A common insult hurled at libertarians is that, because they do not support government-sponsored welfare, they are selfish. In today's reading for CC, J. S. Mill's On Liberty, I encountered a great response:
In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution, there is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the good of others. But disinterested benevolence can find other instruments to persuade people to their good, than whips and scourges, either of the literal or the metaphorical sort.
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