Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point: Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo: Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...
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Although in theory there shouldn't be much difference - as long as you're talking about equality of opportunity and not Harrison Bergeron style equality, and you are trying to achieve equality by maximizing rather than minimizing opportunities for everyone.
I'll play, but while I'd obviously prefer freedom, there are different freedoms and different equalities:
Freedom to fail
Equality of opportunity
Equality of outcome
If you are going to drill for information, maybe a better definition is in order.
Government mandated equality of any definition has a strong tendency to drag everyone toward the lowest common denominator.
cf. Roderick Long's Equality: The Unknown Ideal
If the government is making such a mandate, it's explicitly asserting that we are unequal to it. Under a reasonable definition of equality, the government would be seen to lack the authority to mandate such a move.
equality of outcome is an unachievable ideal.