libertarianism
About us
An open, user owned community for the general disscussion of the libertarian philosophy.
- Libertarianism is the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.
- Libertarians defend each person’s right to life, liberty, and property.
- In the libertarian view, voluntary agreement is the gold standard of human relationships.
- If there is no good reason to forbid something (a good reason being that it violates the rights of others), it should be allowed.
- Force should be reserved for prohibiting or punishing those who themselves use force.
Most people live their own lives by that code of ethics. Libertarians believe that that code should be applied consistently, even to the actions of governments, which should be restricted to protecting people from violations of their rights. Governments should not use their powers to censor speech, conscript the young, prohibit voluntary exchanges, steal or “redistribute” property, or interfere in the lives of individuals who are otherwise minding their own business.
Source: https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/what-is-libertarianism
Rules
1. Stay on topic
We are a libertarian community. There are no restrictions regarding different stances on the political spectrum, but all posts should be related to the philosophy of libertarianism.
2. Be polite to others and respects each others opinions.
Be polite to others and respects each others opinions. We don't want any form of gatekeeping or circlejerk culture here.
3. Stay constructive and informational
In general, all types of contributions are allowed, but the relevance to this community must always be evident and presented openly by the contributor. Posts that do not meet these requirements will be removed after a public warning. Also remember to cite you sources!
4. Use self-moderation measures first before reporting.
This community is fundamentally built upon freedom of speech. Since everyone understands libertarianism differently and we do not want to exclude any kind of content a priori, we appeal to the individual users to block/mute posts or users who do not meet their requirements. Please bear this in mind when filing a report
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Do normal adults who watch porn have difficulty controlling themselves around people? Maybe. I don't. Not raping anyone isn't difficult, no matter how attractive someone is to me. And no matter how much porn I consume, my ability to respect the concept of consent isn't going anywhere, either.
There is no treatment of paedophilia which cures it. Unfortunately, research has shown that's not possible. What modern therapies actually consist of, is moral rehabilitation, and self control training. Stuff that any normal person already knows. For a paedophile to actually act on their urges, they have to lack the things that stop any given person from raping, in addition to being a paedophile.
I'm nowhere near as convinced of the "no, allow none of it, ever" as you. I can't imagine life without any outlet for my libido, be that porn or actual sex. I think most people with paedophilia, live their lives fully capable of never raping a child, no therapy necessary. No clear-minded person needs to be told they shouldn't rape, and nothing about the condition itself means the person afflicted cant be clear-minded. A paedophile with the self-awareness to seek help isn't doing it because they are attracted to kids, but because they are attracted to kids, and also aren't sure they can stop themselves. If that was how humans worked by default, we'd all need "don't rape" therapy.
Nothing about the condition means it would always be paired with an inability for moral thought or self control. If it did, the therapies we do have couldn't work without curing the actual condition. And they do work. Just not the way most people probably think they do.
I'm not sure where the line should be, but due to the intense evil done by offending paedophiles, there is a well deserved stigma around the condition. The general public knows almost nothing about it except the damage it can do to those they care about. And yes, that means we should start with a line drawn as safely as possible, but we should also do the work and the actual research, to figure out how much can be done for these people, without harm.
And for the reasons above, I don't think "nothing", and "make it all forbidden" is that.
Please do not talk to me about science's powerlessness to help "the poor". For starters, it's far from powerless. And I'd like to remind you that it's not 1980, but 2023 year. Sex change therapies, hormone blockers, antidepressants and more aids to change not only one's mental, but also physical self are available.
Providing one wants to search for them.
With that out of mind...
Listen now, and listen well, dude... The likes of you enjoy to take pity on "broken, twisted, wretched, weak" and think it's humane to accept them into society. But you lot never entertain the idea of living door to door with the ones you'd want to defend. In your heads it all sounds nice, and logical, and honorable. But you want it to become other people's burden, other people's responsibility, other people's struggle.
You say "I, me, mine, myself" as examples of how things are or might be, but you don't put yourself in the scenarios that your ideas lead to. You won't put the money where your mouth is, you won't stain your hands with dirty job, you won't strain your back with the weight that your ideas bring with them. You want for others to get the job done. You want to dictate to others what to do, what to think, how to act.
Want to make a point? Want to prove a thing? Go, befriend a convicted pedophile. Go, invite a guy known of masturbating to pictures of children like Madeleine to your home, to talk, play and touch your child. You may also want to tell everything you wrote to the people who suffered because of pedophiles.
Then we talk.
Right. Because if I knew someone who was one, they'd openly admit that to me. For all you know, I am one. But no. That's not how this works. If you're a paedophile with a clear head in modern society, you'd take that fact to the grave. Only if you didn't trust yourself to never touch a child, is there any reason to out yourself and expose your life to the downsides of being known, in order to get help. But if you're 100% sure you'll never act, like you and I can be about never raping someone, why admit to it? With how hated you'd instantly become, there are only downsides.
And why the fuck would I befriend someone convicted? That's like saying that to be ok with people who would like to have sex (everyone), I need to be ok with befriending and having around actual known rapists (criminals). People who want to have sex, are not automatically people who can't stop themselves from taking it.
As for the option of eliminating one's libido, thats a really good one. But which part of my comment made you think I believe science can't help? I said it can't be cured, I said the therapies we have, work. If eliminating one's libido helps a person live their life, they should opt for it, paedophile or not. But choosing not to harm others isn't difficult, unless there's a lot more wrong with you than your sex drive being directed at children. You and me have no trouble respecting adults of whatever gender were attracted to, why should being a paedophile mean you're any different?
You accuse me of not thinking this through... I laugh at you. Your last three paragraphs only work if you assume the condition automatically also makes a person evil and immoral. Yes, those people exist, and they should be locked away and never allowed into society. (again, WTF, a convicted pedo????? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?)
But the condition itself, that one is attracted to children, has nothing to do with a person's capacity for moral action. One's mind, does not need to obey one's biology. You can choose to not eat, even when hungry, because you can understand that eating more than is healthy, is bad. A normal person would stay virgin all their life, if they didn't find a willing partner, because not raping isn't difficult.
Should we shun people who have done evil? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY! I don't know which part of my comment made you think I believe otherwise. As for telling people who have suffered because of child rapists, that not all pedos are also rapists... Duh, but that's also like telling a woman who was raped by a man, that not all men are rapists. She likely wont want to hear it, and should be helped through the trauma in whatever way is best for her. It would also be true. If you left a kid alone with a pedo who has the same moral compass as you and me, you'd never know they were a pedo, because they wouldn't rape the kid.
This likely won't get through to you, because you can't separate the desires from the person. You can't imagine someone desiring to do evil, not also being evil. That you can be hungry, without wanting to eat.
Prisons are full of these.
Send a letter. Interact with one. Invite him over to your house once he gets released.
Go on. Walk the walk.
Prove that you're more than a cowardly wannabe-dictator who enjoys listening to his own voice more than to common reason.
Do it.
You didn't read my comment. I want nothing to do with fucking criminals. Stop suggesting otherwise, you lunatic.
Stop trying to put words in my mouth. It's not gonna work, especially if you won't even read and understand what I am actually trying to say.
Responding like this, anyone who reads our exchange is gonna look at your responses, and determine you're the crazy one, because what you are saying makes no fucking sense in response to me if you actually read and understand what I'm saying. Is that what you want?
You didn't read mine. No wonder, given how self-absorbed you are...
Ah, so everything's fine and dandy with ya, if they aren't caught and sentenced? Brilliant strategy, milord!
Now, I give you simple challenge: prove that you're willing to set an example and coexist with those loathsome deviants you want for the society to embrace.
If you can't, if you don't want to - admit that your ideas aren't that good.
I did read yours. What makes you think otherwise?
If someone who wants to kill, never does it, they shouldn't be put in prison. They shouldn't even be hated or feared.
Someone who gets away with it, should be in prison. Someone who did kill, should be hated and feared.
I will admit only one thing, that you refuse to understand what I'm actually trying to say.
I wouldn't need to prove shit, if you had the capacity to think clearly enough to understand, or even fucking read.
The fact that you constantly avoid the challenge of proving your convictions true and correct.
The other explanation is that you're simply scared of it, or trolling, but I preferred to think you were simply too preoccupied with writing yet another comment. I don't anymore.
Uh-huh. You absolutely has to do, since "burden of proof..." and all that.
But you won't. Because you realize how weak, irresponsible and "let this be other people's problem" your train of logic is.
Fgures.
Except what you're asking me to prove I believe, isn't actually what I believe, because you refuse to even think about what I am actually saying.
You've made assumptions, and because those assumptions are so heinously evil, you won't even consider what I have to say.
Because you're acting based on assumptions, you keep missing when trying to dismantle my argument, because its not my argument you're attacking, but your imagined idea of what I'm saying.
So here we are, going in circles, me trying to get through to you, you accusing me of avoiding the point, because I keep trying to force you to see my actual point, instead of the imagined one that you've fixated on.
If you were honest about your philosophy, you'd seek some way to prove it - and yourself - to be solid, logical and, well, honest.
But you're not. You're looking for explanations, excuses, ways to divert the discussion, distractions, and finally insults. Like an undereducated AIs guided by inflexible software.
There's no way in hell that you're going to ever take the responsibility for your choices and suggestions. Because all you have in store is a bunch of idiotic ideas that are supposed to be "other poeople's burden.
Would that be all?
I see you're a broken record now, attempting yet another character assassination instead of dismantling my argument. Nothing of what I've said allows you to draw the conclusions about me that you are presenting. It's disgraceful.
If anything, you've made it even more certain that anyone else coming across this exchange, won't take your side. Good job.
You're the one avoiding the real discussion.
I bet that even if I did provide the proof you are asking for, you'd find some way to invalidate it and require more. It's a classic arguing tactic among the brainless. So many times I've backed myself up with salient points, including now, only for them to be utterly ignored.
Who cares if you're wrong? If you keep claiming to be right, at least it feels like there's still a chance that you are.
But there isn't. You're wrong.
That will be all.
Yes. There's no merit in a discussion where one side pushes possibly troubling, hurtful propaganda and ideals, while not being ready to actually back them up with actions, thus setting an example that it can be done, that it's not that bad. Much like every dictator ever demands for others to make it happen.
Feel free to prove it in real word, Internet dictator.
It was over long ago.
It was over the moment you didn't read my comment, and responded with nonsense. Ever since, I've been trying to get you to admit that mistake, so we could have a real discussion.
By demanding action, you sidestep the actual exchange of ideas. Because online, here in a thread of mere text, ideas and the words that represent them, is all we have. By demanding action, you avoid having to defend your own views at all. You've made yourself look utterly devoid of reason to anyone capable of realising that. Which is everyone with their head on straight.
I'd need to be a mod to be a dictator, so I could ban you. Instead I'm right here on your level, trying to use words to explain why you're wrong. I demand nothing from you, except the basic ability to fucking read. You're the one demanding the literally impossible. That I bring grand actions as ideological proof, into a fucking anonymous text thread.
You just need to scroll the fuck up, and fucking read what I had to say. You're still responding as if I think something I don't. You're afraid of understanding what I have to say, that you might agree with me if you did, so afraid that you wont take off your beer goggles and look at reality with clear eyes. You'd rather appear insane to anyone watching than risk reality proving you wrong.
"It's over... B-bbut not really! I don't care about any further discussion and let me tell you in length just how much I don't care!"
Predictable. The likes of you are all talk. You can't get enough of your own words, you feel euphoric about re-reading your comments (and whole discussion while at that) at least a few times.
But that's just talk, no walk. And as such it deserves no attention.
Would that be all?
We are in an anonymous text thread. There is only talk here, the moment you began demanding a walk, that was just you sticking your fingers into your ears and going "laalaalaa". I will not stop trying to pull them out.
And I'm not afraid of admitting I care. Maybe I can't change your stance on this matter, but I want to at least make you think about how utterly idiotic your discussion methods are. How you've undermined your own position by sidestepping a real discussion, and hence leaving your actual points undefended. All you have left is to keep claiming you're still on top, but with no language to actually show that is the case.
"This is the end of discussion!"
Right. Self-importance, helluiva drug, am I right?
...but it didn't prevent you from using "everyone who may read it will think you idiot" argument.
You're not thinking straight.
Would that be all, or are you going to continue, still trying to avoid your responsibilites?
What responsibilities? What part of what I've said tells you I'm avoiding them?
I want you to see the errors you've made in presenting your argument and dismantling mine. I point out third parties because I want to provoke YOU into taking an outside look at your own words.
Then we'll be able to talk for real. Not this mudslinging that idiots do.
Classic.
Same old repertoire of a coward faced with "proof yourself right" dillema.
Anyway.
Would that be all?
I see you're in the final stages of clamming up completely. This string of non-responses is an attempt at annoying me until I go away.
You've given up on trying to actually prove me wrong, because you can't. Or at least don't know how to properly try.
Please, figure it out. If not for me, then the next exchange you engage in.
What I don't see is any proof that your ideas arn't anything but pro-pedophila propaganda that is meant to be "someone else's problem".
But, of course, you won't ever deliver any kind of proof that it's not.
So, would that be all?
I keep laughing at this "someone elses problem" point. I can't refute it without revealing way too much personal info, its such a perfect non-argument.
You don't know shit about how close I've been to these matters irl, and I can't tell you.
Keep it to the single branch of discussion, since you don't have much to say anyway, please.
How about three fronts? I have a lot to say so more bite-sized bits would help get through you non-existent attention span.
Yes, yes, of course.
Now, would that be all?
Look at it this way, I didn't declare an end to our delightful little chat, I declared my victory in the original matter.
You stopped forwarding arguments and counter-arguments two comments in, giving me the win by default.
All you have left, is acting like the ball is in my court and I'm the one who is refusing to make the next move.
Would that be all?
"Observe, as the creature finally clams up completely, refusing all exchange. Resorting to a final four words that carry no meaning whatsoever, except the implied 'fuck you'.
Truly, a deep thinker of the interwebs."
Would that be all?
"In desperation, it repeats the words in an attempt to have the last word.
Unaware, that if the last words spoken are obviously meaningless, they aren't last words at all. But simply the pathetic death-cry of a loser."
I do hope you reflect on what I've told you, despite my being mean. You're clearly not so dumb as to be completely without hope. Even if I'm wrong, which I well might be, your arguing skills are so bad they actively sabotage your own message.