Left Outside continues a screed of misunderstanding, and misrepresentation regarding libertarianism.
So both Longrider and Jackart have the hump with me. Why oh why do I continue with this?
I could probably ask the same question…
Although the hump is, perhaps, stretching it – rather, I find the general level of stupidity worthy of taking the piss. If it wasn’t so patently daft and pompous, doubtless I wouldn’t bother as there would be no mileage in it. Arguing with leftists tends to be a bit like beating oneself over the head with a baseball bat; you get a headache, but at least the bat gives you something to show for it.
Firstly, I’m not necessarily a libertarian – more a classical liberal or minarchist if you must try to label me; in that I see a place for the state, albeit a small one, and do not necessarily support uncontrolled corporatism as that is as much an anthema to individual liberty as is an over zealous state.
LO really doesn’t appear to get what Jackart was opposing here, though.
This all started when I remarked it odd that Jackart called a peaceful campaign of boycott of a company selling sexist T-Shits to terrible parents baring the slogan “I’m too pretty for homework so my brother has to do it for me.” They demanded online that this T-Shirt be pulled or they would no longer shop at whatever retailer it was that sold it (I really don’t care). At no point did anyone ask for this sort of thing to be banned (although I’m sure some have asked for similar things to be banned in the past). All they did was argue for a peaceful boycott.
Well, no, but that was the objective of the boycott – to enforce their opinions on the producer of the product – “…they demanded that this t-shirt be pulled…” They demanded. That’s pretty totalitarian, I would have said. Who the fuck do these people think they are demanding that others comply with their wishes?
That is what libertarians (and in this case, a classical liberal minarchist) object to. If you found the slogan offensive, well, don’t buy it and leave it at that. To organise a campaign to try and stop the producer making and selling them is an attempt to enforce your will on those who do like the product and do want to wear it – or don’t they get a say in all of this?
Okay, where would that leave a Libertarian, you might ask. According to Jackart “Libertarianism is a mindset in which I don’t seek to impose my values on others, and simply ask the same courtesy in return.” I hope the hypocrisy is clear. Jackart isn’t won’t seek to impose his values on anyone… apart from Leftists upon whom he will unleash a terrible online screed about corpses and “hysteria” [1].
There is no hypocrisy here. Jackart’s comments were an example of free speech in action (and the word “hysteria” does not imply any sexism. You really, really have to scrape the barrel to come to that conclusion) – and, yes, socialism does leave in its wake piles of corpses. Has Jackart or any other libertarian commentator demanded that leftists not be allowed to express an opinion? No. So, no hypocrisy no matter how you might try to twist the language around to make it fit.
Making the world a better place by force, does not make the world a better place. Socialism only works by forcing refusniks into compliance. It is the antithesis of liberty. It is why I am no longer a socialist – I grew up. To comment upon it as Jackart did, is not remotely hypocritical. I am not aware that Jackart – or indeed any other libertarian commentator – has imposed his values on anyone. That’s just hysterical. Don’t like it, don’t read it.
There’s more of this cack, but the following is particularly delicious:
You don’t want people to tell you what to do. That is why you felt outrage at some online protesters insulting and boycotting this retailer. You need to realise that a lot of those kicking up a fuss did so because they felt they, and their children, are being told what to do and they don’t like it either.
They aren’t. Although outrage is probably overstating it. I sighed heavily at something so utterly predictable and childish. The twitterstorm is merely the latest incarnation of the fits of vapours that occur when someone says or does something the chattering classes find offensive – which, frankly doesn’t take very much. They are very easily offended. So thin are their skins, I’m surprised they hold everything in. If you ever come across some blobs of flesh and bones screeching on Twitter about some “ism” or other, then that skin finally gave out – one offence too many, I suppose. If my heavy sigh does indeed constitute outrage, so be it, but I always presumed that outrage was more well, hysterical than that. But, no, no one is being forced to buy the shirt and the people kicking up a fuss were not being told what to do. They can choose not to buy the shirt and grow up, frankly.
In your cases being told what to do involves people preventing a specific retailer selling something.
Quite.
In their case it involves a series of social cues, norms and customs which they feel hold them back. This sexist T-Shirt is but one way in which these norms are expressed and enforced.
Pseud’s corner, here we come. It is possible, you know, to ignore social cues, norms and customs – if that is what this shirt is propagating and frankly that’s a stretch. It is just a t-shirt with a supposedly amusing slogan after all. All it takes is a little self will. Oh, and saying “no” from time to time.
I hope you Libertarians can understand what I mean when I call Libertarianism “asymmetric” now.
It isn’t. You just made it up.
[4] he argument is not that “Libertarians are all selfish white men”, that is obviously false.
So why say it?
But when it is women, foreigners, the poor, the helpless who are in need of help actually existing Libertarianism tends to be implacable.
Evidence?
Societal pressures are unimportant, only property rights and non-interference matter. There is no room at this inn, get on your bike (and no, I will not lend you mine). Libertarianism is its most pigheaded and most insistent, to the point of calling peaceful protesters totalitarian, when it is the wealthy and privileged who are attacked (even non-violently).
This assumes – and assume is the word – that libertarians lack compassion and are unprepared to assist their fellows. The evidence for this is remarkably lacking, existing as it does only in the mind of the writer. I suppose, of course, such things as friendly societies and charities didn’t exist before enforced collectivism? Libertarianism as a philosophy does not oppose collective action, providing it is voluntary collective action. And wishing to be left to live one’s life without coercion does not cancel out desires to help others less fortunate. As mentioned before, this isn’t a zero sum game. One can be both libertarian and philanthropist.
What libertarians oppose is the enforcement of such collectivism – and in this case, protestors trying to enforce their viewpoint on everyone else (not to mention the predictable sanctimoniousness). It doesn’t matter whether it is the state, a corporation or a bunch of protestors, when someone seeks to impose their wishes on others, they are the enemies of liberty. That is what we oppose. You don’t like the slogan on the T-shirt? Fine, then you don’t buy it, no one is forcing you. Seeking to impose your viewpoint on the manufacturer and sellers is denying those who do want to buy it a choice. You might think it sexist, those who want to buy it may have a different view. It is not up to you to decide for them.
To jump to an assumption that libertarians are somehow selfish and unwilling to help one’s fellows is, well, a leap in the dark sans evidence or reason. But, then, given that the whole post is constructed on a logical fallacy, what should we expect?
Let me make this obvious with bullet points.
– Assume initiating force or fraud against someone’s person or property is wrong.
– Then when I say “this company is selling a sexist T-Shirt and I won’t shop there until it stops doing so” I am not initiating force or fraud against someone’s person or property.
– Then when I join together with others voluntarily I am not initiating force or fraud against someone’s person or property I am exercising my rights to freedom of association and freedom of speech.
– No company has the right to a good image or to my custom. To enforce either would be initiating force or fraud against someone’s person or property.
– Therefore, there is nothing illiberal or totalitarian in the protester’s behaviour.
– Therefore, those suggesting there is something illiberal or totalitarian in athe protester’s behaviour must be doing it for another reason.
– I’d suggest that reason is to reinforce bonds with their “tribe”, other Libertarians. It could also just be that those suggesting these people are totalitarian aren’t very bright.
Right, that clear?
_____
You ask for “Evidence?”… Now that is rich! I’ve provided loads, which you have blithely ignored. How about reading the post on this topic which I link to in the piece you’re critiquing? There is a lot of evidence supplied here to back up my contention that Libertarianism tends to be asymmetric.
Abortion, migration, blacks, anti-Discrimination law, taxes, sexism, all subjects where Libertarian politics has been kinder to the privileged than to the vulnerable. There is a load of evidence in that post linked to, which is on my blog, which you ignored.
_____
Well, no, but that was the objective of the boycott – to enforce their opinions on the producer of the product – “…they demanded that this t-shirt be pulled…” They demanded. That’s pretty totalitarian, I would have said. Who the fuck do these people think they are demanding that others comply with their wishes?
It is not totalitarian. See above, and all my posts on this subject, passim.
I really struggle to see how you can reconcile the position that while people are free to ignore sexism, retailers are not free to ignore consumer boycotts.
You are being inconsistent, and let me emphasise it is inconsistent in a way which makes the world marginally worse for women and marginally easier for large corporations.
That is, it is your own position is asymmetric in that in this situation you are calling a few thousand worried people totalitarians and are letting a large, wealthy company off the hook by suggesting its customers shouldn’t have any input into it bar from spending their money there or not.
_____
Also, this made me laugh:
Pseud’s corner, here we come. It is possible, you know, to ignore social cues, norms and customs – if that is what this shirt is propagating and frankly that’s a stretch. It is just a t-shirt with a supposedly amusing slogan after all. All it takes is a little self will. Oh, and saying “no” from time to time.
IF JC Peny want to sell some sexist little t-shirt to their customers they can, their image will suffer as a result and they will lose a few customers. They can say “no” from time to time.
This is why I call it identity politics, you are so vehement in your hatred of those who campaign against this sort of thing you project some odd totalitarian fantasy onto them. They are liberal campaigners who did nothing to threaten coercive action.
_____
PS Funny you mention friendly societies, I’ve written on that subject before. They were racist and sexist organisations who systematically attempted to keep out older, ill members.
http://leftoutside.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/un-friendly-societies-social-insurance-before-the-welfare-state/
Correct.
Correct
Correct. Providing you are not making any attempt to exercise coercion that affects others. You and your collective agreeing not to buy is fine. Attempting to get the company to remove the product is using force on those who might want to buy the product.
No one is trying to enforce any such thing. Nor have thay said anythign that implies such.
It is when they seek to have the product removed from sale, which is the point of this boycott.
This statement makes no sense.
I think the word here is “projection”. Disagreeing with you does not make someone not very bright, nor do I need to belong to a tribe. Indeed, having read your screeds, it is not your gainsayers who are not very bright here…
Clearly tosh, yes.
I did read your post on Libertarianism benign asymmetric. No evidence there, merely some nice attempt to invoke the no true Scotsman fallacy and the straw man.
Evidence is something you can verify – your opinions are not evidence, they are opinions. Huge difference. Just because you assert something, it doesn’t make it so – and it isn’t. Just because some people who might identify or are identified as following a particular political philosophy say things that are racist (you just had to get that one in, didn’t you?) or denigrate others, it doesn’t follow that it applies to everyone who identifies with that ideology, nor does it undermine the philosophy itself. I repeat it is not zero sum. On matters such as abortion and the death penalty, libertarians are divided. So what? That means nothing.
Sigh, yes, it is. Boycotts are always an attempt to change behaviour. That’s how they are designed to work. The moment you cross the line from deciding not to buy yourself into demanding that people comply with your wishes, you are exercising coercion.
I am being entirely consistent. Don’t like the product don’t buy it. Nothing to do with women and nothing to do with corporations. it’s just a silly t-shirt. Don’t try to stop me buying it if that is what I want to do.
I don’t hate you. I certainly find you pompous and worthy of Pseud’s corner and something to laugh at and mock for your pious silliness, but, no I don’t hate you. Pity maybe. I’ve spent a lifetime kicking back and ignoring society’s cues and norms. It isn’t difficult and I don’t need collective coercion to achieve it.
Here I’m reminded of another of Jackart’s comments:
The same applies here. The principle behind friendly societies – mutual collective action for the common good – is not undermined by historical behaviour that is based upon the norms of that time.
I hope you Libertarians can understand what I mean when I call Libertarianism “asymmetric” now.
It isn’t. You just made it up.
[Chuckle]
I did have to bring up racism, yes, because it is relevant. And I didn’t accuse anyone of being racist, I merely said that some “Libertarian” positions could be objectively racist.
For example, opposing the Civil Rights Act in the US as an unfair infringement of property owners rights is all well and good. But it is not a neutral position.
Demanding we respect racist’s property rights involves the state being involved in removing black people from racist’s property. If a racist says “you’re not welcome in my bar because you’re black” and you refuse to leave, then before the Civil Rights Act to enforce the racist’s property rights the police, agents of the state, would have to initiate force against a black person because a racist asked them to. That is one example of Libertarianism being asymmetrical.
Anyway, basically this all boils down to your definition of coercion. Classifying immoral any request for people to change their behaviour as coercion is ludicrous, but that is exactly what you’ve done. Coercion involves forcing people to do something, informing someone that you will be voluntarily changing your behaviour unless they change theirs is not coercion. That person has an “exit” option. They can ignore the request and that person cease interacting with them. Formal, yes, but then your dismissal of sexism and gender norms relied on a rather formal understanding.
Or perhaps I’ve misunderstood.
“Attempting to get the company to remove the product is using force on those who might want to buy the product.”
Nobody demanded this product be banned. They just targeted one specific retailer. If this product has a demand a retailer who cares less about their image (or cultivates a non-conformist one) will sell this T-shirt.
The shirt hasn’t been banned, someone can sell it, just not a company who wants to maintain a certain image of their brand.
The same applies here. The principle behind friendly societies – mutual collective action for the common good – is not undermined by historical behaviour that is based upon the norms of that time.
Oh of course, I’m not suggesting that people like racist or sexist friendly societies.
However, cooperation failure clearly exists and friendly societies reflect the prejudices of the society they are in. States do the same, of course, but the state has a better record at providing universal coverage than friendly societies had. Statist medicine and social security at least have a universal aim. Friendly societies would leave large swathes of people untreated, that doesn’t recommend them to me.
“Attempting to get the company to remove the product is using force on those who might want to buy the product”
Like this, for example, LR?
“Statist medicine and social security at least have a universal aim. Friendly societies would leave large swathes of people untreated”
As is now the increasing aim of the NHS. Perhaps Left Outside might like to pen something which condemn such prejudice. 😉
Great post and fisking LR.
Dick – that’s a great spot about the t-shirt (it had me laughing before I even read the headline) and such a depressing and predictable post about the operations ban.
Left Outside’s posts hurt my eyes.
Well, I’m getting nowhere. Boycotts are totalitarian now, well I never.
To an extent, I’m going to need to side with LeftOutside here…I am definitely libertarian, and I can categorically say that philosophically a boycott has nothing whatsoever to do with initiation of force. Boycotts are perfectly legitimate, since there is zero force element. You do not have to partake in the boycott, and the seller does not have to pay attention to it. A boycott is simply an expression of freedom of association and publicising it is an expression of freedom of speech. No force at all. Plus, they can demand what they like. Doesn’t mean they’ll get it. I happen to boycott Richard Murphy’s blog and encourage all others to avoid the daily economically misinformed and philosophically amateur shit he writes and not allow him commission for his bollocks ideas. Is that force? Course not.
Hmmm …
“Property rights”
As in the right to own people AS property?
The specific States Right that started the US civil war?
Hmmm …..
bnzss – a more accurate comparison would be if you and a group of like-minded people lobbied the TUC to withdraw Murphy’s funding. That most certainly is coercive.
We can play all the semantic games in the world, but boycotting is an attempt to change behaviour using a form of crude blackmail. Of course it is coercive, it wouldn’t work otherwise. Indeed, if it is not coercive, all those boycotters might just as well pack their bags and go home. Coercion is its raison d’etre. And the people in question were attempting to have a product they disapproved of removed from sale. So, yes, it is coercion.
Not having the remotest interest in US politics, I wasn’t aware that anyone was making this argument until you mentioned it. However, such an argument is neither racist nor is it asymmetrical (that is just a construct you have invented, so I will continue to gainsay it, as I have no wish for it to gain traction).
Those making such an argument are not merely arguing property rights as someone walking into a business premises with the intention of engaging in trade is not infringing on property rights at all. The premises are open for business so are, therefore public places and no harm has been done to the property. Yes property rights are used when refusing service (my gaff, my rules), however, what is happening is a refusal to associate with an individual – so we are talking freedom of association here rather than property rights.
Landlords are notorious this side of the pond for having arbitrary rules about who they will or will not serve (and being a biker, don’t I know it). They do not use the organs of the state to enforce such rules and nor should they, it is a civil matter, not a statute one. I cannot comment on the USA, but the principle of the guest house owners is similar here.
Those who argue for liberty – the right to associate and do business freely without constraint are not racist as the freedom is neutral. Liberty is like a tool, it may be used for good or ill. It is the bigot who denies trade on the basis of race who is the racist, not the person who argues for their right to associate freely.
So, no, neither racist actively nor objectively nor is it asymmetrical. Someone making this argument is being entirely consistent with libertarian philosophy. Just as are those who argue either side of the abortion debate and the death penalty debate. They merely come at it from slightly different perspectives.
Strawman.
Greg, I don’t think so… 😉
‘a more accurate comparison would be if you and a group of like-minded people lobbied the TUC to withdraw Murphy’s funding. That most certainly is coercive.’
Except that it isn’t, is it? It would be coercive if I punched the TUC persons in the face until they withdrew funding, or held their children hostage, or something coercive like that. Insisting that they stop his funding *and only insisting* is not coercion and it never will be. Your definiton of coercion is just incorrect. By your definition it is fundamentally coercive for people and groups to exercise their market freedom and not buy products they don’t want.
It comes down to one’s frame of mind. If one is thinking “I don’t like that so I’m not going to buy it or anything else at that shop” then one is exercising one’s right to choose. If one is thinking “I don’t like that and I’m going to impose my views on others because I know best and stop anyone else choosing to buy it” then one is being a nasty little, sanctimonious busybody.
Silly comment, Greg. Libertarians believe freedom is an inalienable right, i.e. only you can own your person, which the concept of slavery clearly contravenes.
bnszz, my definition of coercion is perfectly valid. Its use is not confined to physical violence or the threats thereof. If you successfully lobby the TUC to withdraw their funding then you have successfully coerced Murphy into complying with whatever you want him to do (or not). The boycotters are using the threat of loss of revenue – or reputation – to coerce the retailer into compliance. In this case removal of an item from sale. A boycott is really little more than crude blackmail – “do this or else…”
Words have more than one meaning and sometimes their use can be more subtle than people give credit for. My use of language here is precise, my meaning exact.
Actually, yes, that is how the market works. If a product or service is unpopular, then it will be withdrawn. While individually people may not have set out to coerce the supplier and nor have they, the market collectively, though, has done just that. If the retailer fails to respond to that coercion, he goes bust, does he not? Coercion is not just about threatening to punch someone in the face, it can be more subtle than that.
DocBud, yes, precisely. I have never suggested that people not be allowed to indulge in their freedom of association or expression, merely pointed out what you have managed in one sentence 😀
I take issue with your analysis. Coercion is simply the use of force or the threatened use of force, where ‘force’ constitutes an infringement of liberty, and an infringement of liberty is a physical external impediment of action. A boycott is none of these things. By definition, you cannot infringe on the liberty of another by *not* doing something. In the same way that rejecting an obligation to somebody to give them money (for instance, refusing to acknowledge tax and welfare as obligations) is not coercive; you are simply inactive. Persuading others to be similarly inactive is also not coercion in any way. This is a consistent libertarian position, and this small part of what LeftOutside says it entirely correct. It is for this reason that market decisions, I.e. Poor products and bad businesses going bust, is not a result of coercion, simply the non-exercising of free choice. So, of course, boycott these t-shirts and encourage others to do so. That is the power of freedom.
An addendum: it may be true that getting one’s knickers in a twist about some minor issue and kicking up a storm is childish or petty or whatever, but it is not coercive in nature. Unless, of course, it is actually coercive. See the tobacco prohibitionists for more information.
With respect to the Civil Rights Act, former American Libertarian Part Presidential candidate (and current Republican Presidential Nominee candidate) Ron Paul made the argument I’m referring to. Explained below:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/05/ron-paul-get-the-government-out-of-my-government.html
When you own a hotel and bar Black people what happens is that if Black people comes in and sleep in the beds you call the police–functionaries of the state–and they then take the Black people away and charge them with trespass. When you own a bus and require Black people to sit in the back and Black people sits in the front you call the police–functionaries of the state–and they then take the Black people away and charge them with trespass. When you own a lunch counter and make it whites-only if Black people sit down at the lunch counter you call the police–functionaries of the state–and they then take the Black people away and charge them with trespass.
Ron Paul’s belief is that the state should assist in amplifying social and political crises and injustices whenever the propertied wish to provoke them.
Private fee-simple property is, after all, an institution established and enforced by the government. You can hardly get the government out of what is, fundamentally, the government’s core business.
Or if you do–if you no longer rely on government to enforce your property rights, you had better be willing to hold seisin in the manner of Richard “Strongbow” de Clare–and had best start practicing with horse and lance…
So we’ve travelled to a definition of coercion where almost every act can be classified as coercion.
Your example of a market system for example. We operate under scarcity, so that no matter what I buy I will not be buying something else. Therefore every purchase I make will involve me coercing some other producer from whom I am not purchasing. A definition so broad is useless.
Coercion involves the use of force, or more commonly the threat of force. Intimidation is the threat of force, not the threat of non-violent, voluntary action. You are torturing the English language again.
Interesting stuff about Ron Paul – I might look it up, I might not. As I say, US politics is mindnumbingly tedious to me.
No, I’m not. I am using it precisely. The market is a coercive force, whether you admit to it or not or deliberately choose to misinterpret what I have said. So, too are boycotts. As I have painstakingly pointed out to both of you. They wouldn’t work otherwise. That you dislike the etymology doesn’t make my use of the term coercive incorrect.
The market is NOT coercive in the slightest. I really fail to see how you can possibly reach that conclusion. Not exercising one’s free choice is coercive, then? How on earth does that work on any conceptual level?
I’d hardly call your pointing out ‘painstaking’, you’re merely asserting things which are inconsistent and conceptually incorrect. If you choose to define coercion in this way, then why are you kicking up a fuss? A whole manner of things are therefore coercive, and the word itself loses all meaning. From what I can gather, your meaning rests on the idea of ‘people not doing what I think they ought to do’. Why ought people exercise their free choice to buy products they don’t want to buy, and why ought not people exercise their freedom of speech and association by persuading others not to buy this product? How is that coercive? Furthermore, if you genuinely believe that the market is a coercive force, how can you describe yourself as a minarchist without making redundant your entire position?
I’m sorry, Longrider, but you’re being woefully amateurish in your philosophical analysis here.
Okay, let me try again…
If you manufacture a popular product and the market changes, you either respond to the pressure caused by those changes or go under. Look again at the definition of coercion – it is not merely about force. Inaction on a large scale – the refusal to buy a product – is coercive. If one responds to the pressure caused by that (in)action, one has been coerced. It is simple etymology. Nothing amateurish. You and LO simply don’t like my use of the second or third examples of usage as defined in the dictionary. Words’ meanings evolve over time. Coercion no longer merely means the initiation of force to achieve a desired outcome, it can also mean the application of pressure and a large number of people in a marketplace exercising their free will to not buy is the application of pressure – whether they do it consciously or not. To deny this is to deny the reality of the market. It is also to deny the etymology.
I’m drawing a line under this one now, it’s gone on far enough – as we are simply repeating ourselves and getting nowhere.
Jackart won’t be happy. He goes away on holiday and you go and lose his argument for him.
But I am completely uninterested in the dictionary definition or the etymology, just interesting in the *concept* of coercion. I’ve already explained what coercion is, and, strangely enough, it agrees with LeftOutside’s definition (and that of Hobbes, Locke and Mill, while we’re on the liberalism bandwagon). Your definition makes no sense, howevever, because you’re applying what are dictionary definitions – which therefore include all possible avenues of interpretation, because it is a dictionary and not a conceptual handbook – and supposing that it ALL applies to the concept of coercion, even if it is contradictory or entirely misapplied!
Your example there, for example, is simply poor. On this basis, if I take a product to market tomorrow and I do not sell the product, I have been coerced into pulling the product from the market (because I can’t afford to keep producing somebody nobody wants). Similarly, if I open a restaurant and say ‘no blacks allowed’, and some right-minded people decide they will be encouraging many people not to eat at my restaurant, that is also coercion.
However, conceptually, none of the above has a single coercive element. Unless, of course, a dictionary happens to say so, then obviously it is true, right?
You’re way off on this one, Longrider. A boycott is totally within the non-aggression axiom. It is an organised refusal to do business with someone or some company.
Any violence, threat of violence or intimidation is a separate matter, but telling a company that if it doesn’t stop doing something you will not trade with it is neither violence nor intimidation and wholly legitimate.
“Inaction on a large scale – the refusal to buy a product – is coercive”
Absolutely not!
The dictionary gives us the meaning of words – it also acknowledges the changes in those meanings. I’ve pointed it out ad nauseum, so will cease after this, a boycott is by definition an attempt to change behaviour using pressure. That is coercive. That you don’t like it, doesn’t change it.
I’ll simply leave you with one final thought, why do we use the term market forces?
Oh and no, I’m not going to be dragged into more ever decreasing circles on that one.
Because language is not the be all and end all of defining philosophical concepts 😉 Perhaps, while you’re refusing to accept corrections, you could think on that…
So I will LOG off this discussion, and insist my computer is made of wood, thank you very much.
Murray Rothbard – ‘The Ethics of Liberty’:
“A boycott is an attempt to persuade other people to have nothing to do with some particular person or firm — either socially or in agreeing not to purchase the firm’s product. Morally a boycott may be used for absurd, reprehensible, laudatory, or neutral goals. It may be used, for example, to attempt to persuade people not to buy non-union grapes or not to buy union grapes. From our point of view, the important thing about the boycott is that it is purely voluntary, an act of attempted persuasion, and therefore that it is a perfectly legal and licit instrument of action.
Again, as in the case of libel, a boycott may well diminish a firm’s customers and therefore cut into its property values; but such an act is still a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech and property rights. Whether we wish any particular boycott well or ill depends on our moral values and on our attitudes toward the concrete goal or activity. But a boycott is legitimate per se. If we feel a given boycott to be morally reprehensible, then it is within the rights of those who feel this way to organize a counter-boycott to persuade the consumers otherwise, or to boycott the boycotters. All this is part of the process of dissemination of information and opinion within the framework of the rights of private property.”
TT – nothing I have said gainsays that. I have never said anything that suggests that it is not voluntary association. Nor have I said anywhere that people should be prevented from doing it – merely that I disapprove. It is, however, an attempt to change behaviour using pressure. That is the point. It would be pretty damned useless otherwise.
bnszz, fine, if you don’t want to accept dictionary definitions and their correct usage, that’s your prerogative – however, don’t be too surprised when I decide that further discussion is pointless. Language and its correct usage is not defined by political concepts and to try and make up your own interpretation as a definition and confine it to that is absurd. You are doing the very thing of which you wrongly accuse me. The dictionay is a reliable source of meaning – your political concept is not. You are at liberty to do as you wish of course – as was Humpty Dumpty. There is nothing to correct as both you and Left Outside have persistently argued a straw man and as such, the conversation was spiralling in ever decreasing circles, so drawing a line under it makes sense.
I’m not going to get too involved with this one except to say that a boycott is one thing but an attempt to make a silly joke unacceptable by whipping up moral outrage something else and that is what I think was being done in the case of the T shirt, an utterly trivial thing that would have gone almost entirely unnoticed if it hadn’t been trumpeted as an offence against decency. There is a long history of this stuff, it is basically witch hunting and as such is definitely coercive.
Indeed.
Regarding Ron Paul, he is essentially a social conservative who has a clear and consistent line on property rights and taxation, some of his arguments overlap with libertarianism but there are plenty of libertarians who are social liberals and who have a somewhat different take on property rights, see here for instance ( Sept. 3 on civil rights ) http://www.samizdata.net/blog/ and here http://reason.com/blog/2011/08/30/what-do-you-think-of-interraci
This all rather undermines Left Outside’s simplistic notions of libertarianism.
I can’t say I’ve taken a great deal of notice of Ron Paul – merely noted peripherally that some libertarians support his nomination. As I mentioned earlier, US politics leaves me cold.
That said, most folk tend to over simplify political philosophies, ignoring that they are usually broad churches.
The one thing you can rely on with libertarians is that they disagree as much as they agree.
Nearly missed this one:
If you want to think that sweetie, go right ahead. You certainly gave that straw man a good seeing to, didn’t you? Meanwhile black is definitely white, up is definitely down and inside most certainly is out. 😈
And for those of you who seem to think that mass inaction isn’t the application of pressure designed to initiate a change in behaviour, I would remind you that striking is an example of not doing something in order to coerce someone to amend their behaviour.
Okay, that is the last word on the matter.