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Most libertarians [...] believe in minimalist government, not no government.

This is true, but it's somewhat complicated. Whether { we can do away with all government tomorrow } and whether { coercive national governments with minimal powers are the perpetual ideal } are two separate questions.

Some libertarians (ex. "Anarcho-Capitalists" (not to be confused with any other kind of anarchist (a chickpea is not a chicken))) believe in no government - which of course is a long-term vision. This means universal recognition of NAP, and all higher-level governance being voluntary.

Most libertarians are gradualists - we recognize that coercive government is a consequence of human folly which is not going to disappear overnight. Pure free market is a more complex system of social organization, which requires a more literate populace with better access to technologies that will make the centralized state obsolete. Some pro-capitalist libertarian gradualists even go as far as advocating direct wealth redistribution, because it would be much more efficient than the welfare state - a step in the right direction.

The transition to a freer society is not inevitable (no "historical determinism" here), and the "powers that be" (and their moochers) will of course resist. But many trends are working in our favor. Globalization and cultural integration will make nationalist collectivism less potent. The Internet is making censorship very difficult. Secession movements are becoming more and more popular, leading to more intergovernmental competition. Intergovernmental competition rewards the freest economies with the inflow of brains and capital. You get the idea.

We'll end up with thousands of nations (including seasteads and some day space stations), and people will be free to vote with their feet. Some will have freer markets than others, but the more choice people have the closer we come to the ideal of doing away with involuntary government.

--libman (old account)

(Some selective comments on what you wrote...)

That's because you're trying to boil everything down to only 2 "sides" [...]

I'm not doing anything of the sort. I'm proposing a more fragmented and modular system of government, with more decisions being made closer to home. With more smaller states and less Federal homogenization, you'd get more choices. Instead of the more densely populated areas fighting the less densely populated ones, they would get a civilized divorce and no longer be in the same boat.

The site / blog I've linked to in my previous post, A Thousand Nations , talks a lot more about the benefits of intergovernmental competition, and people being able to choose their ideal political system by voting with their feet.

I disagree that we need more states; more states equals more administrative overhead.

The administrative overhead necessary to maintain separate statehood is a tiny tiny part compared to the rest of the budget. I am not proposing any Liechtenstein or even Luxembourg sized states - the population of the New York metro CSA is nearly that of Australia, LA+SD that of the Netherlands, Chicago that of Switzerland! In many cases the overhead would go down, as for example NYC would no longer have to "interface" with NJ and CT to deal with matters affecting the outskirts of its metro area. And the "wasteful legislative gridlock" between Albany and NYC (or Springfield and Chicago, etc) would decrease.

Having more intergovernmental competition within one nation and culture, where people can move very easily between the states, would provide more "frame of reference" on which policy ideas are producing the best results. There'd be more experimentation, and good ideas would spread from state to state. This leads to great incentives to increase efficiency.

[...] actually, it screws over the people who can't afford cars and are stuck staying there [...]

There is no magic wand to solve all problems overnight, but granting major cities statehood and allowing for more intergovernmental competition is a step in the right direction.

As civilization advances, moving becomes easier and easier. Think back to the time this country was founded - moving was an ordeal! Now we have Internet real estate listings, planes, highways, U-Haul, GPS navigation, pods.com, telecommuting, video chat to stay in touch with friends and relatives, etc. With the rate of technological change accelerating, things will get even easier and more affordable in the decades to come.

--libman

Those proposed borders seem mostly random to me - they certainly don't correlate with political polling / voting trends, which is what's most important when segmenting geographic political entities!

Plus we need more states, not fewer. If democracy works at all, it works least badly when you have a smaller number of people bound together for collective decisions. Some states might further delegate power down to the municipal level, while others, like the major metropolitan areas, would probably remain more centralized (another case of "win-win"). The smaller and more internally-likeminded a state, the easier it will be for people to "vote with their feet".

True freedom comes not from competition between political candidates or parties in a winner-take-all system, but from intergovernmental competition, where everyone can select under which system they choose to live. As civilization advances, moving from one jurisdiction to another will become easier and easier, and some institutions of governance may not even constitute geographical monopolies anymore, merely becoming services that you subscribe to...

--libman

Voting puts you on the same level as all idiots, who tend to be in majority. I'm not saying you shouldn't vote for someone like Ron Paul, but don't expect perfect results. A better solution is to move to a country where people are smart enough to understand basic economics. Such a country doesn't yet exist, but Hong Kong and Singapore come closest. There may also be hope of creating such a country, someday... Within the United States, there's also something called the Free State Project...

--libman

I used to be one, but libertarians who claim that "the two big parties are equally evil" are dickheads! Republicans are just "libertarian lite", with a better understanding of geopolitics and the hands-on dirty details of gradualist reform. Democrats are wrong on everything across the board, starting with complete retardation in understanding of basic economics. Libertarians (radicals, not gradualists) have the luxury of sitting in their futurist Ivory Tower and not having to deal with the disgusting "lesser evil" tactics of the here and now. Convince Republicans to only pursue their "culture warrior" bullshit locally (on the state, municipal, or ideally neighborhood association level), and they're good people. Their halfhearted appeasement of the functional idiots who are religious is politically inevitable (democracy sucks), and is far less harmful than the Democrats' appeasement and bribery of the dysfunctional idiots on their side!

Political dodging of questions like the age of the Earth is not ignorance - to the contrary, it is strategic awareness of what the democratic circus requires. Obama has done the same thing! AGW is the only scientific issue on which there is genuine disagreement, because it is the one issue on which the government-funded "scientific community" is largely wrong, or rather it's bribed and coerced to jump to politically convenient conclusions. Real scientists know how to tell politicians "we don't know", "don't jump to conclusions", or "there's no cause for alarm". Real climate science is a process of data gathering and factual analysis - not a popular democracy, a shouting contest, or a barrage of emotional videos that end with the Earth catching fire! Real scientists know that, without a time machine, our knowledge of climate history is very approximate at best. So real scientists are suppressed by the system, while the politically-convenient greeny radical are promoted instead...

If you study the actual science, you will inevitably see that political alarmism over AGW is baseless, and very likely could be the most dangerous fraud in human history! It is a set of politically desirable solutions in search of a problem, and if the problem doesn't exist it must be manufactured. No crisis - no need to retain / expand / monopolize the power of the state! The Soviet commies knew they couldn't win because the relative advantages of Economic Freedom were obvious and inescapable - the only way to enslave the world is to homogenize all governance. So they stepped back, regrouped, and painted themselves green! Only a world government can make communism possible, by removing all frame of reference and all intergovernmental competition that has been the only source of freedom throughout human history. And only a bullshit lie like an alien invasion or a global ecological crisis could provide the excuse. After the AGW hysteria goes the way of all other politically-bought pseudo-scientific fraud that occurred throughout history (ex. Lysenkoism), the people who advocated it should be treated the way Nazi supporters were treated after the spring of 1945! A "climatologist" without AGW wouldn't even be able to get a job flipping burgers!

Never mind that the total human contributions to greenhouse gases are like a mouse riding on the back of an elephant (the elephant being water vapor, natural sources of CO2, etc). Never mind that all their projections are based on the assumption that there will be ZERO TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION in the 21st century! Never mind that the margins of error on their CO2 ice core samples and temperature measurements before modern satellites are greater than the alleged temperature changes! Never mind that there are natural temperatu

(As noted in my previous posts, I am a libertarian gradualist who is perfectly fine siding with Republicans in this election, but, to make things more interesting, in this post I will defend the long-term libertarian ideal.)

Libertarianism is just a slightly less honest version of anarchism.

Libertarianism (which in USA'ian usage means pure free market capitalism) has nothing to do with anarchism. The only connection between the two is that Murray Rothbard (possibly as a joke) used the term Anarcho-Capitalism, where the a-word is used as a descriptive qualifier for purity of capitalism: no involuntary monopolies of any kind (ex. no hierarchy in jurisdiction of fully independent polycentric courts). That does not equate it to the common definition of "anarchism" - a chickpea is not a chicken!

A free market capitalist society unavoidably involves the emergence of hierarchies - firstly within families on the basis of Parents' Rights, and then on the basis of voluntary association in the many areas of human endeavor where hierarchical organization may constitute an advantage.

People would find it in their interest to form voluntary groups on the basis of contractual agreement, ranging in size from a family to a neighborhood association to an alliance of charter cities established for a common purpose (ex. common infrastructure). Very few people would choose to exist without contractually-established institutions of any kind.

The political sentiments are pretty much the same...

The political sentiments are almost polar opposites. Anarchists are brain-damaged emotionalist idiots trying to get back at their parents for grounding them. They even make their Marxist pals seem rational in comparison! Free market capitalists like von Mises, Hayek, Karl Popper, Rothbard, Hoppe, Rand, the Friedmans (etc, etc, etc) are brilliant economists and philosophers. Gaining an understanding of free market capitalism requires many years of diligent study. Gaining an understanding of anarchism requires a death-metal CD and huffing some paint thinner.

...and both are equally untenable...

So let me get this straight... A world with 200 sovereign governments that we have today is perfectly tenable, but if governments become fragmented into smaller and smaller sovereign entities that people are free to choose between then at some point it becomes untenable? At what point does that happen? Switzerland and Liechtenstein can decide on matters of jurisdiction based on geographic borders, but several Liechtenstein-sized (or smaller) neighborhoods / city-states cannot?

...but the libertarians wrap theirs up with ideals about private property to pretend they aren't just a bunch of crazies.

OK, fine, we're a bunch of crazies. The reason why free market economics works so well (i.e. the well-demonstrated causal relationship from economic freedom to growth) is... crazy juice! The reason why free market economists (ex) were so accurate in predicting this current economic crisis is... more crazy juice! Etc.

So, if we're just a bunch of crazies, with our silly econometrics and non-aggression principles and all that, then why not permit things like seasteading (without the threat of Uncle Sam sending in the navy) or private land secession (without Uncle Sam restricting access and trade)? Why do you need to tax and otherwise enslave a bunch of crazies? Why not just let us free?

Anyone who believes fundamentally that everything ought to be private falls into one of two categories. People who believe that when everything turns pri

"Nose dive"? That is bullshit from the socialist fantasy bubble! Now here's a summary of objective benchmarks by which a country's reputation can be judged...

USA is #1 in overall National Brand ranking, and #1 in international tourism receipts (in spite of really shooting itself in the foot with all the post-9/11 security theater). USA gets more foreign investment than any other country - more than twice as much as the runnerup. It has the world's most respected universities, and some of the most admired and best managed companies. USA's credit rating went down a bit under Obama, but only a handful of countries rank higher. It ranks higher among preferred immigration destinations than most of Europe (sadly too many survey respondents thought France was a romantic destination, even though most people who visit it are disappointed) (and justly behind small Economic Freedom champs like SG and NZ).

USA's reputation was at an "all-time low" shortly after the Revolution, when it was seen as a pirate nation of rootless migrants and uncivilized wilderness. USA's reputation gradually went up and up during the 19th century, leapt upward as it became a superpower and a powerful anti-colonial influence after WW1, and went further up in the civilized world after WW2 and during the Cold War.

--libman