1. Human beings are born free, and have rights. They are entitled to exercising these rights as long as they do not infringe forcefully on the rights of others.

You just say that humans have rights. Which rights? Both the Indian and US constitutions clearly define what these rights are. Both also make it clear that these rights are not absolute and can be withdrawn. In which case who has the right to withdraw rights? You can’t just say humans have rights and then ask if there are any objections - yes there are and no they may not be any depending on what you consider rights.

2. Each human being has a natural tendency to do things for his own benefit, or the benefit of a select few he holds close to his heart. Crudely put human beings are selfish.

Here are you talking about psychological or economic benefit? A drug addict takes drugs and benefits psychologically but suffers financially. According to you all the people who voluntarily fought in the Civil Rights movement, against apartheid, for Indian Rule against the British and gave up their lives neither for themselves nor for their select loved ones are all abberations to humanity. On the flip side are the VietCong, Al Quaida, Hammas etc. all abberations?

3. Each human being has a right to define his own happiness, and his own sorrow, and be allowed to pursue and avoid them respectively, in a way he thinks best as long as his way does not harm someone else’s rights.

Can I pursue my happiness only on my propoerty or can I pursue happiness on public propoerty as well (assuming here is something called public property - many libertarians beleive there isn’t). What if 10 people ‘beleive’ that my pursuit of happiness is causing them sorrow? Can they gang up and then try to curtial my pursuit of happiness?

Species require supra-individual effort in order to progress at a decent rate.
Now, as it turns out, a 4th assumption

4. Humans are mostly dumb.

creates a spanner in the works.

Note that most of the progress of humanity is by a Newtony Einsteiny few. Tell me how the average farmer chugging ale in a pub is to be brought out to a progress pov in a libertarian setting.

I feel libertarians - while enjoying the success of progress due to centuries of non-libertarianism - are just being plain ol drunk with progress.

What! You mean to say that goverment control was stronger in the 19th cetury and before that?

creates a spanner in the works.

This is precisely the reason you don’t want them making centralized decisions. Politicians routinely believe stupid stuff like protectionism creates prosperity.

If people are stupid, let them be stupid in their own lives and not create consequences on the rest of us through politics.

The greatest transition of societies over the last few centuries of history has been the tranisition of the fixed-sum worldview of Hobbes, to the positive-sum worldview of classical liberals. The Enlightment and the Industrial Revolution, which created the living standards present today in most modern nations, were squarely the result of classical liberal ideas.

However the problem arises when Libertarians try to scale these intrinsic principles up to the level of community, society and to a nation and the world at large. These principles immediately start breaking down. The activities of a single person don’t usually have a huge impact but when you move into the macro world of millions of people it is no longer possible to maintain these principles.

As an example - most people are against killing or harming anybody who has not harmed them. Yet in a war a soldier will not think twice about spraying his machine gun or pushing a button that will release a 4000 lb bomb over a city. And that very same solder will in all likelihood come home and rescue an injured dog and cry at the end of a sentimental movie. It’s still the same person but when he is at home he is acting as an individual - he feels for animals and is sentimental. But in the army he is acting as one unit of a collective - he automaticlaly gives up some of his rights and more importantly loses his sense of responsibility. Nobody is going to call him a bastard for dropping that bomb - most likely they will give him a medal for it.

The same thing tends to happen in society in more mundane events. Human beings are social and when placed with lots of our fellow humans, we automatically (genetically programmed for collective self preservatin according to Jared Diamond - ‘The Third Chimpanzee’) alter our actions. This is a well documented phenomenon and is refered to the mob mentality. The power and the properties of a mob have been well recognized by politicians and philosphers since ancient times (see referenes to Anthony talking about controlling the Roman mob in Julius Caeser).

Which is where Govt. and Rules and Regs come into play. As an individual I could get along just fine without a Govt. I don’t need somebody to take part of my pay check away everymonth or tell me that I can only drive at 65 mph. But the Govt was not created to control what I as an individual do but what the nation and society does. ut I recognize that I am not the only person in society there are others as well and their actions affect my own. We need those rules and regs to ensure that society contimues to function. There is a downside to this - I will unfortunately have to drive at 65 mph when my car can easily do 120 mph. I could argue that on an open stretch of highway it should be left upto me to decide what speed I go at but I realize that I will have to give up that privilage and a little of my common sense and boq to the 65mph speed limit (in Germany they don’t have a speed limit but have you seen the number of car inspections you have to do and the hoops you have to jump through to get a driver;s license).

To summarize - Libertarianism is a great personal philosophy but it does not translate to the world and society at large.

To answer Gaurav:

Change 1: remove entitled and add ‘want/have a tendency’
Same thing for 3.

Add a zeroth assumption:
0. Progress of the species is paramount.
(One rule to rule ‘em all ;)

An anthill or a beehive cannot be compared to a pride of lions (in terms of how it works and is held together). Similary, to imagine a completely Lib. society, one has to start from scratch. For example, one has to ask the question, “Would there be (so many) wars if we had a different kind of society?”, or even “Would we have national boundaries?”. We cannot simply take a group of people that have been conditioned since birth to live in a certain (cretin?) way and hypothetically give them a different form of governance/philosophy.