are you left,right or centre?

[fr0d0]

A dose of common sense needs to be in place as well. Can you imagine what would happen if the police was privatized? Companies like Google and Microsoft could go around throwing people in their own jails for any reason.

...and they do. Heck, we even justify wars/ genocide in the name of continued wealth.

[Tiberius]

I've never heard of Google throwing somebody in their own jail. Are you quite sure you are feeling alright fr0d0?

Anyway, the Libertarian position on warfare is non-interventional. Unless they attack us or our allies, there is no reason to go to war. The military should be more defensive and less offensive.

[Purple Rabbit]

@ Adrian

Well it seems Libertarians are there in all flavors and brands. As it emerges, your POV is not that far from mine. I've debated libertarians intensely on other fora. The kind I encountered most draws the line way more to the side of making shitty decisions as a holy principle to jerk of with.

With "leaving out the cases in which free choice can not yet or no longer fully be excercised" I mean the children, disabled, mentally handicapped, stranded, or otherwise impaired on free choice.

Alcohol over here is allowed at age 16.

[fr0d0]

Effectively they do... money speaks.. and there are different laws for the wealthy and the poor.. and not just on a superficial level.

[Tiberius]

Yes, a lot of Libertarians are completely 100% anarchists, however I've never been persuaded that way. I do call myself an anarchist, but in reality I'm a minarchist (minimal government).

I tend to agree with 90% of what the American Libertarian Party and the UK Libertarian Party go with, since they are minarchist in nature (as the anarchist Libertarians say creating a political party is itself anti-anarchistic).

As for people who cannot exersize free choice, of course choices will have to be made for them by their parents or carers. I've already argued on this forum in favour of viewing children as "property" of their parents (in a simplistic way), and I don't advocate letting children run riot. Of course, if an anarchist family wants to do that, that's up to them. I doubt it'd work, but kudos to them for trying

I'm sure there are arguments for letting 16 year olds have alcohol, although I'd prefer to see some level set for which all intoxicants are allowed (18 just springs to mind because at 18 you tend to be more mature). Over here, the smoking age is 15, which is abhorrent in my opinion.

Effectively they do... money speaks.. and there are different laws for the wealthy and the poor.. and not just on a superficial level.

Surely that's an error in the justice system rather than an error of economics / privitisation. Unless I'm thinking down the wrong tracks...you are being very vague. Are you talking about how companies can "buy" their way in courts by using clever lawyers to delay trials and get out of court settlements?

[fr0d0]

The justice system is owned by people with money. That's clear on many levels. I'm being vague because I have no specific facts, just an awareness of how things work from past experience and seeing how things work in our society. Corporations call the shots in politics and law- everything that matters. We're a financially driven society and those individuals and corporations at the top of the pile get to decide who starves and who gets to sweat for as little renumeration as society will allow without rebelling.