I have finally written a more or less definitive work explaining my thoughts regarding government and politics. The purpose of this post is to provide the context for what I have written. Until recently, I had no strong opinions regarding these matters, but I enjoyed hearing the libertarian arguments for free markets and limited government. Pointing to a problem and calling for government action to solve it is a very easy and obvious thing to do. Clearly, anyone who disagrees that action should be taken to solve society’s problems must be stupid, evil, or apathetic. However, I found it much more interesting to hear people take on the more difficult task of arguing that government action is inefficient, ineffective, results in unintended consequences, and that the problem was often caused by government action in the first place and that the smug and self-righteous people who do not realize this are actually wrong. Eventually, I realized that consistently arguing for the libertarian position requires identifying what is fundamentally wrong with government. Otherwise, there is no reason to be any more skeptical of governments than any other organization. Sometimes they do wrong, but in those cases they should do better and there is no reason to immediately assume that means doing less. If there are problems with certain policies, then that might just mean there need to be better policies, rather than none.
Part 0: an Introduction for Normies
Part 0: an Introduction for Normies
Part 0: an Introduction for Normies
I have finally written a more or less definitive work explaining my thoughts regarding government and politics. The purpose of this post is to provide the context for what I have written. Until recently, I had no strong opinions regarding these matters, but I enjoyed hearing the libertarian arguments for free markets and limited government. Pointing to a problem and calling for government action to solve it is a very easy and obvious thing to do. Clearly, anyone who disagrees that action should be taken to solve society’s problems must be stupid, evil, or apathetic. However, I found it much more interesting to hear people take on the more difficult task of arguing that government action is inefficient, ineffective, results in unintended consequences, and that the problem was often caused by government action in the first place and that the smug and self-righteous people who do not realize this are actually wrong. Eventually, I realized that consistently arguing for the libertarian position requires identifying what is fundamentally wrong with government. Otherwise, there is no reason to be any more skeptical of governments than any other organization. Sometimes they do wrong, but in those cases they should do better and there is no reason to immediately assume that means doing less. If there are problems with certain policies, then that might just mean there need to be better policies, rather than none.