Why are many libertarians so brainwashed?

I responded before you edited, and added more comment...

Perhaps Ron Paul would have pulled more youth vote than Obama - but who did most of those kids then turn around and vote for?? I don't know what the numbers were, I really don't pay that close attention to 'politics' per se...

Anyone who would say they would have voted for Ron Paul, but then turned around and voted for Barack Obama, is absolutely not well enough informed to know what they believe.

Anyone who could vote for Barack Obama is simply too ignorant to say they have any rational understanding that the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west.

 

Social justice nonsense aside (yeah they get a lot of it today from the indoctrination) , they more then any other age group stand in the libertarian side of policy. They just don't turn out to vote. It is the statists that do, they are far better targeted on campus voter outreach by the left.

 

The libertarian minded kids - even the ones that might be single issue tokers, at least have a shot at getting things figured out - but that's going to take many years, and we don't have many years left; and again, they really are a small minority compared to the majority of college students that are indoctrinated into the ignorance of the left.

Many of the kids that have been indoctrinated into the left are themselves advocates of legalization - for whatever reason.

Most of those kids are unsalvagable as citizens though - sad to say.

I understand your hopefulness though... my years of working in the field, and fighting the good fight for so long, as we continue to decline, has jaded me - I admit

 

I'm hoping that its more than decent! I'm guessing one hugely popular issue will be ending the IRS!! Average voters can all agree on that!!

 

<standing ovation> Very well said. Very clear, simple and precise. Maybe Rand needs a VP

 

Until Ron Paul supports the freedom of choice and no government interference whatsoever in the choices of consenting adults, he is not a true libertarian. He supports states dictating marriage rights. He supports states dictating whether or not their citizens can use drugs. He is all for big government, but only when it comes to states. A true libertarian wants all government, state, local, and federal barred from interfering in the private lives of consenting adults and wants their authority in passing laws limited to the protection of non-consenting and people who can not consent, such as children, from being forced to live with those choices.


For example, as a TRUE social libertarian, I support the freedom to use drugs, but want even harsher punishments for those who drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

These punishments would be simple. No prpobation, no parol. 1 years manditory sentence in a state prison on first offence, and a 2 year manditory suspension of your license starting the state you are released.

Second offense would be a 3 year setence and a 5 year suspension.

Third offence, a 5 year sentence, and 10 a year suspension.

and after the third, you get a 10 year sentence and you get a lifetime suspension of your license, meaning that after the fourth, you would aso be charged with driving while suspended every time you were caught behind the wheel.

 

DUI regulations aren't libertarian. They are legislative decrees that criminalize the content of one's blood.

 

I agree with Ken...

More than that, the TRUE libertarian (as you would say) position would maintain that, by definition, DUI isn't even a crime... what crime has the drunk driver committed against his neighbor?? None of course - there is only the potential that he may cause harm or do something wrong. He is driving down the road, driving the speed limit, not weaving... let's say he doesn't have his seatbelt on - he gets pulled over.

What crime has he committed against his neighbor or his neighbors property?? None of course. Yet you want to deprive him of his liberty - doesn't seem very libertarian to me

Of course that is untenable, is it not?? I'm a libertarian, and I agree that DUI should be a finable offense - not the nonsense that's on the books and enforced now, but a finable offense. Why? b/c it presents a public safety issue - and this is coming from a libertarian who absolutely hates the safty-nazis.

Your bringing up DUI is a good example of common sense that most can agree should supercede the fact that a citizen hasn't actually committed, by definition, a crime - yet in his condition he possesses such a potential to do harm to another, that he cannot be allowed to continue in his activity, and must be stopped.

Of course DUI laws have long since left the realm of common sense, and have crossed over into the realm of safety-nazi, police state terrorism... the pettyness of some traffic laws in general are merely excuses for statists to exercise undue control over the population in the name of "safety".

 

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Anyone who drives drunk effects those around the, and puts them in danger. True libertarianism recognizes the need for regulating actions and choices that place unwanted effects on people.

 

Then why isn't mere intoxication illegal? I can drink pretty much what I want and volunteer for a blood test and as long as I am not driving, nothing will be done.

 

Driving under the influence of any drug has the potential of causing harm or death to another person. Therefore, since it effects more than the person doing it, it must be regulated. The freedom of choice only comes into play when ONLY people consenting to it are effected.

I do agree that current law does not take into account that some people can handle more alcohol than others without having their ability tov drive effected. They do need to change them to take that into account, but simply doing away with them would do far more harm than good.

 

First, you don't have a right to be free from unwanted effects, particularly if it requires that peaceful people who have committed no crimes be punished for it. There are many things in life that create "unwanted effects" or negative consequences. If they don't constitute force or fraud, then they aren't crime, and those devoted to the principles of liberty will not call them crimes.

That being said, there is room to remove unwanted drivers from the streets. The problem with your solution for DUI is, as I said, that it criminalizes the content of one's blood. You don't just seek to punish bad judgment behind the wheel, but only bad judgment coupled with the presence of alcohol or certain other substances in the blood. You claim this is to protect against unwanted effects, but would you apply the same reasoning to someone who creates danger for other drivers by other means? For instance, someone who is very exhausted? Mothers of newborns are known to be so exhausted that their driving resembles that of drivers with a high blood alcohol content. How about people who have taken cold medication and don't realize how much it affected them? Should they be put in prison for a year for the first offense? How about grandma, when she's almost senile and can't drive well anymore? I dealt with one of those the other day; she was driving 25 mph on an extremely busy causeway and weaving in the lanes. Does that old lady deserve a year in prison?

To be consistent, either the answer is yes to all of them, or you have to explain why alcohol and drugs are the exception that makes the circumstances immoral.

 

Because DUI laws don't seek to punish those who potentially create dangerous situations on the road, but criminalize them for the level of alcohol in their blood. It doesn't matter if, under a BAC of .15 that you drive better than a senile old lady, what matters is that you have the BAC of .15. Grandma will get a ride home and her drivers license taken away from her (maybe.) You'll go to prison.

 

It's all about persecuting people according to race and ethnicity. In a DUI case, the letter "I" always stands for "Irish" or "Indian", because behind the scenes in the court system, Irish and native blood are considered to be genetic diseases.

 

What's wrong with that? So he's a moderate libertarian who leans to the right. How do you reconcile complaining about Ron Paul's moderation with your sig line:

Extremists are destroying America. We need to put aside politics, and work together to make our nation better
Vote Moderate!
We need a LEADER, not a politician!

 

Liberty fits my values, just as religiosity/conservatism fits yours. You cannot derive normative statements from descriptive facts about the world. Since all we have are descriptive facts, anyway you slice it (even if you accept a religious text), one can only make normative statements given values/goals.

It's irrational to say that you should run as fast as you can around the track, but not irrational if your goal is to win the 100m sprint. Similarly, I desire freedom from coercion, so my 'politics' reflect that.

To any degree that your point is a valid criticism of my view it's also a valid criticism to all other political views.

You're mixing the non-aggression axiom up with pacifism, it's nothing of the sort. The NAP allows for self-defense. You're perfectly welcome to put a bullet through the brain of murderers and rapists - since they have initiated force by definition.

My vision of 'anarchy' (I dislike the term since there would indeed be law, just voluntary private law) is something similar to the situation following the American revolution, with liberty taken that step further. I don't want a minimal state, I want no state.

Quite the opposite. I realize I can have no real effect on the state of the world, so I concentrate on my actions only. If you feel alcohol is horrible you can't stop the world from consuming it, but you can stop using it yourself.

That's all anyone's conception of government is. The left wants to force their personal conception of fairness on us all, conservatives their conception of purity. My politics aren't so much forcing another thing on everyone, but the absence of that force.

ie: you're welcome to do whatever you like. I'm not interested in what happens to you or the system of government you operate under, nor ultimately the one I do. I cannot change what others do, I can only change what I do. Consequently, I'm focused on what's within the domain of my own decision making ability - my own actions. My politics are only politics in that I don't suspend my personal ethics when it comes to the polling booth.

Neither do you.

 

I don't base any political views off of a 'religious' text - I support religion as a concept because I think religion and belief in something greater than the material world is more beneficial to society than bad.

Won't happen because it doesn't work in reality. Your view is basically Marxism, minus the coercion. It'd be nice if the entire world was willing to hold hands and work together voluntarily for the common good, but in reality that will never happen. A state's necessary to protect people therefore.

Just like it'd be nice if everyone was 100% moral - we wouldn't even need police, or prisons, or military - but they aren't, so those institutions are necessary.

Your politics aren't practical, which is why people who are anarchists aren't taken seriously. Your views are based on some utopian dream of what you'd want the world to be like, not on what the world actually is.

 

Why is what's beneficial to society the ultimate good? Because of your values.

Once again, I'm not asking for anything to happen, I'm simply describing what I'm going to do. My position is principled, not consequence-minded. In the same way that you abstain from alcohol as a Christian I abstain from coercion.

Can you not see that it's possible to not use alcohol yourself, but not desire to force this on others? I have the same view with regards to the initiation of force. You're welcome to go around capping people in the ass (lol) and voting for totalitarian politicians, but I will not. Simple as that.

I find it odd that we agree on approximately 80% of the issues and you're calling me a virtual Marxist.

You keep stubbornly insisting that I accept your view of consequences as the good, but we disagree fundamentally on this. Just a note, I have no problem with police or prisons or militaries, I have a problem with those things when they're sourced from force. I have a problem with them in the ethical sense, not the political one - because I am ethically opposed to the initiation of force, and taxation initiates force.

If you'd like to find out how such things can be done in the free market, in many cases more efficiently than with big government - then I suggest you read For a New Liberty.

This assumes that I accept consequences as the ultimate good. That's not true at all. You're insisting that I run around the track - because your goal is to win the 100m sprint, but I'm doing the high jump. Read your Hume.

I'm not making a political statement. I don't want to have a monopoly of force congruent with my views - I'm simply abstaining from something on a personal level because it doesn't fit with my values - like how literally everyone does all the time. Some people are vegetarians, some don't use alcohol - even more abstain from illegal drugs. I abstain from initiating force against others, or approving of actions that do.

That's all.

 

I don't recall ever saying that I abstain from alcohol, or elaborating on my religious beliefs.

People don't want laws just because they want to 'ban things they don't like'. They're based on cost/benefit analysis - for example drunk driving laws exist because of how many deaths are caused by drunk drivers, not just because the people who made the laws "want to punish people for drinking".

I think consequence/pragmatic view of law and politics is a better measure of good than a literal interpretation of a philosophy, because it can be measured in concrete terms.

That's perfectly fine, but it doesn't work on a global scale. At best it'd only work in small voluntary communes, not a nationwide scale.

 

Those who are brainwashed are these demikins and republicrats who believe that their votes are worth a crap. Both parties are owned outright by the same entity....Bush I=Clinton=Bush II=Obama. Familiarize yourself with the massive campaign of propaganda that you have been fed since early childhood....

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Edward Bernays
1932

 

I don't get sold by propaganda. I believe those individuals are doing what we need to maintain ourselves as a superpower with an efficient economy. I however do not think Libertarians have the slightest clue how to run a country with all their bullchit philosophical concepts.

 

If by "superpower" you mean bully and by "efficient economy" you mean crony capitalist plutocracy.

I fail to see how we couldn't run a country on our philosophy. If you'd care to try to poke those holes in our argument I'd be happy to blunt your spear.

 

It's impossible to argue with Libertarians because you don't have real arguments. It's all philosophical bullchit. Most Libertarians just pick holes in the current system we have without proving one bit why their plan would work any better. Like Austrian economics, or eliminating the Fed, letting banks fail, etc, etc. Just nonsensical stuff that very few intelligent people take seriously.

 

The "conscious and intelligent manipulation" used by the de facto rulers of our country has undermined our republic. They have carefully trained the vast majority of lemmings here that maintaining our "superpower" status and making the economy "efficient" for the few at the expense of those who do all the work is for their own good. Your comments are proof positive that you are a hapless, clueless victim of this propaganda.

 

The banks SHOULD fail - they made bad calls, they should lose all their money. If you don't let them fail, then they're basically allowed to do whatever they want, make risky financial decisions that affect the economy at large, and they'll stay in business regardless. That does not get us, the people, better, responsible banks.

The Fed should not be eliminated, it should be restricted solely to its original purpose: providing money that a bank does not have (ie it loaned it out, then a rush occurred and it didn't have the money to give to people) so a bank can't fail and take everyone's money with it. That's it.

You have yet to explain why any of this doesn't work better than the corrupt system we have now, which is effectively a stealth plutocracy.