There’s lots of things our government does that I disagree with. So I try to elect people who will pass laws that I agree with. Sometimes I lose and a bunch of laws are passed I don’t like.
I don’t claim then that those laws are “forced” against me and that my rights are being violated.
And that’s the reason why many of us just can’t debate some libertarians, because they have this double standard: If they like the law personally, it’s fine but if they don’t like it, they are being forced to obey it and that’s just evil!
I don’t think laws I don’t like are evil. They were passed through our democratic process and I can try to get that changed. I don’t always get my way. That’s what democracy is all about. Sometimes your side loses.
If libertarians said, “Well, we lost, but we’ll try to win next time” then we can discuss the merits of libertarian philosophy. But instead we often get “You people who won are taking away my right to not obey the laws I don’t feel like obeying!”
Well, suck it up. We all have laws we don’t like that we have to obey. That’s what being in a democratic society is all about.
The main problem I have with libertarian philosophy is that they see programs where we ask everyone to pitch in a little to help everyone a lot as “theft” and then complain that they are “forced at gunpoint” to pay taxes to support this stuff.
That’s where they lose me. Every society in the history of this planet has asked its members to support it in some way. Even the most basic society made you pick berries for the good of the tribe.
We can disagree on how much we should do — that’s a legitimate debate. We can discuss how to make taxation fairer.
But when libertarians say any program is a violation of their rights and all taxation is theft, then instead of looking principled, they just look, well, selfish.
Pick some berries, guys.
ventrellaquest.com 
Actually cats are quite capable of going feral and taking care of themselves. Just because they know where the food bowl is doesnt mean they need it.
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I’m glad I look selfish to you, because selfishness is a virtue.
“It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leadership and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism’s perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leadership and “protection” against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value-they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice—they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a passionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against “selfishness,” they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-worship of a tribal lone wolf. But their leaders—the theoreticians of altruism—know better. Immanuel Kant knew it; John Dewey knew it; B. F. Skinner knows it; John Rawls knows it. Observe that it is not the mindless brute, but reason, intelligence, ability, merit, self-confidence, self-esteem that they are out to destroy.”
–Philosophy: Who Needs It
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Yeah, that Ayn Rand — what an, honest, caring person that we’d all like to be like.
If that’s your model of what humans should be like, then sure, I can understand why you think selfishness is a virtue.
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I’m certain that you do not understand whatsoever, otherwise you’d quit your sarcastic, condescending tone and your support for theft. And consdering your anti-intellectual view of Ayn Rand, I’m safe to assume that you’re either 1. completely ignorant of her or 2. completely ignorant in general. Either way, it makes no difference because you are simply one state-worshiper against an entire movement advocating for individual rights.
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Well – Ayn Rand wrote a whole book on that very subject “The Virtue of Selfishness” explaining that looking out for your own self first is the only moral way to live, otherwise you enslave yourself to others’ desires. And slavery is bad, I guess? I wasn’t able to understand her argument – so I remain deeply amoral and believe in living collectively (to some extent).
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