Well, "Labels" (i.e. descriptive terms) are essential for describing anything, and are a critical part of language and communication. A thing is what it is, and refusing to use the commonly accepted definition used to describe that thing does not make it any different, all it does is cause unnecessary semantic confusion. You yourself are using many labels in your post here - "QE", "Labels", "the government", "Monetary policy".
"Lbertarian" is a simple descriptive term with a clear meaning, that describes a clear-cut set of political beliefs i.e. the primacy of liberty, rights, opposition to aggressive use of force, and so on. A policy which violates those things clearly can't be libertarian. The draft is opposed by pretty much all libertarians, for exactly those reasons.
I partly agree about fractional reserve banking, however the public are clearly misled as to the inherent instability of the system. Also, deposit insurance is clearly fraudulent because there is no way any government could pay out all claims in the event of a banking collapse. Legal tender forces the use of one currency, even when it is against one's interests to do so e.g. when it is being debased. This is not a trivial matter - inflation is basically theft. And since savings represent the yield of an entire lifetime of labour, theft is tantamount to slavery. Imagine for example a 65 year old retiree who has worked all their life to accumulate their life savings. Those life savings represent 44-47 years of hard work. Inflation combined with legal tender laws meant that the government basically steals 45 years of work from her - it is not different to if she had spent 45 years as an unpaid serf of the government. In North Korea that happens explicitly. In Weimar Germany or post-WWII Hungary, it happened covertly via inflation. But the effects were very similar - confiscating by coercive methods the yield of a lifetime of labour, and reducing innocent people to penury. It would not be morally acceptable to institute a 1 year slave labour policy to restore national GDP, and similarly it is not acceptable to institute a 3 year inflationary impoverishment and theft policy to do the same thing.
Something being a "legitimate government function" does not affect its violation of an ethical principle. War and the police power are widely considered legitimate government functions, that doesn't mean that for example the bombing to death of huge numbers of Cambodians, or the internment of US citizens based on race in WWII were not flagrant breaches of ethical principles. Under libertarian ethics, rights and morality do not spring from the promotion of self-interest, and self-interest does not give any moral grounds to violate other people's rights - e.g. I do not have the right to kidnap and enslave someone and then force them to lose their life, just to protect my own.
Majority support for actions also does not affect ethical judgements on that action - under ANY system of ethics, let alone libertarian ethics. This can clearly be demonstrated by considering that slavery was once popular and legal in democracies, that majorities in most societies in human history have taken part in pogroms against ethnic minorities, and so on. Do you consider those actions to be ethical? After all, most people supported them at the time.
Who can defend non-debasement of currency at the cost of GDP falling by 50%? Anyone who thinks that theft is wrong. I'm not what what part of this you don't understand, you seem to be completely unfamiliar with non-utilitarian ethical systems. Let me make it clear - any ethical system based on inalienable rights, would say that it is immoral to steal 1 cent from Bill Gates, even if stealing that 1 cent could abolish poverty, starvation, and disease for 3 billion people in the 3rd world overnight.
Now, many people think that is a fatal flaw with rights-based systems of morality. Just as many people think pacifism is fatally flawed because it inevitably leads to military defeat. However, you were talking about "libertarian" philosophy, and I am simply point out what that actually consists of.
I don't see any proof by you that it is irrational to view rights as more important than interests. You may disagree with it, but disagreeing with something is not the same as it being irrational. I could equally list apparent irrationalities in your own code of crass utilitarianism. For example, if you could increase world GDP by 10% overnight by torturing just one baby to death, would you do it? Or if a mad dictator with an irrational hatred of ginger-haired people demanded that all gingers in the USA be executed, otherwise he would launch a war, which the Department of Defense estimated would lead to 1 million US casualties - would you as US president or Congressman try to execute the gingers in cold blood to save 900,000 lives? If not, why not? Since your ethical system appears to value end consequences and net happiness above rights, you should surely do what will lead to the least harm occurring.
IMO, most people would find both those actions beyond the pale, and would demand the execution or life imprisonment of anyone who did them. So whose ethical system is more "irrational"? Your proposed system of "the ends justify the means" clearly leads, if applied consistently, to the advocacy of barbaric moral outrages.
In the specific case of QE, it is even worse, because not only is it not guaranteed to work (as the ginger executions or baby torture examples above WOULD be guaranteed to work), but it is - based on all current knowledge of economic theory and practise - almost guaranteed to fail. No society has ever inflated its way to prosperity, and the opposite has almost always been the outcome. So Bernanke and QE supporters are not only advocating something that violates moral principles on its face, but it won't even result in the "ends" that are supposed to justify the immoral means - it will most likely do the opposite.
Quote from Daal:
Well I'm not a libertarian, as I said I dont like to put labels on myself. I dont find them useful at all. As far as QE goes its a policy choice so it doesnt affect the argument I made(Then the government ought be in control of monetary policy, the choices and how they go about surely but can debated but my main point is that the control needs to be there). As far as fractional reserve banking goes I dont believe its fraudulent, it leaves banks illiquid but as a long they dont advertise that they can redeem all deposits at once I dont see any fraud there, only illiquidity.
As far as legal tender laws goes well it doesn't affect my argument because if it IS a government function to run monetary policy then they have the right to use force to do it(As a long voluntary arrangements are not available).
Its like the government facing war in the homeland and running out of voluntary soldiers, they will have to draft even though its not a preferred choice
Its not that just I would view it as undesirable, its that most people. If people had to choose between and 1930's style depression with a strong dollar(25% UR and 33% less real GDP) and a slugglish economy but with a weaker dollar(10% UR 4% less GDP) they would choose the later(If they had any brains). I understand you argument that sometimes its better to fuck everyone in order to protect the right of a few. I dont believe it applies here, I mean who can possibly defend that its better to have NGDP cut in half but have a strong fx value of the dollar as compared to sluglish NGDP growth but a weak dollar?
I fail to see a rational ethics code saying that the domestic and foreign purchasing power of a currency should be valued above living standards to the detriment of society. Specially because in my scenario the net of currency debasement is a boost to living standards and the hard money way is a net decline. At the end of the day the hard money way will be theft as well, theft of jobs and incomes
