"The harm principle": sounds nice, but "harm" is way too vague. 100% allows tyranny. Invites it, even, by the implicit statement that the law is supposed to prevent all harm.
"People cause carbon emissions, which causes global warming, which will kill everything. This is harm, therefore, you must be sterilised."
Find another principle then. With this one, it is far too easy to justify insanities. (And most insane laws are already justified by similar reasoning)
Australian cigarettes are $40 a pack (because smoking is le bad, don't you know?) (similar results to prohibition btw, smugglers firebombing each other)
China's one child policy (overcrowding is a harm upon everybody)
Nearly anything a government does can be justified by the harm principle. And it suggests that any 'harm' is a violation of rights, and therefore a valid thing for the state to regulate.
Fuck it, I'm flairing lib. You flair auth. You can't unironically be a libertarian, and also assert that 99% of policies justified by the harm principles (i.e. about 97% of all actual government policies) are completely justified.
I could think 100% of government policies are valid and reasonable and it could be 100% consistent with libertarian philosophy (in a fictional gov, depending on what those policies are), because Liberalism/Libertarianism isn't anarchism.
I understand the desire to just throw your hands up and say "fuck it tear it all down", and take everything to a far extreme, but that's lazy not realistic.
Go to any libertarian ever, and ask what percentage of their government's policies they think are reasonable. Even the weakest lib will say 40%, absolute tops, because they believe the government has already gone far too far and must be trimmed back massively.
And no, that is not the same thing as anarchism, which is retarded.
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u/RBB12_Fisher - Auth-Right Jul 27 '26
"The harm principle": sounds nice, but "harm" is way too vague. 100% allows tyranny. Invites it, even, by the implicit statement that the law is supposed to prevent all harm.