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Conversation

I was a libertarian even when I was sleeping on a floor mattress, going hungry and responding to craigslist ads for jobs that required sludging thru sewers. You might disagree, and that's fine, but "only financially privileged ppl are libertarian" has never ever felt true to me.

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I also had libertarian friends who were similarly poor; I think the thing that made us libertarian wasn't moneyness, but was we tended to be harder, more masculine, we tended to place agency strongly within ourselves vs outside, were extremely independent, and self-suppressive.

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Libertarianism felt like it embodied a philosophy of strength. "No one will help us", pioneer style. One of my friends was a marine. I'd come out of a very strict religious life. We had been trained to endure and keep going; high stress, high responsibility. Push your limits.

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I still operate under a clear view of responsibility; either you're responsible for a thing or you're not. No one is ever allowed to encroach on you, or you ok them. It's the philosophy of emotional boundaries/consent, but applied to all of life and property.

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This is all *underlying* stuff; there's a lot of non-libertarian-esque things that I'm totally fine with, like communes, social support networks, welfare, etc. - assuming they are done in a way that doesn't violate the deep down underlying structure of freedom.

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But my ultimate point is that I suspect money isn't the biggest divider of whether someone is libertarian or not; I think it's the hyper-agenty, masculine, clear-boundaries personality type. I do however suspect ppl with this personality tend to end up earning more money.

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For example, when I was struggling, I never once ended up receiving direct aid from the government. That never occured to me. Knowing that my life was fully my responsibility was a philosophy that I directly contribute to achieving the level of success I have today.

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Also wanna clarify - ppl characterize libertarianism as "only look out for yourself". This isn't quite right - it would be "nobody can force you to look out for others". Myself and other libertarians I know do really enjoy helping other people out of our own free will!

9:35 PM · Jan 4, 2021

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It’s contradictory to say you approve welfare and at the same time that “no one should force you to look out for others”. Welfare is maintained by obligatory taxes.

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My family had a version of welfare from their church; when we needed it, our church organized to bring us food when we couldn’t afford it or when my mom was too ill to cook. Nobody forced that.

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@takemitsuronin

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My gf says that all of the libertarians she knows are hyper competent and successful, often by dint of their own hard work and smarts. The problem isn't that: it's that their life experience has led them to believe that if they can do then anyone can and that is not always true

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@takemitsuronin

I think the vast majority of ppl would improve their lives at least a little bit with the libertarian approach, and some ppl would improve hugely, and a small minority wouldn't improve at all. This is my theory.

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Love that definition for libertarians. Even as someone that believes social support systems are a great idea, the fact that people might believe otherwise seems very reasonable irrespective of their personal wealth.

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Sea Yumani | Community is a Human Right

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This is very interesting. But, I think it would be a bad idea to become a libertarian just because you have that sort of attitude. I feel like, maybe people should have that attitude, AND the government should basically help out in the ways libertarians hate anyway.

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@Thomas__Carver

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Your libertarianism is as unrelated to your income; yet it remains unauthentic and insincere. You have never truely lived your philosophy. You live in a society where others owe you a duty of care and you owe them the same duty.

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@failninjaninja

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Very well said!

@ColonelSenekal

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The biggest issue with Libertarianism is that, like communism, it doesn’t work as a system when applied to human beings. It requires everyone to buy in honestly and never cheat. As soon as someone does, you get Somalia.

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