Musings.
him: ok smarty what does libertarian mean? cuz i think i am one, and i'm not sure i know anyone who's not.
me: we're in a peculiarly postmodern political prism right now that has everyone defining things however they want based on little more than facile cultural signifiers. but if you believe that (generally) a free market trumps government control of the economy, and that basically people should be allowed to live their lives the way they see fit as long as they don't hurt anyone else along the way, you're a libertarian as far as I'm concerned.
me: the problem now is that all of those ideas are mixed up and often the words we use to describe them are completely meaningless. for instance, i would argue that we have anything but a free market at the moment, in both the financial and healthcare sectors. but because they're not explicitly being run by the government, and are instead controlled by an oligarchy of highly concentrated private entities, people can point their finger and blame the free market when they inevitably start acting like selfish jackholes. which is why I think regulation should never be anathema to a libertarian. A fair playing field has to be set in order for there to be enough players to make things successful.
Nov 10th