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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

The thing about libertarianism is it has done more good for more people than any other ideology.

Note that libertarianism leaves people free to care for others as much as they want to.

[citation needed]

The United States. The first free market country, and the first to raise the standard of living of scores of millions of people out of poverty into the middle and even wealthy classes.

The American people are also the most generous in the world, by donations to charity.

I know that the popular view is the US is some sort of hellhole, but yet millions of people are trying to immigrate here, walking thousands of miles just to try.

The people walking to America are doing it because they are coming from extremely violent countries where they are in immediate danger. My family came from Romania, a place where they jailed or beat my family members on a regular basis during communism, then had horrible brain drain and 0 opportunities post communism. People aren't emigrating from countries like Germany the way they are from El Salvador. Being better than a place where your life is in immediate danger or where there is ZERO economic opportunity is not much of an accomplishment. Please use correct comparisons when you are making statements like this.

"The American people are also the most generous in the world, by donations to charity." Why can't we just setup government programs to fill the in the gaps that charities provide?

The oceans are a major barrier to people walking here from other countries. Consider as well all the countries they walk through to get here. They come from Cuba, too, the socialist paradise.

There are a lot of people from Romania in the Seattle area, I am friends with some. I am not unacquainted with their stories of how bad things were there. All I can say is welcome to the US!

P.S. All my ancestors hail from various European countries that emigrated to the US, including Germany.

C'man, the socialist paradise is Nordic countries, not Cuba.

Yes, they come from Cuba because the US is the closest countries with opportunities, just like many people flee to Italy from the north of Africa or from the middle east. Also cuba is a bad example because of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Adjustment_Act and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_feet,_dry_feet_policy. They are incentivezed to leave the totalitarian regime of Cuba (which is not socialist to be clear) to the US. The goal of bringing up Romania and El Salvador was to show how the bad conditions at the time forced people to leave. People don't leave countries that are doing well.

Also, your friends are probably from a select group of people who came in highly educated. People who come in with 0 education (like my parents) are not treated well in America. Many of the Romanian families that I grew up with in South Florida have gone back, as America honestly isn't that great compared to what has developed in Romania over time (its pretty nice now!).

The Romanians I know arrived here with nothing and now are well off.

I've also run into two Afghans who escaped from the Taliban here with nothing, having lost everything in Afghanistan. They started their own businesses and are thriving here.

> Cuba (which is not socialist to be clear)

Of course. A common theme of all socialist governments is socialists deny their children.

> The thing about libertarianism is it has done more good for more people than any other ideology.

Presumably you mean political ideology, but I don't really know if I know what "libertarianism" actually means. I would need some citation that the Ayn-Rand-esque objectivist flavor of libertarianism has actually done any good for anyone. Maybe that's not what you mean, but that's sort of the issue with the term.

I might be more likely to agree if you changed the term "libertarianism" to "liberalism". Not the current "liberal" that basically means "democrat" in the US, but the more classical sense.

Libertarianism as in free markets and the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It includes the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Note that this precludes any right to harm others, defraud them, enslave them, etc. It precludes enshrining religion into the law.

It includes all are equal under the law, women have an equal right to vote, gays can marry, people can smoke marijuana, etc.

As with all philosophies, it doesn't give guidance to all situations, and should be leavened with pragmatism.

i was having a nice time griping until you showed up. Given how libertarians seem completely unconcerned with raising wages or protecting the environment it seems that amount is 0

I am a libertarian, and if you're familiar with my postings, I have made many environment protecting proposals that would be much more effective than the current ones. Also for improving other facets of our lives, like wages.

I know there are many libertarians who give the philosophy a bad name.

If you have something specific you'd like to ask about it, I'll try to give a good answer.

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