Other FAQs And Reference Documents

Part of the "Critiques of Libertarianism" site.
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

Last updated 11/29/10.

There's a large amount of good information out there on the web, if only you can dredge it up. Here are some FAQs and reference sites that can help in discussions with libertarians.

Logical Fallacies and Propaganda

Propaganda Analysis.: Simple, clear descriptions of the techniques underlying the vast majority of libertarian argument. See especially "Unwarranted Extrapolations".
Scrutinizing Propaganda: J. E. Hill's Internet Infidels discussion of propaganda devices.
Propaganda: Collin Smith's descriptions of a number of propaganda tricks that are used to manipulate audiences.
Word Tricks & Propaganda.: How the mainstream media server their corporate/political masters.
The Atheism Web: Logic & Fallacies.: Briefly covers principles of argument and many sorts of fallacies.
Logic And Argument. University of Victoria Writer's Guide.
Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies.: The most comprehensive and best organized web guide I've found yet. Highly recommended. Excellent references and further links.
The Crisis of Public Reason: Phil Agre provides one of the most compact insights into modern public discourse ever written. And wallops Hayek in the process.
The New Jargon: Phil Agre discusses the rhetorical technology of association and projection used to subvert rationality in political argument.
Conservative Rhetoric: Phil Agre discusses the common patterns of conservative propaganda employed in the Florida Recounts. These are very commonly encountered interacting with libertarians, especially projection.

Libertarianism

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Libertarianism: A well-balanced, non-propaganda overview of right and left libertarianism, presenting some of the major issues.
The New Right and Anarcho-capitalism.: A survey of the varieties of anarcho-capitalist libertarianism. Chapter 36 of "Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism" by Peter Marshall.
History of the Libertarian Movement: From New Libertarian, an ezine that attempts to bring together both left and right libertarians.
The Liberty Poll and What it Means.: A Liberty magazine poll measured variation and change in influences and beliefs of libertarians (at least those that they sampled.) Contains very nice capsule descriptions of writers influential to libertarians. Also describes a fundamental moral schism among libertarians.

Liberalism

Liberalism FAQ and its model, a Libertarian FAQ.

Chris Holt wrote a close parallel of Eric Raymond's Libertarian FAQ. I recommend opening two windows or printing both to compare side by side.

Liberalism FAQ

Tom Asquith's fine overview of varieties of liberalism and how they contrast with other "isms". Peculiarly, this FAQ describes different varieties of libertarianism much better than libertarian FAQs.

LIBERALISM RESURGENT: A Response to the Right.

Steve Kangas' enormous review of liberal responses to right wing (including libertarian) claims.

The Short Faq On Liberalism.: A positive statement of what Liberalism means. It's surprising how many liberals have never seen a straightforward presentation of liberalism, and rely on their intuitive conceptions.
The Long Faq On Liberalism.: Partly inspired by the Non-Libertarian FAQ, but written at much greater length, the Long Faq On Liberalism rebuts many libertarian attacks on liberal positions.
Glossary Of Political And Economic Terms.: Basic, acceptable definitions essential to discussion of modern politics and economics.

Liberals and Libertarians #1

How libertarians misrepresent themselves as classical liberals by focusing on means, not ends. Part of a new site about Classical Liberals. (Archived version here.)

Real Classical Liberalism and US Government

Locke's "Second Treatise on Government".: An important source of ideas for the US Constitution, and the source of some libertarian claims as well. Also available as html.
Declaration Of Independence.
Constitution Of The United States of America.
Bill Of Rights.: The above three documents are frequently the subjects of tenuous claims by libertarians. It's useful to see ALL of what they really say.
The Federalist Papers.: A pre-ratification defense and explication of the purposes of the Constitution by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.
Web Guide to The Constitution of the United States: Part of The Constitution Notebook Program Home Page. Links by section and amendment to relevant pages on the web, which are heavily skewed towards the fringe.
Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, Natural Rights: Jeremy Bentham, founder of utilitarianism, explains why natural rights are "nonsense on stilts", and points out that every right destroys some liberty.
NEW 6/07: The Liberal Idea: Stephen Holmes explains how modern liberals follow the traditions of the "classical" liberals, contrary to libertarian revisionist propaganda.

Miscellaneous

Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Human rights do not start or end with property.
Human Rights: Chimeras In Sheep's Clothing?: Professor Andrew Heard's overview of the origin, nature, and content of human rights.
Militia - History And Law Faq: An excellent and comprehensive FAQ rebutting much of the misinformation about militias and the 2nd Amendment spread by the modern militia movement, libertarians, the NRA, and others. Part of the Militia Watchdog site.
Idiot Legal Arguments: A Casebook for Dealing with Extremist Legal Arguments: Bernard Sussman has compiled a huge collection of legal citations concerning the lunatic legal claims of militia-mythology that tax scofflaws, neo-anarchists (and sometimes libertarians) often repeat. You can get an idea of the claims, but this is fairly impenetrable for laymen. From the fabulous Militia Watchog site. While now at the ADL site, Bernard Sussman states that he is independent.
The Social Dilemmas: Leon Felkins provides good explanations of the dilemmas, though he fails to even wonder why our solutions work as well as they do.
Skepticism and Libertarianism reading list.: A rebuttal to some libertarian propaganda slipped into Skeptical Enquirer.
Encyclopedia Of Law And Economics: Contents: Some excellent summations of the research on a variety of subjects. Seems non-ideological. See especially The Coase Theorem (PDF) and Takings (PDF).
Common Property and Regulation of the Environment: The bibliographical database of the Encyclopedia Of Law & Economics
Private And Common Property Rights (PDF): Part of the Encyclopedia Of Law & Economics
Internet Resources for Human Rights Issues: Andrew Heard's resource list for his Pol 417 course on human rights theories.
Anarcho-Capitalism: Opposing_Views: The DMOZ Open Directory catalog. Heavy on criticisms by other libertarians, quite incomplete, but otherwise good.
Libertarian: Opposing_Views: The DMOZ Open Directory catalog. Sparse coverage of a large subject.
Objectivism: Opposing_Views: The DMOZ Open Directory catalog. A fairly good list of criticisms.
Bookmarks for Common Libertarian Arguments: An excellent collection of links to resources that can help you compose your own rebuttals to topical libertarian arguments against the FDA, revisionist history, etc.

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Copyright 2007 by Mike Huben ( mhuben@world.std.com ).
This document may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes if it is reproduced in its textual entirety, with this notice intact.