h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A dissertation about this unique and growing political and social philosophy from one who knows, but I've tried to distance myself from the subject and report it in a neutral, journalistic style. All comments will be greatly appreciated (except for really, really stupid ones ). http://www.h2g2.com/A402166

It's interesting to me how the news media is almost embarrassed to admit that libertarianism exists. In the last US election, the libertarians had managed to get a majority (I don't remember which state.) When the reporters read off the stats, one asked "What do libertarians believe in?" The other reporter answered "Nothing!"

Worse yet, your average voter is scared of libertarianism. The prevailing notion is that if the candidate isn't Republican or Democrat, there's not a chance of them getting elected.

Of course. The big two have put a lot of effort into instilling the meme that voting third party is "throwing your vote away," because the idea now is to vote against the candidate you don't agree with rather than trying to elect one that you do. In fact, I'd rather make a statement with my vote than to cast a vote for a candidate that I don't believe in.

A couple of comments on the article:

First of all, I thought it was great - clear, lucid, interesting and informative.

It might be worth putting in a couple of links to external sites? I'm not sure if there is any definitive site for Libertarianism as such, but there is one for objectivisim - http://www.aynrand.org/ if memory serves correctly.

Please everybody remember we've been asked to stay on topic; it is with some trepidation that I mention that the Gun Control paragraph struck me as very US-centric. The example comparing Florida's murder rate to the rest of the US at best tells us the effects of minor variations of the gun laws in a country with a constitutionally-enshrined right to bear arms. (And from a statistical point of view it doesn't even tell us that - a single snapshot like that is not very meaningful.) It would be more illuminating to compare countries where weapon ownership has very light restrictions (e.g. America) to countries where weapon ownership is almost impossible (e.g. the UK - a few years ago owning firearms was unusual and subject to tight regulation, but now it's almost impossible; farmers are allowed to have shotguns, and that's about it.) And since these kinds of things are invariably contentious, it might be a good idea to quote your sources if you are presenting statistics - where did those 12% and 21% figures come from? The OECD? A US gun lobby group? In some ways it might be better just not to mention any statistics at all - to present anything meaningful here would require enough detail to fill an article of its own.

Please *please* let's not descend into a fight over the rights and wrongs of gun control here. I'm just commenting that being British I read that paragraph and thought "That is talking about a world I don't live in" - I believe it would improve the article to make it a little more accessible to non-US citizens here. (And I am *not* expressing any opinions on gun control here. Please don't presume that I am. )

Gun control is a massive issue in the US, but I guess it isn't elsewhere. I could cite the source for the statistics, but I guess it would serve the article better if it were just eliminated... every other issue I mention is an international one. Granted, the one on defense is Ameri-centric, but it is still important to the rest of the world, as well.

Thanks for the objectivism link. I was already planning on adding a few links, but on your suggestion, I think I'll expand it. Along with a link to the H2G2 Entry on Socialism, I'll put in a link for the US LIbertarian Party. It already has one for the World's Smallest Political Quiz, which is linked on every single libertarian page you could possibly visit.

Colonel Sellers, pondering an article on gun control as his next, next project.

nod - the gun control section is way too strong.

Everyone *should* have a gun?? Surely a libertarian would be saying that everyone should have the choice of whether they own a gun or not? Why should the state enforce peoples ownership of guns? What happens if people can't afford to carry guns? What if they don't have hands?

I also don't think it's that compulsorary, in general: unlike the war on drugs, the war on guns has met with tolerable sucess where its been tried. And Libertarians don't really have a problem with banning stuff - I imagine that private nuclear arsenals would still be illegal, as would dumping toxic waste into the rivers.

More comments on what the state *should* do under Libertarianism are probably a good idea. You mention Defence, but Justice and Law is another one, at the least. I think Police is probably another one. I'm guessing they want to keep a state control Currency too. others?

Other comments - some sort of distinction should probably be drawn against anarchism, which has some similarities.
- dealing with the poverty problem: the traditional complaint against Libertarianism is that its great if you're well off, but poor people have a tendency to revert to third world conditions. How accurate is this, and what's the solution?

The page has been updated, with new external links and the internal socialism link. The gun control paragraph is gone.

Everyone "should" have a gun, but no one is going to force anyone... libertarianism is about choice, after all. Personal nuclear arsenals pose a danger in and of themselves because of the possibility of accidents, radioactive leaks, and radioactive waste. Toxic waste creates a direct health threat to everyone in the area. However, a gun, in and of itself, poses no threat to anyone. So you can support the banning of that other stuff and still be a card-carrying libertarian.

The platform issues I provided are straight off the US Libertarian Party's homepage, rewritten to avoid copyright infringement (although, since I am carrying a message that they want to disseminate, I'm sure they wouldn't have minded if I simply nicked the entire site). They don't address police or justice or law. Law, for one, is a case by case basis... the arguments about drug control, abortion, and such touch on that issue... their arguments about the law as it pertains to sex cover that as well (perhaps a good replacement paragraph for the gun control one). As for justice, they support the judicial structure, even though they disagree with many of the rulings that sometimes come out of it. But then, nobody ever is. As for police, they are of course necessary to protect the people from coercion and fraud, which is what libertarianism is all about, but the people must be ever vigilant for abuse. That isn't any different from the current structure.

As for third-world reversion, my stance is that it will be the opposite. Hardline libertarians want ultimate economic freedom, but I think we've already seen in the US exactly what that entails... people getting trampled underfoot by wealthy corporations and trusts. The economy still must be regulated to some degree. Monopolies must be broken up (seeya, Microshaft!! ) standards must be established and monitored, and wages must be, to some degree, protected. I've read arguments for the abolishment of the minimum wage, and I think they're rediculous. Nobody could possibly agree with every stance of the libertarian party, but it still has a lot of really good ideas whose time has come. But back to the subject, with libertarianism, prices come down, employment goes up, and the entire society benefits. The Republicans want to ignore families that are starving right here in America. The Democrats want to throw social programs at them. The Libertarians want to make the price of food come down. Which is the more practical approach?

I think that your statement that everyone "should" have a gun is rather subjective. I'd rather say that everyone should have the "right" to choose whether or not they want a gun, even then with the caveat that certain people (convicted felons, etc.) could be prohibited from owning guns as a potential threat to the well being of their neighbors.

I'm going to avoid embroiling myself in the gun control debate (I'm a Libertarian, myself, and no way do I agree with the statement "everyone should have a gun.")

As far as the article itself goes, I really like it. My only suggestion at this point would be to put the definitions that are in the footnotes up in the text -- I think that would enhance the readability of that section. Flipping up and down the page 4 times in quick succession to read all of the footnotes was kind of annoying.

Anyways, good work!

Many thanks. I had been mulling that over quite a bit, actually, whether to keep the footnotes or use parenthesis. I was rather split on the issue, so I let yours be the deciding vote. They're in parenthesis now.

Are you gun control people through?

Good article on a whole, nice of you to include the distinctions between liberal, lib'tarian con'ism and author'ism,
though you may have stereotyped them a little (simply applying economic/social (de)regulation yes/no possibilities is a bit black/white to me, but then it is an introduction and it does help).

I did think that the second half, on The Libertarian Party, might be redubbed The Libertarian Party In the United States of America...
since it is not THE Libertarian Party, now is it? Furthermore, if you really want to have the article deal only with lib'tarianism as a mainstream of political thought, delete the Party line part altogther.
Would make the whole thing less evident in its political preference as well, since though Cl. Sellers did mention trying to write journalisticky and all, it is clear that he is much in support of libertarianism. Note that I'm not really suggesting to take the second half out, just the benefits of doing it.

I'm going to disagree with this one. The bit on the party line gives specifics, where the stuff prior deals with generalities. So the first part gives you a bit of background, and the rest of it gives you something you can use. And as for it being all about the US, that isn't true. The Libertarian parties of the US, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, etc. all keep in touch with each other, and agree on the major issues. It's definitely an international movement.

Could you maybe add some info on which countries have up and coming libertarian parties? With links, if available?

No, because I don't see how it will help the article. The Libertarian parties of Sweden, Russia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US all get a mention, but I don't see any smooth way of working in the links to the parties of the non-Americans. Plus, as I said, the Libertarian parties of the different countries all have the same basic party platform, so one link serves for the rest. And I definitely don't think the article will be helped by further research to dig up every insignificant country that has a libertarian or libertarian-like political party. That's the sort of research that will quickly approach the realm of diminishing returns.

Hmm-mm... just reread the article and though the opening phrases to the paragraph on the Lib Party gave me the impression that's it's only the US party line being explained in it, I see now that it is indeed the general lib party line you've listed. At least, if you say it's the general party line, since I know too little about lib'ism throughout the world to judge But I'll believe you.

Thanks for your recommendation. You'll be glad to know that we think this entry is great, and it has now gone into the Editorial Process for future inclusion in the Edited Guide. When it does get into the Edited Guide, we will email to let you know, but please bear in mind it can take a while for entries to go through the sub-editing system.

So there you go then.

Editorial note: This thread has been moved off the Peer Review page to the entry's own forums, as it has now been accepted for editing.

Ooooh... neat trick...

The only serious problem I have with the article is the inclusion of the US Democratic Party as an example of a liberal political philosophy. This is hardly true anymore. They're faily centrist nowadays and are hard to tell apart from the Republicans on most issues. I think that something like the Green Party would be a better example of a liberal party than the Democrats. If I were to look up "liberal" in a dictionary or encyclopedia, I wouldn't be expecting to see a picture of Al Gore or Bill Clinton next to it.

Eh, the Dems are still liberal enough I'd say, though the Green Party is certainly more liberal, and the Democratic Party has gotten at least in its mainstream somewhat more conservative. I mean, liberal doesn't mean socialist here. There's an American Socialist Party that covers that extreme quite well.