What is the current state of free speech in West? 🗨

Very nice article from Mises about current situation with democracy in Western countries.

Very interesting take about current state of Libertarianism after covid period.

Why is there not more information out there on W.C. Young, the #Libertarian running for U.S. Senate in #Missouri? @libertarian? Anybody?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16569592

> >Leftist news commentary and interviews. Fighting for political and social change. Sabby Sabs podcast is a part of Revolutionary Blackout Network. > > >#robertfkennedyjr #sabbysabs #libertarianparty #presidentialcandidates2024 #thirdparty #larrysharpe #donaldtrump2024 #joebiden2024 #2024election #usnewstoday #progressivepoliticsexplained

This interview mostly goes over social policy, so I hope there's a follow-up with fiscal policy as well.

Here's an AI-generated transcript, which has some mistakes but hopefully is helpful. I tried copying it here, but it was too long.

Some interesting tidbits I liked:

• Liz challenged Chase on gender affirming care - his response was "no to surgery before 18, yes to medication if parents and doctors agree"
• open borders - wants an "Ellis Island"-style system where you register and then get to work, while still maintaining a strong police presence to keep out criminals
• courting those on the right of the LP - wants to work together on common causes, but will disagree on social issues
• vaccine mandates - no mandates from the government, but private businesses absolutely can; he thinks businesses requiring masks/vaccines is stupid because it limits customers

The whole discussion was pretty interesting, and I think it's interesting that Liz Wolfe came out as more conservative than Zach (apparently, Zach rarely discusses personal opinions).

So far I'm pretty happy with Chase as the candidate because:

• he's pretty well-spoken - reminds me a bit of Gary Johnson with less "aloof"-ness
• he appears confident and seems to do a good job justifying his positions on core libertarian principles
• very different from both Trump and Biden, so he should contrast well
• going after young voters - he's young, and he's highlighting issues that young people seem to care about, so I'm hopeful that'll resonate with young voters

I certainly disagree with him on some issues, but I think he'll be a good voice for the party. I would like to see more discussion on economic policy though.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Are you excited for a Chase Oliver campaign, or do you think the Libertarian Party should have made a different choice?

> Oliver's victory on Sunday night was a blow to the Mises Caucus, the right-leaning faction that took control of the Libertarian Party at the 2022 convention and that had orchestrated Trump's appearance at the convention. That faction's preferred candidate was Rectenwald.

I'm not a fan of the Mises Caucus, so I think this is hilarious.

> There was widespread media attention in recent weeks fixated on whether the Libertarian Party would nominate a prominent non-Libertarian like Kennedy or even Trump. > > Neither got anywhere close to winning. Kennedy was eliminated after the first round of balloting, while Trump did not even qualify for the first round and received just six write-in votes.

Good on you LP.

Now, I know next to nothing about Chase Oliver, but being gay and young will certainly set him apart from the old men he's competing against. I hope he'll get a good amount of media attention to spread the libertarian message.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Did the convention make the right call? Would one of the other candidates have been better? Would you prefer no candidate?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15768513

> >Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is addressing the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, DC, Friday afternoon. > > >Although Kennedy indicated last month he would not seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination, he has long promoted libertarian policies and values. > > >Democrat-aligned PAC MoveOn has invested in a mobile billboard campaign to dissuade convention attendees from supporting Kennedy. > > >Former President Trump will also be speaking at the Libertarian convention this weekend. Trump has been ahead of Biden in recent swing state polls. But the lead is narrow enough in some that a small number of independent and Libertarian voters could make the difference in the electoral college. > > >Kennedy is scheduled to appear at 3:30 p.m. EDT.

I'm thinking something along the lines of the GDPR where companies must get consent to track you, and must delete your data upon request.

I see a few arguments here:

• yes, websites are like stores and have the obligations of a store to protect user data (IP address, HTTP headers, etc)
• no because the internet is "the commons," so no expectation of privacy (no expectation that the website follows your local laws)
• no because you're voluntarily providing the data, but you're well within your rights to block tracking attempts

So, some questions to spark discussion:

• does data collection violate the NAP?
• does sale of personal data (without a TOS in place) violate the NAP?
• if no to each of the above, is it worth violating the NAP to enforce a right to digital privacy?

Property in land - What are your thoughts on Georgist libertarianism?

The basic idea behind Georgism is that land and natural resources are not the fruits of anyone’s labor, so no one has a natural right to it. Georgism proposes based on this that collective ownership arrangements be applied to such resources. Geolibertarianism supports full private property rights in the products of labor.

https://youtu.be/smi\_iIoKybg

What are your thoughts on this approach to natural resources?

@libertarian

Here's the YouTube video on Reason's channel (event starts about 10 min in), or you can download it at the link for this post.

There's no text transcription AFAIK, so I'll try my best to represent both sides fairly. I do have my own opinions here, so I recommend you watch the video (at least the opening remarks, which is ~35 min long, just after introductions).

Here's the prompt:

> Government must play a role in fostering scientific and technological progress by funding basic research.

The definition of "basic research" is a bit squishy, but the definition they seem to be going with is science without a specific goal, such as studying chemistry not to solve a given program, but to see where the research goes. The opposite is "mission science," which is research in a given area to achieve some specific goal important to the government, like weapons. They both agreed that the latter should be funded as needed (e.g. COVID-19 vaccine).

For the affirmative (Dr. Mills):

• private companies have little interest in basic research
• government funded basic research has produced immense value (example given: ammonia composition, which wasn't economically useful for 100 years so likely wouldn't have happened as quickly)
• government funded research is often economically viable, but more importantly, it has non economic value that private research doesn't provide (e.g. man on the moon)

For the negative (Dr. Kealey):

• publicly funded research "crowds out" private research (i.e. public research doesn't add more scientists, it just moves them from private to public sector)
• private research is more economically viable
• private companies need to fund research or they'll lose to their competition

And some prompts for discussion:

• What is your opinion on the prompt, should the government be funding basic research?
• Who do you think won? Do you agree with the voting? Why?
• If you're against the resolution, would you go further and prefer to not fund "mission science" as well? Why or why not?
• Should your government increase or decrease the amount it's spending on basic science research?

And a final question: do you want to see more of this kind of post?

I'm generally in favor of "hands off" moderation, as in allowing the community to decide which content to promote and which to discourage. I prefer to only step in if someone is violating the rules, either of the instance or of this community.

That said, this community has seen a lot of recent activity, and I'm worried that people who want to discuss libertarian concepts are being overrun. For example, this recent post has more downvotes than the most popular post has upvotes (by a large margin), yet I think this type of post is quite relevant to libertarians.

So I think we're getting a lot of non-libertarian (by pretty much any definition of the word) users in this community, and I'm worried they're not here in good faith.

So, I'd like to know what kind of moderation we'd like to see. I'll be reviewing voting records for posts to try to sus out who I subjectively think are here in bad faith (not planning on any bans though, just getting an idea) since I don't think votes will be particularly relevant for this post. Some questions:

• should moderators (so far just me) ban serial downvoters?
• should moderators ban low effort posts, regardless of applicability to libertarianism? (e.g. the recent memes and whatnot)?
• should moderators pin subjectively higher effort and relevant posts to promote similar content?

So far I've done no moderating because everyone seems to at least be civil, but I don't want this to become a "bash on libertarians" community or I'll just close it.

I created the community to discuss libertarian concepts because the rest of Lemmy seemed very leftist. I basically want something like a mix of /r/libertarian and /r/neutral_news, where citations are encouraged (if not required) and content generally focuses on how to solve problems with less government rather than more. That doesn't seem to be happening, so either we need strict rules or to just close the community down.

There's no one here?

Libsoc, "Liberaltarian," whatever your term may be. Lol.

I just need a new non-reddit home, man.... 😥😂

So I've been thinking about when someone is justified to owning something, and this is my thought process (sorry if this is not the intended use of this community):

Imagine a person who finds a rock on the ground, when he picks it up & uses it to hurt another person they are morally culpable. Comparably, that same person has a body & if they use that body to hurt someone, they are morally culpable as well. It’s hard to say that people don’t own their body, as in they have the moral right to keep & use something (the body), since it’s an extension of their consciousness. How & when someone owns something is important, since the right of property is seen as a fundamental right & is the bedrock of our capitalist society. So using something we fundamentally agree is something that someone owns, we can to understand why & apply it to other things. When comparing these two examples, we’ll understand that what makes ownership exist is if it is used as a tool. Simply because the ownership of the body can be compared to an ownership of an item, which is especially explicit in a moral example in isolation.

Let’s say there’s someone named Elthri, and they will painlessly separate the arm of someone named Kral — which Kral does not want, however would be extremely useful for Elthri to use. This is to avoid other variables, such consequentialist thought of net harm; we’ll treat this as a net-zero in positive or negative outcomes. Everyone agrees, unless someone prescribes to an esoteric philosophy, that Elthri does not have any moral right to take away Kral’s arm for one reason: he has ownership of that arm; it’s his arm. The reason it’s his arm is that it’s connected to his consciousness, it’s a part of his moral weight — it’s an extension of his consciousness. That’s the same reason we can prescribe moral weight to his body, it’s an extension of his consciousness — if not that means if he punches someone he cannot be morally culpable. Since a disagreement of this premise necessarily means his hand hitting someone is not connected to his consciousness, meaning they are not morally capable. Him, as a person, cannot be blamed.

Items work the same way: when someone picks up a rock & hits someone with it, they are still morally culpable. The rock becomes an extension of the person’s consciousness. The only real difference is that the body gives sensory details to our experience, while we can only externally feel the rock. However, in the scenario Elthri & Kral scenario pain (or senses in general) is not the reason for why Elthri cannot keep Kral’s arm — meaning we must conclude that the extension to our consciousness is the actual reason something becomes owned. Kral owns his arm because it’s an extension of him, the same way a rock can be.

However, when does something become an extension of another person is still a standing question. Hurting someone is an obvious example, since there is moral weight, it’s easy to see the extension, but in the input, process, or result of hurting someone when does it become owned? The only answer is that it’s used as a tool, our body is inherently a tool because we must necessarily use it.

A rock is used, it becomes a tool, which means it becomes owned. In the rock-hurting example, it cannot be the outcome (as in hurting someone) in of itself, since someone can have a body but never have a moral outcome in a vacuum but still own their body. It cannot be the person’s effect on the rock, since a person who cannot feel, move, essentially cannot affect their body still owns it. However, the use of the body as a vessel means it is used meaning it’s a tool, meaning it’s explainable through tool-ownership.

I coin this as thinking as tool-ownership, unless it’s already an established philosophy that already has a name. Which is, in a vacuum, the use of a thing as a tool means the person owns the thing.

I've linked the post about Lemmy's origin, and here's a link to Lemmy's documentation: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/index.html

Here are some things I really like about Lemmy's design:

• leaves control in the hands of server owners - i.e. it's not just a node in a Tor network that just exists for load balancing, it actually allows owners a lot of control over what content is available (e.g. can block other instances)
• encourages competition - the barrier to making a new instance is low, so if one instance misbehaves, it's easy to make your own
• transparency - open mod log, open source code, etc; this helps individuals truly understand what they're signing up for when they join an instance

And some things I dislike:

• no obvious monetization strategy - seems like the going strategy is donations, but I'd like to see more experimentation with paying for use (e.g. maybe small crypto transactions); I worry that this will hurt long-term viability of community-funded instances
• original authors seem a bit... sympathetic to authoritarianism

So what do you think? What do you think Lemmy does well, and what could it improve on?

To use a phrase from Nick Gillespie, I consider myself a "squishy libertarian." As in, I certainly have principles, but I'm unwilling to let principles get in the way of productive policy/discussion. In other words, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

I don't want to be a moderator, and I will happily give up my spot once I find someone willing to take it on. In general, I believe moderation should be extremely light, and I've pushed back on heavier moderation on Reddit. However, I will also not tolerate bigotry or any kind of intolerance. In general, I agree with this post about Beehaw, and I'd like to have this community run similar to the high-level ideals of that post.

In general:

• I'm 100% okay with "taboo" topics, but only in the sense that I believe the best way to combat intolerance is to debate it in the open, not shut it down
• no-one is above criticism - I will never ban anyone for criticizing me, and I will probably upvote it for visibility; I expect the same for everyone
• no ad-hominem attacks - this is something I do think should be removed because it's completely unproductive
• there's no such thing as off-topic discussion - the idea is to facilitate discussion from a libertarian perspective, not limit it to libertarian policies

This is my first time truly running a community like this, and I'm very new to Lemmy in general, so please be patient as I figure out what everything means.