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Steam Boat Willie belongs to the People!

Purpose

This forum is dedicated to the rational discussion of political philosophy, systems of political economy, history, and current events from the perspective of the guiding principle defined above. The principled simplification and reduction of the law can only be achieved by civil argument for this ideal. We libertarians welcome those who do not share this axiom into this forum for the purposes of civil debate and exchange of worldview.

Moderation

This forum is private property. It is focused on the rational discussion of a limited subset of political philosophy and its application. Members of this community will strive to preserve a forum in which on-topic discussion can be held with respect and objectivity.

Users may be permanently banned, without warning and at the sole discretion of any moderator, for repeatedly violating the rules or for circumventing moderation, including the use of alternate accounts regardless of federation. Posts, comments, and media attachments (collectively, "the content") will be removed, without warning and at the sole discretion of any moderator, for violating any of the following rules.

Rule 1: Legality and Site Administration

The content is prohibited under the lawful jurisdiction of its geographic location or was removed or requested to be removed by any administrator of Lemmy.world.

Rule 2: Spam

The content is (or is associated with a pattern of content which is) deemed abusive of site features or intended to distract, hinder, or otherwise harm users during normal use of the platform.

Rule 3: Relevance

The content is deemed irrelevant to the discussion of libertarianism as defined by the "Purpose" section of the sidebar. This is quite subjective. Users will be given the benefit of the doubt and warned before any ban is issued under this section.

Criticism of libertarian ideas is relevant and vital to this forum and will not be removed under this rule.

Criticism of individuals or organizations loosely associated with libertarians or libertarianism is likely irrelevant. Association and/or self-identification are not enough to establish relevance.

Further discussion of this point is encouraged. It's vital that we develop more objective standards. This will take time.

A Note of Context

The moderators of this community do not believe that libertarianism is an inherently right or left-wing ideology. We believe that the veneration of natural (or "unalienable") rights must take priority over allegiance to systems of political economy. With that said, this platform (that is, the Lemmy software and wide distribution of instances, not necessarily Lemmy.world) has unambiguously left-wing origins. We anticipate much drama and misunderstanding about the purpose of the forum. We believe that this may be a good thing in the long run: if we uphold a high standard of discourse, this forum may become a useful tool in the defense of liberty.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
~ Thomas Paine

Banner photograph by Kit Suman, modified and used under the Unsplash License