousness on one hand, and paranoia on the other. Even where it does play on people’s empathy and compassion, it must necessarily get them to (at least) callously disregard whoever is getting hosed or abused by the program(s) in question.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goleman_on_compassion.html

Economically, I think what we are seeing is that people are forced to be incredibly self-centered to maintain financial stability in a system of secular inflation – and that’s impairing our capacity to be compassionate. As a Hayekian, I also think that distribution of the resources and insight to be charitable is over the long term going to be more effective than centralized charity (be it by BINGO or government). So, libertarianism is highly compatible with compassion.

The thing is, it also requires emphasizing the personal, moral argument for compassion. That’s hard to do and requires a lot of self-discipline. When I was in DC, I volunteered weekly with these folks:

http://www.foodforalldc.org/

And could never once get any of my friends (liberal, conservative, or libertarian) to come help me. Even the other volunteers were mostly non-committals who were only showing up every once in a while, or on special days. MLK day was a particular disaster as we never had enough things for people to do and a flood of volunteers, who never really wanted to do the toughest of tasks anyways. I used to joke that the day exemplified the Austrian principle of bubble economics and malinvestment.

Also, I was never forced to volunteer as a kid. I did so two years in high school, but only because I was asked if I was interested with no incentive to otherwise. When I found out that the NHS had a volunteership requirement, I quit. (but kept volunteering)

That example strikes me as highly, highly atypical because that was part of a well-publicized, coordinated effort by McDonald’s to get lots of applicants. Most people probably get hired by their local McDonald’s franchisee by simply going to the restaurant, filling out an application and getting a phone call later. My own experience and those of my friends from high school when we were in the market for low-wage, part-time jobs is that they were readily available. You basically had you choice between the fast food chain, the dry cleaners, the supermarket, etc. (That’s not scientific, but anecdotal evidence obviously. I’m not sure where you would find scientific evidence on the subject honestly). Bottom line is that I find it very hard to believe that someone who wants a low-wage job cannot find one, even today.

Real charities are run by people who know that every dollar given to someone who didn’t deserve it is a dollar that can’t be given to someone who does. Government entitlement agencies by contrast realize that every dollar that’s given out to someone who doesn’t deserve it is another dollar that can be demanded in next year’s budget.

Some people, if given an extra $100 today, would a year from now be more than $100 richer than if they hadn’t gotten the money. Other people, if given an extra $100 today, would a year from now be in even worse financial shape a than if they didn’t get it (e.g. because they’d use it to make a down payment on a television set they really can’t afford). It is by no stretch of the imagination compassionate to suggest that money should be taken from people of the first type and given to those of the second, but that is the behavior of government entitlement programs.

The criminal laws against theft, murder and arson DO NOT create a right, whether characterized as positive or negative, not to be robbed, killed or have one’s house burnt. They define prohibited acts and state potential punishments for those who commit them.

If somebody mugs me, I cannot sue the police for damages because they failed to protect me. I cannot sue the police in mandamus requiring them to investigate, charge or prosecute whoever did it.

The only things preventing criminal acts against me are the basic lawfulness and decency of most people, my right to self-defense, and the disincentives provided by the criminal and civil laws.

Government benefits, once enacted, become a positive right for those who qualify. They can be withheld only if they meet the constitutional requirements of equal protection and due process (not an exhaustive list, but those are the two biggies).

Negative rights, as you correctly state, prohibit specific kinds of government action.

The positive/negative distinction oftenbreaks down in practice — for example, the free exercise clause permits you to worship as you please by barring the government from preventing you from doing so. What the clause does not do is prevent private individuals from preventing you from worshipping as you please. Private individuals are restricted from such interference by criminal and civil tort laws, and since 1965 by the Civil Rights Act.

There is no such thing as a “negative right” except against the government itself.

All laws against theft, or murder or arson are “positive rights,” no less than schooling or medicaid or food stamps. There is no grand metaphysical distinction between mutual aid and mutual protection. There is no fundamental difference between a police officer or a firefighter on one hand and a social worker or schoolteacher on the other. All provide a service which could be rendered by public or private charter, according to political choices made in the halls of representative government.

There is no right to food or shelter only in the same sense that there is no right to have 911 available to dial, or to have an army protect your land from invasion.

There is no such thing as a “night watchman” form of government, because, without the vast, reticulated, and mostly arbitrary superstructure of law and privilege erected by government, there is nothing for the watchman to watch over.

Well, I think it’s very tough, because it’s not the definition of ‘compassion’ to the libertarian that matters. It’s the definition of ‘compassion’ to the person who wants something. So if you don’t want to give them something they want, they will dismiss you as uncompassionate.

NAIL. HEAD. DEAD CENTER HIT. Who gets to define compassion is the key question. The same can be said for anything, who gets to define _______ which then allows actions to flow from the definition (by government force).

I also happen to consider myself a very “hardcore” libertarian philosophically. Honestly, I spent a lot of my formative years doing a lot of thinking and reading and not much living, at least not living “among the people.” The more I got to know people, especially of diverse backgrounds, the more I got to see a human side to this stuff and see people who are mostly good and well-intentioned, who are NOT lazy, but ARE affected by a variety of circumstances ( government policies, biased employers,etc).

So, yeah, I agree with that part ( about unemployed people not always being lazy) of the main post and tend to disagree with what I now see as the simplistic view of #6. Phil D. ( though I would have written the same thing a few years ago).

You know that 1 million people applied for 62,000 jobs at McDonald’s last month. So that means 93.8% of applicants were declined.. for MCDONALDS.

I also look at it this way: I am a white male. I am young, physically strong. My IQ is in the upper 2%. I have no criminal record. Educationally- I have underachieved, but my level of degree attainment is higher than most. I can’t get hired anywhere. I imagine it’s probably a lot more difficult for those who don’t have educational opportunities, aren’t too bright, don’t have the “right” family background, and/or have a criminal conviction of some sort.

I’n the end, libertarianism goes full circle. I trade one master for another, but it’s okay because it isn’t the gub’mint that is doing the whipping.

“Before the New Deal, we had a few millenia to test the idea that private acts of compassion would be enough to protect our most vulnerable and least powerful. What we got was children crippled by hard labor before they could shave, men who had worked hard all their life cast aside like garbage once their bodies gave out, and so on and so on.”

That still happens pal, it happens in poor countries. What changed America wasn’t the New Deal, it was prosparity. That’s how you get rid of child labor and get better working consitions.

To say that government is the reason this ended in America is incorrect. That undermines your whole premise that government is the only/best means to care for people and without, it never would have happened.

Yet libertarians might choose to donate their time or money to homeless shelters, to food banks, to centers for development of treatments for autism. Or they might advocate for the freedom of use of marijuana and its derivatives that have helped at least one autistic child achieve a quality of life that he likely wouldn’t have otherwise ( http://www.slate.com/id/2294072/ ). The difference is that the libertarian will choose his or her compassion as they see fit, in scope and direction. They will not be directed or forced to give to a general fund which is then fought over by competing narrow interests.

Politics is rigged against libertarianism and so libertarians should avoid it. Instead, we need to focus on building alternative institutions and showing people that they work, without bothering with political rhetoric.”

THIS. Miko nails it.

Alonya, you’re starting from a false position because of a crucial error in Paul’s statement. Convincing people that libertarianism is compatible with compassion is “the biggest challenge” only for conservative and libertarian *politicians*. The rest of us don’t need to bother.

You convince people in general that libertarians have compassion by actually doing compassionate things for them while identifying yourself as a libertarian.

If you must address restraints on the State, simply point out to people how you could do even more for them if the State would stop getting in both your ways. If that’s not enough for someone, explain that you’d rather be doing much more practically compassionate things for others, so they need to pitch in and help

Paul’s statement is incorrect. Convincing people that libertarianism is compatible with compassion is “the biggest challenge” only for conservative and libertarian. . .politicians.

“Libertarianism: now with legal sit-down strikes!”

I won’t be holding my breath.

Some would very much approve of sit-down strikes. Some are even on the side of the IWW when it comes to legit labor tactics. You don’t hear from those kind because they’ve been whitewashed out of the picture & replaced with “libertarians” who just blindly cheer the big corporate players despite them being the real welfare queens.

But when charity becomes welfare, this dynamic breaks down. The givers are forced to give. They don’t feel good about it; they feel imposed upon, forced, trapped. And the recipients don’t feel grateful or reluctant. They feel entitled. The money they receive is not something someone else gave up to help them; it is their birthright. It belongs to them. There is no reason to avoid needing it.

And they understand that it was given to them, not by ordinary people seeking to help them, but by politicians seeking their votes. And they respond accordingly.

So true charity—true compassion—seems to me to be a healthier dynamic than welfare. Both help the needy, but charity has positive effects: it makes givers feel good and encourages takers to reduce their take.

This is, of course, not 100% true. Some people take more charity than they need, and some people avoid welfare even when they need it. Some people even feel good about helping others when they pay their taxes. But I think what I’m saying is true enough to explain why we should be skeptical of welfare and encourage private charity instead.

54 posts in, I’ve heard lots of arguments for why libertarianism is fair, logical, rational, effective. I have yet to hear a single compelling example of how libertarianism is compassionate.

The closest I’ve heard is the repeated refrain that taxation is “robbing me at gunpoint,” so I guess libertarianism is, by analogy, Dudley Doright saving Sweet Sally Purebred from Snively Whiplash. As the English say, pull the other one.