The reason I am a Libertarian is because they are the best of both worlds. On the one hand we are social liberal (democrats) but on the other hand we are fiscally conservative (republicans). We believe in total liberty for every individual without government intuition in areas such as repealing the income tax, repealing the Patriot Act and reducing the size of government. I am sick of Democrats and Republicans just sitting in the halls of Congress doing nothing but pandering to their wealthy campaign donors. We urgently need campaign finance reform. Unfortunately in our current political climate it is very difficult for any third party to get into the mainstream political field. We need to abolish the electoral college and the winner-takes-all state primaries to give smaller parties a chance.
- Sign in or Sign up to post comments
- send to friend
- report as spam
The fact is that Libertarianism is just the poor man's anarchism. Just a bunch of guys saying that they want freedom. Yet they affiliate with the party that takes away social freedom when they affiliate with one of the two. This makes it seem to me than the money is more important than the freedom.
I was just thinking about the mess we are in as a product of the dems a reps brilliant management of our affairs, and considered what the real disadvantage of anarchy would be. I'll have to give it some more thought.
There is a very small place for libertarians in the rep box, no space at all in the dem box. In fact the dems occaisionally come out of their box and hunt libertarians.
The dems and reps are about power. They want to control people. The dems want to take your money and spend it for you, after all they are smarter than you, they must be, they got elected. The reps want to tell you how to live, after all, they are smarter than you, they must be, they got elected.
The founders of this nation were a lot more of the Libertarian persuasion than what the Dem and GOP parties today represent. Libertarians are basically backers of the Constitution. You know, the Constitution, the thing that all our elected leaders take an oath to uphold and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. Of the two major parties the GOP was closest to the Libertarian ideals of limited government and enforcement of the rule of law, that is before it was taken over by the neo-cons. If you judge the fruit of the neo-cons they are closely they have the GOP more in line with the Dems, big spending more big government cradle to grave control of the People. The worst Dem in history was FDR and the worst Repuplican of all time is George Bush Jr.
A Libertarian government would govern by abdicating responsibility, which would create a situation similar to the last quarter of the 19th century, where the rights of the individual were defined and regulated at the discretion of the wealthy.
Instead of ensuring a government that would abide by the constitution, a Libertarian government would disenfranchise the weak, and pander to the strong.
Jeff C
leikec@yahoo.com
You mean the last quarter of the 19th century when the gov't was in collusion with big business, like it is now? The difference being that the modern corporation knows it will get better production out of well fed slaves, I mean associates?
I don't know where you get the idea that Libertarians would pander to the strong and disenfranchise the weak. A Constitutionally limited gov't does not have the power to do either.
If you would like to see a real world demonstration of why Libertarianism doesn't work, simply find two Libertarian members and ask them to, on the spot, devise and come to agreement on a common definition of what Libertarianism means. You'll hear about Big 'L' and little 'l' and much hilarity will ensue.
In the end you'll probably learn that the only common ground on Libertarianism is that nobody can agree on what it means, especially if one is Libertarian ;)
On a more serious note, I'd offer that the main problem with the philosophy is that it entails a grafting of the left and right wings to each other. Because these two poles don't fuse well at all, the common ground is found on adopting a "smarter than you" operating philosophy. It's a living proof of HL Menken's adage, "To any complex problem there is an answer that is pure, simple...and wrong."
-GP
Let's do as The Beatles' said: "Come together, right now. Unity." Something like that... ;)
The reason our problems are complex is that the dominant parties have thrown the rule book (Constitution) out the window and nobody has any idea what they will do next, including themselves.
It's not very eloquent, but a Libertarian does not want to steal his neighbors money, or peek into his neighbors bedroom.
An alternate explanation is that the problems have always been complex and it's just more comforting to embrace simple answers and ignore feedback that enforces the fact that almost all issues are complicated.
-GP
Let's do as The Beatles' said: "Come together, right now. Unity." Something like that... ;)
What I meant, and should have said, is excessively complex. You are correct, many problems are complex. In fact I suggest that a gov't composed largely of money grubbing, criminal, incompetents (and I'm not just talking about those we elect, civil service too) is ill equipped to handle most of them. We would do better on our own. If they don't stop "helping" us we may end up starving to death.
The pursuit of happiness, food, clothing, water, shelter, and love, are complicated on a personal level, but are our own responsibility. They are not the province of the monster we have created. The monster's province is to insure our RIGHT to life, liberty, and the PURSUIT.
Interesting thought. One of the things I once considered is in defining how one can decide if a gov't is truly just. Putting aside utopian thinking, and just looking at what history has to offer we can see that nothing is ever close to being perfect. We shoot for ideals and do the best we can. Democracy in the modern US is certainly more democratic than democracy in ancient Greece, and US democracy is more democratic now than in the previous decades (civil rights era), and centuries (women's right to vote, abolition of slavery).
Yet governments have come and gone, as have nations. Sometimes they are overthrown by revolution. Other times they are conquered by other outsiders. One of the more interesting points is to define just WHEN a gov't is no longer credible and warrants some major change
An interesting barometer for that is what I call the "Gilligan's Isle" principle:
When an honest day's work can, at best, only support a lifestyle equivalent to what that person could provide for themself if stranded on Gilligan's Isle, something has gone terribly wrong.
(Since society has the benefits of thousands of years of knowledge and the mechanics of specialization/cooperation, members of it, should at a minimum have a better lifestyle then when "going it alone." Hence if one is even near this point [again presupposing honest effort to do otherwise] it's a sign that the system we have devised is no longer just and in need of repair.)
In returning to the subject of this thread, my fundamental critique with Libertarian thought is that it spends so much effort painting government as an evil entity that it ignores the reality that other insitutions (e.g. Private enterprise) are not immune from being just as evil. If I were to grow a new sort of thinking along the lines of Libertarian spirit, I would assert that ALL institutions are capable of abuse and the real preservation of liberty is in not permitting institutions that powerful in the first place. Put simply, if you build something that can be used as a throne, it WILL be used as one eventually.
Libertarians often like to quote Thomas Jefferson, but they seem to never bring up that quote in which he pleaded for the limited lifespan of corporations. He saw them as entities with the same power to abuse as government, but with no real democratic recall mechanisms. He asserted that in time they would simply subvert each other and then government. If he's wise with all his other quotes, would he not be wise here too?
-GP
Let's do as The Beatles' said: "Come together, right now. Unity." Something like that... ;)
I like the R. A. Heinlein test. When a society gets to the point where you have to carry a gov't ID, it's time for a change.
The major difference between gov't and corporations is that the gov't carries guns, and are not especially shy about using them.
A very wise man. The problem with corporations is that the prime directive of our gov't is to protect the people's rights. Instead they have become the agent of the corporation in subjugating us, and are mirroring the corporate structure to facilitate the process. I agree with Tom. Corporations should be broken up occaisionally. Breaking up Ma Bell was a good thing.
He had much the same opinion of central banks.
GP, why is it that I hear this silly claim about libertarians so often, but not about progressives, conservatives, socialists, etc.? If you use the same test with any group that uses a single label to describe something as complex as a political and economic philosophy, you will find disagreement.
Even if libertarians can't agree on the precise definition of libertarianism, they do share a common approach to most issues. Furthermore, libertarianism does not suggest simple solutions to complex problems. It suggests that the problems are too complex for a handful of politicians and bureaucrats to solve -- only something as complex and organic as the market can adequately solve them.