Libertarian is not a dirty word!

Discussion in 'Political Science' started by Practical, Sep 10, 2020.

  1. Practical

    Practical Banned

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    False equivalencies are wonderful things aren't they? Like equating libertarians to anarchists, and you know you do it! We aren't anarchists, most of us recognize the need for small, local, limited government and a federal government that stays within their enumerated powers. Why is this such a bad thing? Is the idea of personal responsibility and accountability for actions such a scary thing? It is...freedom is difficult and it comes with a high cost. But the benefits well outweigh the price...why don't we try it for a time?

    Runtime a bit over 12 minutes

     
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  2. Diablo

    Diablo Well-Known Member

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    Where do you stand for civil rights, equal rights for women, gays, and people of colour?
     
  3. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    We did try it for a time. The reason we have a big centralized government is because state and local governments are completely ineffective in one way or the other, often purposefully ineffective.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2020
  4. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    It's not a dirty word simply an irrelevant one.
     
  5. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    The federal government is not a glorious example of efficiency either....

    Federal should be left to deal with the protection of borders, military, and infrastructure. The States should be dealing with everything else.
     
  6. joesnagg

    joesnagg Banned

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    Yes, like so many other "political philosophies" they sound great on paper, but in practice they slam into human nature. What we have now is far from perfect but likely as close as humans can get, unless we start breeding programable automatons.
     
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  7. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    In many ways, Libertarianism views man as Homo economicus, which is the same flawed view that Marxism uses. There's a reason why these philosophies fail. The run up against human nature.
     
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  8. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Fun Fact about 'Libertarianism':

    Empirically, most people don’t actually want absolute freedom, which is why democracies don’t elect libertarian governments. Irony of ironies, people don’t choose absolute freedom. But this refutes libertarianism by its own premise, as libertarianism defines the good as the freely chosen, yet people do not choose it. Paradoxically, people exercise their freedom not to be libertarians.

    The political corollary of this is that since no electorate will support libertarianism, a libertarian government could never be achieved democratically but would have to be imposed by some kind of authoritarian state, which rather puts the lie to libertarians’ claim that under any other philosophy, busybodies who claim to know what’s best for other people impose their values on the rest of us. Libertarianism itself is based on the conviction that it is the one true political philosophy and all others are false. It entails imposing a certain kind of society, with all its attendant pluses and minuses, which the inhabitants thereof will not be free to opt out of except by leaving.


    And of course we've all been subjected to assorted crazy screeds against 'statism n Stuff'

    And if libertarians ever do acquire power, we may expect a farrago of bizarre policies. Many support abolition of government-issued money in favor of that minted by private banks. But this has already been tried, in various epochs, and doesn’t lead to any wonderful paradise of freedom but only to an explosion of fraud and currency debasement followed by the concentration of financial power in those few banks that survive the inevitable shaking-out. Many other libertarian schemes similarly founder on the empirical record.

    A major reason for this is that libertarianism has a naïve view of economics that seems to have stopped paying attention to the actual history of capitalism around 1880. There is not the space here to refute simplistic laissez faire, but note for now that the second-richest nation in the world, Japan, has one of the most regulated economies, while nations in which government has essentially lost control over economic life, like Russia, are hardly economic paradises. Legitimate criticism of over-regulation does not entail going to the opposite extreme.


    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/marxism-of-the-right/

    More at the link above. For those who like their psychoses wrapped up in 'scientific language', here's a example of where 'logic' goes haywire via circular reasoning that formal logic creates for 'rationalists', this particularly odious one comes from the abortion cretins' swamp:

    Abstract
    Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

    https://jme.bmj.com/content/39/5/261.full

    They're shooting for murdering babies up to the age of two in this round; they will of course soon develop 'rational' reasons to keep upping that age.

    'Inconveniences' due largely to Economics ideologies are usually resolved via mass murders, and Libertarianism' ends up at the same place Marxists do re handling of 'social and economic problems'; Just kill the problem via the most convenient methods.
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2020
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  9. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're entire argument rests on a false dichotomy, and then you create a strawman for libertarians. There are other ways to dismantle the state. Unliek collectivists, especially socialists, who want to immediately impose their values and force moral conformity through the most brutal means possible, libertarians are patient.

    Right. It's crazy to want peace and not use violence against strangers to get what you want and to force them to conform to your morals and preferences.


    Examples of a) libertarians calling for such a system and b) such a system being in place anywhere.

    And you are all for war and mass murder of foreigners, since you continue to vote for a government that commits those crimes. I mean, if all libertarians are accountable for the ideas of a few, then you ought to be accountable for every action taken by those rulers you support - either by voting for them or accepting their authority.

    Your statim is a religion, and you frame libertarians are heretics against your dearly held faith.
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2020
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  10. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There's a growing libertarian anarchist movement. There's a realization that the state is nothing more than an organized criminal gang with no objectively legitimate authority.

    And, yeah, most people claim to want to be peaceful and avoid violence, but are fine with it when it's done on their behalf by the proxy of the state. Statism is a religion, and libertairanism is inherently heretical against the state religion.
     
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  11. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Rubbish from the first sentence on. Typical of 'Libertarians' to always claim criticisms are 'strawmen' and false, never mind we've all been subjected to their standard inanities since the 1970's and denying them only serves to prove they're dishonest cultists.

    What most 'Libertarians' are is sociopaths and narcissists who hate any restrictions on their anti-social behaviors and mindless self-indulgence.
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2020
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  12. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    True....but we have a problem!

    Humans instinctively chafe under rule of law (because we are unconsciously influenced by vestigial reptilian and mammalian sections of the brain, designed - before the evolution of the cerebral cortex ("conscious brain") to maximize survival of the individual organism in a predatory world); and yet we need to continually improve the effectiveness of rule of law, or descend into anarchy.

    Ironically our correspondent BleedingHeadKen claims Anarchism is the "natural state of humans", not perceiving that anarchy will be the logical result of self interest not counter-balanced by rule of law.

    Not surprisingly, in the international sphere, we have people claiming to believe in an international rules based system (a concept derived from processes in the cerebral cortex, concerning "justice", and "rights", etc: see eg, the UNUDHR), while at the same time demanding absolute national sovereignty (a concept derived from instinctive processes in the more ancient sections of human brain physiology). The latter concept is manifested in the UNSC by the veto demanded by the five great powers at the inception of the UN......
     
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  13. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Why don't you ask the good citizens of Kansas what it was like to "try it for a time"?

    Under the Governor Brown regime they passed the Koch Brothers LIBERTARIAN policies.

    The state went from a THRIVING economy to economic BASKET CASE in just a couple of years thanks ENTIRELY to the FAILURE of the LIBERTARIAN policies.

    It became so BAD that a BIPARTISAN COALITION of women legislatures got together to REPEAL all of the LIBERTARIAN policies that were wrecking the economy.

    Kansas is still in RECOVERY from "trying it for a while" and it might be a decade or two before all of the DAMAGE is repaired from those odious LIBERTARIAN policies.

    In essence KS just REPEATED the same MISTAKE that the nation had already LEARNED with the FAILED Articles of Confederation that were also based upon LIBERTARIAN policies.

    The OBJECTIVE is to LEARN from the mistakes of the PAST and NOT repeat them.

    LIBERTARIAN policies do NOT work in REALITY because the spurious "benefits" do NOT "outweigh the price" under any circumstances.

    Here endeth the lesson.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  14. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    All adult citizens should be equal according to the law.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  15. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ~ This question would be appropriate in the 1950's - not in 2020 .
     
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  16. Diablo

    Diablo Well-Known Member

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    Well, if you choose not to answer....
     
  17. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    It has been tried, in numerous places here in the U.S.. They were called frontiers in colonial times, the 'wild west' later on. Most territories and towns in the 'wild west' soon found it necessary to implement gun control laws, for instance, and of course all kinds of ordinances followed settlement, along with judges, courthouses, and jails. A large percentage of people just refuse to 'Play Well With Others' and think their self-interest trumps everybody else's rights.

    The very nature of mammals who develop empathy and the lengths of human childhoods dictates efforts to protect them and striving to provide stability and safe environments for ones' tribes, soon applied to extended families, regions, and eventually nations.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  18. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The same can be said for your authoritarian quasi-religious dribblings about how awful are people who just want to leave others alone.

    "Cultists" cry the statists who have unquestioning faith in the authority of their rulers and lack any principle to describe a limit to that authority./ That believe that laws and codes and regulations are valid because some politicians scribbled them on paper and conducted rituals and call them valid.

    It's hilarious that you would use that term. I think you have no idea what it means. "Cultists" follow orders; libertarians are notorious for being unruly, not agreeing on what is a libertarian, and arguing over who is rigth on any libertarian subject.

    Meanwhile, statists, and I count you among them, believe in that when the divinely appointed ruling authorities make a rule, it is your duty to obey. If you don't like that rule, you can respectfully request that they change it, but their authority to make that rule is never in question. Truly cult-like behavior.

    Statist who say things like that are usually the sociopaths and narcissists who need politicians and bureaucrats to control them because they have no idea how to control, or think, for themselves. Then they project that on peaceful people who want peaceful solutions to problems.[/QUOTE]
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  19. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A Hollywood version of history isn't going to pass muster as an argument.

    People need faith. I agree. Putting faith into rulers is an unfortunate side effect of that innate human drive. Trying to justify it with logic and reasoning doesn't work, however, as there is no objectively legitimate right to rule. The state is very much a cult, and it relies on people like you to attack anyone who doesn't submit to it's unlimited, unquestionable authority.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  20. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which LIBERTARIAN policies were those? Point them out.

    You mean, this state of California which has over $1.5 trillion in unfunded liabilities and is seeing more productive people leave than enter? The state with the highest poverty rate in the nation?
    Yeah, those libertarians suck for creating that!

    I don't think you know what "libertarian" policies are. So, giving a "lesson" on something you know nothing about seems rather ridiculous. Then again, expecting worshipers of state authority to do anything but proselytize for their faith and against heathenish libertarians would be expecting too much.
     
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  21. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    In the last study I read, there were approximately 32 types of libertarians identified and among those were several types of anarchists. This video betrays a shallow understanding of the topic, as does your post. From appearances, you fall more on the authoritarian side of the x axis than the libertarian side.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
  22. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    So you do NOT even KNOW about the FAILURES of libertarian polices that have occurred in the last decade?

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-great-kansas-tea-party-disaster-177298/

    Not even Republicans want to have anything at all to do with the FAILURE that is libertarianism.
     
  23. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    lol this is another silly gimmick 'libertarians' invented, trying to claim 'nobody understands us, since we're like, really really complex n stuff doods!' Sorry kidz, we all know you're just poseurs and fakes, just self-indulgent sociopaths trying to fabricate some credibility for your narcissism and anti-social neuroses.
     
  24. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    I always found this article interesting. You can not only apply this to corporate leadership, but government leaders as well. Those that seek leadership (anyone who runs for office) is seeking power over others and thus are psychopaths. In other words, you can not have government without electing psychopaths.

    The Disturbing Link Between Psychopathy And Leadership

    It is not the image we like to have when we think of business leaders. But troubling research indicates that in the ranks of senior management, psychopathic behavior may be more common than we think – more prevalent in fact than the amount such seriously aberrant behavior occurs in the general population.


    At first blush this may seem counterintuitive, even outrageous. We tend to think of psychopathy as the province of criminals, with leadership qualities that may land someone atop a fringe religious cult, say – not in a boardroom. But before discussing the research, let’s consider for a moment why this possibility is actually less bizarre than it may initially seem.

    The hallmarks of the psychopathic personality involve egocentric, grandiose behavior, completely lacking empathy and conscience. Additionally, psychopaths may be charismatic, charming, and adept at manipulating one-on-one interactions. In a corporation, one’s ability to advance is determined in large measure by a person’s ability to favorably impress his or her direct manager. Unfortunately, certain of these psychopathic qualities – in particular charm, charisma, grandiosity (which can be mistaken for vision or confidence) and the ability to “perform” convincingly in one-on-one settings – are also qualities that can help one get ahead in the business world.

    https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproje...errer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s
     
  25. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    lol more humor; the Libertarian Party is itself nothing but a corporate subsidiary of the Koch Brothers companies, including pipeline monopolies they rely on 'imminent domain' land thefts by the Federal and state govts. for their existence. It's also hilarious how 'libertarians' here don't recognize themselves in the cited description they invented to babble about 'statists n stuff'. Worshiping Ayn Rand and the 'Social Darwinism' cult is what they excel at.
     
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