This post by Dr biobrain
is a fantastic description of exactly why the right wing “libertarians” are not truly in favour of individual
liberty. By the way don’t stop before you read the comments too.
If you’ve been reading my stuff about
the morality of groups you
may be thinking I’m advocating a heavily regulated state. Well I’m not… but I think that without a mechanism
for the redress of the power imbalance between the group and the individual, there can be no individual
freedom. How can this not be obvious?
Anarchists are attempting to find a solution
to this problem; a system of human interactions based not on power but on the positive connections
which exist between individuals and between individuals and the world. The libertarians seem to fall into
two camps, the ones who want to hole up in their hut in the hills and have the right to shoot anyone who
wants to steal their food and women (ok now I’m playing nasty), and the ones who want the right to hole
up in their daddy’s company and have their private security guards shoot anyone who won’t let them
enslave all the poor people and stuff up the environment with their private jets. The scary thing is that
lots of the latter group don’t actually have a private jet they just hope the ones who do will
sprinkle a few coins out of the window as they shoot past in a cloud of unbreathable fumes.