The Libertarian Society of TSR.

Good response.

Can you actually construct an argument?

Maybe you could construct an argument for yourself?

Good response.

Can you actually construct an argument?

Why bother when Mises does such a good job. Hardly going to waste my time typing up the vid.

Another non-answer. Typical of you lot.

I'll get the ball rolling then shall I?

"Absence of unreasonable forced constraints on the ability to make choices"

What is unreasonable?

What is unreasonable?

Actually I have a fairly good idea what you may or may not think is unreasonable but I do not wish to construct a straw man.

Either way, this definition seems to regard liberty as something which is mechanic rather than a virtue as such. In other words why ought-liberty?

I'll get the ball rolling then shall I?

"Absence of unreasonable forced constraints on the ability to make choices"

Good question! I anticipated that this would be asked.

What could be considered unreasonable in this context depends on the harm principle.

John Stuart Mill first articulated this principle in On Liberty, where he argued that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

The next big question is: what is harm?

In natural terms man is only limited by the physical laws of our life, like gravity, mortality etc. We do not have the 'liberty' to break these natural laws (though we can circumvent them due to ingenuity). Imagining 2 men on a hypothetical land mass of fixed resources, one man is physically stronger or more intelligent that his counterpart, and so garners a greater percentile of these resources for himself. This is an exercise of his personal liberty in relation to the other man, as he is effectively suppressing the freedoms of the other individual to maximise his own. Liberty in this simplified example will always exist, unless all humans become immediately equal in every facet (something I don't foresee l), it is natural, social liberty.

Society, through the use of the state, attempts to rectify this natural liberty by replacing it with artificially created liberty, things like 'human rights', which try to limit the effects of the aforementioned natural liberty. This not necessarily a bad thing, indeed, it is necessary to maintain realistic social cohesion and productivity, however, this form of liberty is what 'ought', a construction used to protect the excessive dominance, and with it civil unrest that could occur if natural liberty was the sole dictator. The dispute lies as to where these liberties overlap too far, and the artificial suppresses the natural ( resulting in the excessive stifling of natural liberty, to the point where those with the most merit (who naturally excel and make greater use of their natural liberty) are denied the means to make the most progress ).
In short, it is like trying to put a beta wolf in charge of an alpha wolf, even though it is the alpha wolf who demonstrates the capabilities which make it better suited to the role, it is most efficient. In my opinion, there is an objective line that defines where societal liberties fall between being necessary to maintain cohesion and where it becomes deontic, and purely subjectively based.

This is the problem with "libertarian" explanations of freedom and resource distribution. They always start with some mythical situation that is not applicable to anything.

Because in order to effectively distinguish key factors, one must seperate them out, rather than treat them as a lump surely?

What good is a completely fictional and ahistorical scenario in explaining what we mean by freedom in currently existing social relations?

What good is a completely fictional and ahistorical scenario in explaining what we mean by freedom in currently existing social relations?