Comments Elsewhere

Micha: “Uh, oh, Rad, you’re coming dangerously close to defining me back into the libertarian movement. When should I expect my Welcome Back party? ;)”

Hee hee. Well, I was on the “family resemblence” side of the definitional debate with you, so you won’t get any complaints from me here. I don’t think that you have to hold a rigorous natural rights theory of justice to count as a libertarian. You have to hold it to keep from counting as grossly mistaken, but that’s another issue entirely…

Stefan: “On the other hand, maybe Rand is afraid that if we let Micha into the fold of libertarians as a consequentialist …”

Ah, but remember that Rand and the ARIans think that Micha and others are already in the fold of libertarians; that’s much of why they object to “libertarianism” as such. The basic idea (as expressed, e.g., by Peikoff in “Fact and Value”) is that libertarianism involves not only specific claims about political outcomes but also a certain attitude towards those claims (i.e., that your primary political alliances are with anyone and everyone who agree with those claims, regardless of the reason for their agreement), and that the lack of “quality control” involved is pernicious, or unprincipled, or something.

Also, of course, ARIans have very strong disagreements with specific groups of libertarians over issues such as the legitimacy of an enforced monopoly government, legal protections of “intellectual property”, the advisability of annihilating Tehran in a nuclear massacre, etc.