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[Criptfeind]

This has raised a question from me. Since the goal of your philosophy seems to be the rights of the individual over the vaguer mob. I feel the need to ask where the individual stops and the 'state' begins.

Essentially, given that each person has equal worth, does that not mean that two people are worth twice as much? And, in a closed system, the wants of the two people are more important then the wants of the one person? If that is not true (and unless it fails on being scaled up. Which I don't see why it does.) Then how do you assign value to someone? If it is true, then what is the difference between Libertarianism and Direct Democracy?

Since everyone here seems to think force exerted in various ways

I am not sure what other way there would be (As in litteraly I can not think of anything that comes anywhere close to a society that does not use some form of force...) Care you to enlighten us?

[Vector]

Is a working, close familial relationship based on power?

[Aqizzar]

This has raised a question from me. Since the goal of your philosophy seems to be the rights of the individual over the vaguer mob. I feel the need to ask where the individual stops and the 'state' begins.

Essentially, given that each person has equal worth, does that not mean that two people are worth twice as much? And, in a closed system, the wants of the two people are more important then the wants of the one person? If that is not true (and unless it fails on being scaled up. Which I don't see why it does.) Then how do you assign value to someone? If it is true, then what is the difference between Libertarianism and Direct Democracy?

The problem is, you're missing the most fundamental point of the label.  Libertarianism, at least the modern definition, especially in America, isn't per se about protecting or enshrining the rights of the individual over the state.  It's about protecting and enshrining the rights of the person speaking over the state.  The person speaking is never part of the "mob", therefore the mob doesn't deserve the same respect as an individual.  Unless the person speaking is part of the "mob" in the form of the Silent Majority or whatever, then it does.  See?

[LordBucket]

given that each person has equal worth, does that not mean that two people are worth twice as much? And, in a closed system, the wants of the two people are more important then the wants of the one person? If that is not true (and unless it fails on being scaled up. Which I don't see why it does.) Then how do you assign value to someone? If it is true, then what is the difference between Libertarianism and Direct Democracy?

After much thought, I think I see where the misconceptualization lies. Some of you seem preoccupied with this notion of adding up numbers of people and saying that the desires of more people is of greater value than the desires of fewer people. Which is completely missing the point.

So...what if we phrase it this way:

"Libertarianism is the philosophy that no value is greater than the value of free will remaining unimpinged."

The world population is about 6.8 billion right now. If 6,799,999,999 of those people decide that they intend to kill the remaining one, that does not diminish the value of that individual's choice to not be killed. Oh, they might have the power to make it happen. But systems based on the power of groups to act upon individuals is very much not what I'm promoting.

[scriver]

So why would his choice to live matter more then another one's choice to kill him? Everyone of those 7 million people is an individual as well. Why would their freedom and choice be less valued, only bwcause they've chosen to have something in common with eachother and thusly can be arbitrarily put together in a group?

[LordBucket]

why would his choice to live matter more then another one's choice to kill him?

Because that's the basic premise.

You, as an individual capable of choice, can only choose what you yourself do. As a being engaging in exchange with others, you are able to choose what you are willing to give, and what you are willing to accept. You cannot choose what others are willing to give or accept.

You can choose to give love, or you can choose to give hurt, or you can choose to give anything you want. But you can't compell someone to love you. You can't compell someone to hurt you. You can't compel someone to give you what you want them to give. You do not choose for others. You choose for yourself. And conversely, others can choose for themselves, and they cannot choose for you.

If you wish to harm others, or if you wish to shower them with love and affection, there is no value judgement of this. But it is improper for you to compel them to accept what you offer. If someone wishes to love you, or to harm you, that is permissible. But it is your sovereign right as a conscious entity to accept or reject what they offer, if you so choose.

[Nivim]

Spoiler: Before the above post. (click to show/hide)

 As Scriver aludes, LordBucket, your descriptions seem to fail completely at handling any conflict of interesting among people being given liberty. Your assuming that they will all "value liberty above all", but if by some utterly ridiculous coincidence everyone did so in the way that you mean (which I see is good), it wouldn't at all matter at what system of government they were using. Many people have been trying to instill that kind of good natured responsibility in others for all of recorded history, and there is yet to be any direct way of succeeding.
 So as before, the point comes to converting any definition or statement of ideals into a concrete system; one that will catch up even those who hate your libertarianism, all common sense, and responsibility with a burning passion.

 I mean, America was originally started with very strong values, but even when you can muster those up to start something, they don't last like habits (laws, government worker's jobs, basic human urges) and expidence do.

 So instead of not handling conflicts of interest at all, your description of libertarianism pretends to handle them. Could you tell me, as another sovereign entity, how I reject a piece of metal traveling towards my head faster than I can see?

[scriver]

And, once again, we end up at the point where such a premise is inherently flawed, because no matter what I do or doesn't do I, along with everybody else, end up dictating what is possible for other people to do.

In said example, letting the person's wish to be alive have superiority to the others' wish to kill him is letting him force other people to do what he wants them to. What if this will harm them in return? Or, to use another example, letting a single guy hoard food while other people starve, simply because he doesn't want to share it. His choice of not sharing the food harms other people. There is no reason to have more respect for his "liberty of choice" than other people's lives.
 
I'm curious, by the way, do you eat meat? It does seem like neither keeping animals locked up or butchering animals who wants to live fits very well with that ideology of yours.

[ChairmanPoo]

Vegetables don't want to get eaten, either!

[scriver]

Vegetables don't have feelings. Animals do. Even if they do not understand death or have the intellectual capacity to contemplate what life or living is, it is clear that they wish to live. The want to stay alive is a basic drive in their minds, just as it is in ours.

[LordBucket]

Could you tell me, as another sovereign entity, how I reject a
piece of metal traveling towards my head faster than I can see?

Propriety of choice does not necessarily imply capability. In a capitalist society, it is permissible for an individual to become a millionaire. One would not dismiss capitalism just because an individual might be unable to actually do so.

A society based on the idea that people may own property and earn money and try to climb social and economic ladders is reasonable. The fact that the existence of such hierarchies implies that some people will end up on the bottom doesn't make the system invalid.

Similarly, a society based on the valuation of individual choice is also reasonable. That you or I might be unable to use magic superpowers to deflect shrapnel doesn't make it invalid.

[Phmcw]

I'm all with your philosophy, but practically?

National healthcare = the worth of your life is more than the money you make, aka you don't stay untreated, or receive low quality because you, or your parent are poor. Free education : you have the freedom to become highly educated if you're reasonably smart, even if you're poor (not only a genius or an exceptional athlete like in the US). Both those freedom seems very important to me, and the system proposed by libertarian seems much more freedom privative than ours.
This point could be made in transportation, landscape design, city infrastructure, fire-fighting,....

The problem here lie in two sentence : how much money you can make is in no way representative of your worth or of your value to society. Steve Jobs (practically useless to the society) was a Billionaire, Denis Ritchie was not that rich.
And "without a state designed system, a privately owned one will emerge".

[USEC_OFFICER]

Vegetables don't have feelings. Animals do. Even if they do not understand death or have the intellectual capacity to contemplate what life or living is, it is clear that they wish to live. The want to stay alive is a basic drive in their minds, just as it is in ours.

Even if they do not understand death or have the intellectual capacity to contemplate what life or living is, it is clear that they wish to live.

It is clear that they wish to live.

Sorry to butt in here/derail, but I'm just wondering what kinds of plants scriver eats. Last time I checked plants wanted to live just as much as animals do. After all, why else would they carry out photosynthesis and respond to foreign invaders? The brain of an animal is simply a fancy tool to help that animal survive, like the xylem of a plant or its roots. Lack of a brain does not imply that the organism does not wish to live.

[scriver]

Really.

Bucket said "But it is your sovereign right as a conscious entity to accept or reject what they offer, if you so choose". I simply wondered if he felt he could eat animals, being as they want to live in the same way that we humans do and, given a choice, wouldn't want to be locked up or butchered. That I didn't mention plants or mushrooms or whatever, or what I think of those, is irrelevant.

[palsch]

I'm all with your philosophy, but practically?

Well, you can take the core and make it work.

It comes down to the divide between consiquentialist and deontological approaches. Most hardcore libertarians approach matters from a first principles, deontological approach where any state power (eg, coercive power not explicitly agreed to by those subject to it) is an inherent evil. On consiquentialist grounds this falters because it doesn't offer protections from such coercion happening through incidental concentrations of power in any given situation.

The usual libertarian approaches to this fall into four rough categories;

1) Such problems aren't problems because people always have the freedom to choose who to do business with, even if the choices are between a monopolistic body controlling/owning all the means for them to survive or to strike out and try to find somewhere new.

2) Such problems aren't problems because in such a society people would view coercion as inherently evil (government is a four letter word) and so private attempts at coercion would be opposed strongly by all others, stopping concentrations of power from forming.

3) Structures to prevent such concentrations would be formed through contractual agreements. For example, voluntary police forces and courts whose powers and laws are defined by a standard contract signed by all residents of a town. Signing is voluntary but if you don't you have no protection. You can (only slightly wrongly) see this as fully privatised government.

4) Minarchists.

Minarchists accept that (formal) government is required but restrict it's powers to solely safeguarding freedoms. In the most basic sense, the government can only coerce people so far as it stops them from coercing others.

Of course, you can easily expand from a minarchist perspective by expanding the concept of freedoms. In the simplest sense, expanding to include positive liberties (eg, rights that are created by government existing, such as voting) gives you a (IMO) very solid democratic state. And to an extent I do think that such a perspective on government action is sensible. That is, government should only ever act to protect or increase liberty and any government action should be assessed along such lines. I know a lot of 'libertarians' who aren't particularly dogmatic about the philosophical side, but who use personal liberty as their measuring stick for government policy.