Are you able to argue with them or not?

An absolutely ridiculous argument for a situation that could never occur?

So we have

1) A deadly plague that only this single person can cure
2) Either a person who has gone to the trouble of creating billions of cures only to be dead set on destorying them. Or if purchased has somehow managed to wipe the mind of all the people involved in their creation and all documentation relating to it such that they cannot create any more.
3) A planet full of people with no way of replicating what this one person has managed to do in creating all these cures.

A better argument than that is needed.

I mean if you think about it the main argument most people make for restrictions on assault weapons ‘No one needs an assault rifle to hunt or for self-defense,’ as meant by most liberals is just as absurd. I mean you don’t even need to hunt in the first place anymore, and certainly not with a gun. In general most liberals would actually accept the opposite principle: all other things being equal it’s a good thing for people to have things that bring them enjoyment whether or not they need those things.

The only difference is that in the kind of consequentalist arguments that democrats and republican’s often make it’s much harder to distinguish the people making the dumb argument from those using the same words as a shorthand for some long complicated list of factual claims, e.g., the amount of extra happiness people get from assault rifles is low because gun happiness comes largely from the useful things it lets you do (this is still dumb, a huge amount of the happiness that guns, cars or anything else bring is all about image but not as dumb).

In fact while there are plenty of very juvenile Ayn Randites from what I’ve seen there are more libertarians willing to do some semi-serious thinking about the deep philosophical questions than those of other political persuasions. I’m not really disagreeing with you, just suggesting that the only reason most people end up seeming any better is that they are even more vague about what the content of their argument is.

The point is that if you think that it is always wrong for the government to violate personal property rights (or any other right) no matter what the consequences well then it is always wrong.

So we hypothetically imagine that this absurd scenario occurs and see if you are still willing to accept the consequences of your theory. If you say, well no in this absurd situation we have to do something else you have granted that to some extent consequences trade off against the right in question.

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Let me illustrate the role hypotheticals are playing here by giving a hypothetical dialog where the same argumentative structure is used to refute some silly theory. (I’m picking a catholic setting as that is the faith I was raised in but no one really believes this..certainly not an atheist like me).

Person A: The priest told you to do it as a penance in confession so you should do it even if you think it’s silly.

Person B: Why? It’s silly and telling my mom about that would make her really unhappy for no reason.

Person A: One should always do any penance that your priest demands in the confessional no matter what it is.

Person B: Really? So if my priest was surreptitiously slipped LSD by some crazy hippie cult before confession and in his adled state told you to assassinate the president someone as penance you should still do it?

A: Well that’s absurd. C’mon, the chances of that happening are ridiculously small.

B: Are you denying that it’s possible? Are you claiming some physical law makes it impossible for a hippie cult to dose him or for him to get so high he tells you to assasinate the president.

A: Well, no, I guess it’s possible but it’s never actually going to happen.

B: Maybe not, but you said you should always do what the priest says. If it did happen do you think you should assasinate the president?

A: No, in that absurd case you shouldn’t do it but it’s never going to happen.

B: Maybe not but you said the rule was exceptionless. Surely you think there must be an exception that if the priest isn’t mentally competent during confession you aren’t obliged to do what he says.

A: Well, yah I guess so but in practice it will never come up.

B: Are there any more exceptions to the rule you gave?

A: Well maybe you can come up with some other absurd hypothetical but none that matter in this situation!

B: Why should I believe that? If you can’t tell me what all the exceptions are how do I know if this case falls into an exception?

Now of course at this point A could respond by giving an argument explaining that there is some benefit to doing what the priest says and pointing out that this benefit will only be outweighed by some extremely compelling reason and there is no such reason in this case. However, the significance of this is that in order to establish his point A needs to engage the specific situation and explain why B’s reasons for behaving differently aren’t enough to justify doing so.

I’ll add, most “libertarians” I know/know of, I believe, are overgrown adolescents who didn’t properly socialize in youth. They feel put upon by society so they demur anything that smells of organized do-gooding (and usually do-badding). I find most “libertarian arguments” to be woefully lacking in appreciation of the complexity of society and reality, opting instead for the simplest answer: “leave me alone!”

Or what if aliens from planet Ragnak were invading, and a billionaire had the only ion cannon capable of destroying their ships? About as likely.