Ideology IV: Possible problems with Libertarianism

Whilst I have come to accept libertarianism by and large, I do identify some possible problems with it which as of yet aren't resolved in my mind. I'll just list them off:

-Children and the mentally infirm - Libertarianism argues that, for example, one person cannot force another person to take on a certain job. But what about children? If a five year old child says, "Mummy, I don't want to go to school today", we think it quite proper that the mother can force the child to go to school anyway. But no doubt this is an infringement of the child's right to liberty! Similarly with the mentally infirm - I would think it fine that family or charity force them to not do something (such as, perhaps, not wander around the streets at night), despite the fact that they wish to do it. So how do we reconcile this? Why is it that we should attribute rights to mentally stable adults, but not children and the infirm? And being a child and mentally unstable is hardly a "one or zero" type problem - there are a lot of grey areas. In which case, where should we draw the line? I think I do have any answer to this problem, but I'll have to blog on that another time

-The clarity of property rights - Sometimes, well nearly all of the time, property rights are obvious. But what about in global warming? The exhaust from my car really might cause sea levels to rise and someone else's house to be flooded. I think most libertarians would be against green taxes/cap & trade/etc., but it seems to me that there is a property rights infringement there. I think here libertarians have to grin and bear it - there really are property rights infringements.

-The maximum rights protection problem - This is a little more philosophical. There is a critique of utilitarianism which goes like this. Utilitarianism argues that we should act to maximise happiness. But does this mean maximise total happiness, or maximise average happiness (total happiness/number of people)? In any single moment of society, it doesn't matter of course - to maximise one is to maximise the other. But over a period of time, it can have an impact. This means that if we are to maximise total happiness, we should say that it is better to have a very large but thoroughly miserable society than a small but extremely happy society. So we say, "Oh well then it must be average happiness that matters". But then the problem changes to mean that we shouldn't have children if we think that our child is likely to have a happiness level of below the societal average - because if we do have the child, the average will fall. Both these conclusions seem wrong.
But I've noticed that there seems to be a similar problem with libertarianism. Should the government act to maximise total rights protection or average rights protection or minimise total rights infringed or average rights infringed? I don't want to go through the problems all in detail now, but given the utilitarian parallel, it's easy to see what the issue could be.

-Equality of right protection - Again, a utilitarian parallel is useful. Utilitarianism can be critiqued on the basis that it says that a society in which half the population have 101 units of happiness and the other half have zero is better than a society in which the whole society has 50 units of happiness. This seems intuitively wrong. But with rights theories - should we prefer a society in which half the society has no rights infringed at all, and the rest have a lot of rights infringed, or a somewhere-in-the-middle solution where the total number of rights infringed is just more than in the first society, but everyone has the same number of infringements? It seems to me that the second must be better, that there should be some sort of equality in rights protection. But that would mean endorsing rights infringements.

-Which rights? - Libertarians ask the government to protect only the rights to life, liberty and property. There is actually a pretty good metaphysical defence of these particular rights, and they are all about 'the self' (which the non-aggression axiom is based upon). But I think conceivably the modern liberals have a reasonably good argument that something akin to 'self-realisation' should be a right, even though it would mean infringing upon others rights to property (but then the right to life requires that as well - police)

-How axiomatic is the non-aggression axiom? - Perhaps it could be that the non-aggression axiom is wrong - that aggressing against others is morally permissible sometimes. I find the axiom very compelling, but I can't give any particular ethical reasons that it should be the case. It is in line with orthodox Christian thought, and many philosophical ethical systems, but I haven't considered much on how axiomatic it really is.

-Hurting feelings - One integral part of any free society is the right to free speech. But this hurts others. Potentially it could result in a loss of self-esteem so great that the person experiences severe trauma. We also might slap someone over the face. Now, libertarianism would say that the second action should be illegal (because it infringes the right to liberty, and possibly life), but the first should not be (because it infringes no right). But it is quite conceivable that the damage to the individual by the first action could be much worse than the first. Should this mean that saying something offensive should be illegal?

That's all for now. I'll try and blog on at least a couple of these with possible responses at a later date.