The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

> the trouble with your "obvious" "reasonable philosophy" is that it is exploitation, taking advantage of other people's misfortune.

I never said that it wasn't exploitation. I said that it wasn't _force_. The most obvious difference being that if someone uses force against you then a response in kind is justified (self-defense), whereas if someone merely "exploits" you, there is no justification for responding with force.

You're mixing personal/subjective morals with objective ethics. The libertarian position doesn't address the former at all; it's only concern is when the use of force is justified (in short: only when responding to the use of force by others). Your opposition to the libertarian position appears to be based on the misconception that it has something to do with "right" and "wrong", rather than the justified or unjustified use of force.

Personally, if I were in the situation you described, I believe that the right choice would be for me to offer the children whatever assistance I could provide with no strings attached. The solution to exploitation is to offer a better choice, not to remove the few they have. However, if someone else were to impose conditions, even "exploitative" ones, I would consider it wrong for me to employ force to _make_ them help without conditions, or to prevent them from making their offer, or to punish them for the "exploitation". If I did employ force in that way then, as a libertarian, I would consider a proportional defensive response against me to be justified.