Libertarian pragmatism concerning rights

[Craig24]

At Politicalforums.com this post contains the following paragraph:

Bottom line remains that Libertarians support the unalienable Rights of the Individual but are willing to accept pragmatic infringements so long as those infringements are rationally justifiable and are limited to the minimum infringement necessary to protect the Rights of the People as a whole.

Is this a commonly held view among any libertarians that you know? Isn't this precisely the kind of view that has eventually led us to our present mixed economy?

[Eiuol]

Keep in mind that's a capital 'L' Libertarian, meaning the political party. I don't know how common of a view what you quoted is.

[Dante]

That post incorrectly identifies a number of government actions as "pragmatic infringements upon rights." A person does not have the right to contaminate the property of another with toxic materials, so preventing people from doing so is not an infringement of their rights at all. Similarly, the segment on environmental law is unable to make the proper distinction between "environmental" laws which are actually based on protecting private property rights, and improper environmental laws, which are not.

The fundamental flaw in this view is the notion that properly conceived rights can conflict with one another. They cannot, but the idea that they can is clearly present throughout the article (e.g. the section on Roe v. Wade).

Another example that was not mentioned in the article but is often incorrectly conceived as a pragmatic infringement of rights is the case of search warrants.

As far as the pragmatism present in the libertarian movement, it depends on which segment of the movement you are talking about. In much of it, you will indeed find people who say that, for example, roads should be publicly provided because there are logistical problems with providing them privately. Many also support the existence of the federal reserve and a monopoly on money for pragmatic reasons. Milton Friedman-type libertarians would fall under this category.

Edited April 18, 2011 by Dante

[Element]

At Politicalforums.com this post contains the following paragraph:

Is this a commonly held view among any libertarians that you know? Isn't this precisely the kind of view that has eventually led us to our present mixed economy?

Absolutely not, libertarians tend to have the opposite problem of calling America totalitarian because of the fact that we have a military. Classical Liberals on the other hand may have had this problem.

The Libertarian Party is a joke. They had a pro-prohibition candidate run for president last time around. The only serious "Libertarian" is a republican ironically, and that is Ron Paul.