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points by whimsicalism 5 days ago | 0 comments
I'm perfectly fine being nosy and intervening in voluntary transactions between consenting adults - same reason I support taxation.
[–] soerxpso 4 days ago
Please remain amenable to that argument when it's made about abortion, gay marriage, etc, then. There are a variety of transactions people want to arbitrarily regulate based on what they think is "obviously a net bad" and you shouldn't assume that your personal taste is going to be the one catered to by government forever.
[–] cowlevel 4 days ago
It's not an argument in itself, it's just rejecting a counter-argument. The opposite of "it's never okay for the government to interfere in voluntary transactions" isn't "the government must always interfere", it's "sometimes it's okay for the government to interfere"
[–] soerxpso 4 days ago
Nothing distinguishes your "I want the government to ban this because I think it's icky" from anyone else's. It absolutely is the same argument.
[–] cowlevel 3 days ago
You seem to be rejecting the premise that different things are different. If someone believes that cleaning chemicals should be locked up in supermarkets for child safety, that doesn't mean they believe bread should be locked up in supermarkets. Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
[–] cucumber3732842 4 days ago
Government intervention into what is essentially private consumer behavior (not like this is a deal between MSFT and Intel or whatever) is dangerous, incompatible with the values of personal freedom and should be invoked only in extremely rare and narrowly scoped circumstances.

Now, I'm willing to accept that people will disagree about what deserves intervention and how much is acceptable. We can bicker about how much retail sports betting, guns, drugs, adult content, etc, etc, should be curtailed, that's fine.

But the hill I will die on is that people, such as yourself, who use a situations like this, where the overwhelming majority will probably want some amount of intervention as a soapbox to peddle intervention into people's private behavior for it's own sake like it's some sort of good default policy are evil at their very core and should be ridiculed, shunned and marginalized for the benefit of us all.

[–] freejazz 4 days ago
A bit dramatic, no?
[–] whimsicalism 4 days ago
Evil at my very core for favoring sports gambling regulation? Christ, the libertarians on this site are histrionic.
[–] ToValueFunfetti 4 days ago
You did say you're perfectly fine intervening in a way that appeared general- that is, I don't think it's wildly out of line to read you as saying 'there is no tradeoff' rather than that 'the tradeoff is worthwhile in this particular case'.
[–] whimsicalism 4 days ago
I don't think it is on face impermissible to intervene in voluntary transactions. I'm not saying government should intervene just for the fun of it.
[–] stickfigure 5 days ago
Great! I'm sure you won't mind if our Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice goes through your financial transactions, browser history, messaging, friends list, and geolocation records looking for signs of improper behavior. We're here to help you avoid impure thoughts!
[–] saghm 5 days ago
I don't believe you actually have trouble understanding that the opinion that some private transactions are worth making illegal is equivalent to thinking that literally no privacy rights exist. I think you're smart enough to know that people can think that it should be possible to prosecute a company nationally advertising that they provide a service without thinking that it should be possible for the government to arbitrarily decide to force a citizen to turn over all of their private communications without a court order.
[–] ozgrakkurt 4 days ago
Banning drugs, smoking and gambling is not the same as a dystopian government.

I know several people that had their lives severely impacted by these things and they were all regular people.

[–] soperj 4 days ago
they already do
[–] wat10000 4 days ago
I know it's difficult for the libertarian mind to comprehend, but one can be in favor of some government intervention without being in favor of all.
[–] pixl97 4 days ago
The libertarians and housecats saying rings true for a reason.
[–] cowlevel 4 days ago
The saying in question:

Libertarians are like house cats. They’re convinced of their fierce independence while dependent on a system they don’t appreciate or understand.