Posted on 02/16/2010 7:27:44 PM PST by ggrrrrr23456
So, what exactly is a Libertarian?
I have a friend who calls himself a Libertarian. I've known him for about a year. We both have similar interests, share the same political views (generally), and have respect for a benevolent and gracious higher power.
Lately, my friend has been sending out articles written by "Libertarians" and those associated with the Campaign for Liberty. Most of these articles are highly critical of the war on terror, ridicule the efforts of the Bush administration to combat the terror threat, and seize on any opportunity to highlight misguided efforts at Guantanamo, Afghanistan, or Iraq.
I get the impression that my friend believes the government, in its pursuit of terrorists, is seriously endangering the rights of free, law-abiding citizens like you and I. While I can understand the concern, especially in light of the Obama administration's alarming statements regarding military veterans and so-called right-wing extremists (aka Teapartiers), I am searching for the right response that addresses the terror issue without negating the importance of the preservation of individual liberty.
I would appreciate your input.
The truth is minimum wages, wage and hour laws, child labor laws, worker’s comp, social security, FDA, and medicare are horrible intrusions of gov’t power.
Also don’t forget the rest of the entitlements, executive orders, the overweening national government’s domination of the federal system, the department of education, and more.
Under libertarian principals the government simply cannot expand. If mainstream Republicans had gotten this right, there would be no need for libertarianism, but alas, Republicans dropped the ball, and so libertarians are relevant.
Entirely correct.
“SS is funded by YOU and is available to YOU(maybe)”
You do realize that SS benefits are on a sliding scale, right ? Someone who had average wages of $20,000/yr gets a SS check of roughly $1,000/mo in retirement while a higher-earner that paid 5x as much is SS taxes based on his $100,000/yr income will receive roughly $2,500/mo from SS. And Medicare is even more skewed — you get the same insurance no matter how much you paid into it, and there is no cap on what wages pay the Medicare tax. So someone that paid only $1,000/yr into Medicare gets the same health insurance payouts as another guy that paid $1,000,000/yr into the Medicare fund.
So SS redistributes wealth by a huge factor and Medicare by a ridiculously huge factor.
define “societal responsibility”
Tell me about it. I take home a considerable amount of loot each year and I will never proportionally the benefits the other Americans will see.
Cool huh?
I would if I weren’t so tired. I used to think highly of Rand, and named my first kid after her. Then the real world hit. That zompist link pretty well gives my objections.
I see libertarianism as a Garden of Eden “ism.” If only we cast out the Serpent of Government, then all will be okey-dokey. The problem is, humans need government or we degenerate into packs of quarreling monkeys, with the bananas going to the strongest.
To prevent that, we must cooperate with each other in our country (community) and there are impositions upon our complete freedom which will occur. If we study our history lessons, we learn that certain types of situations lead to bad results.
To that end, we have mandantory education, welfare, military, and regulation. No human civilization has ever existed and thrived with stability without government and regulation. Too much government power, and we have a bad situation.
Theoretically, you can say some goobers right to use meth does not affect me, but it does. It is my house the SOB will break into. It is his children who will be a drag on society, whether we take over the kids and feed and raise them, or if we leave them to starve.
Look on one of these links and you have the Libertarians admitting the 1890s was like a Golden Age. The lessons of history have been forgotten. The libertarians are like the Taliban. Dang, if we could just go back to 700’s, life was perfect.
parsy, who don’t play that game. Life is just more complex than that
Yeah that is a great movie. I have seen it plenty of times and never seem to get tired of it.
I’m on CMT. Comcast, one of those prime examples of our glorious free market system, has this little nightly bo-bo where it takes them an hour or so to change the date, and the program schedules don’t work for about an hour.
But it is back, so I will see what else is on.
parsy, who loves Johnny Cash is dead and His House Burned Down. Good video.
Like Goodfellas.
I amuse you?! What? Like a clown?!....
Aviator. Pretend to be Howeird Hughes rich.
More Libertarian criticism, here
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4020505/tea-partys-dilemma
Lew Rockwell on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s video blog, wondering where “these people” (Tea Party goers who know the Constitution) were during Bush’s administration.
On facebook, I told him:
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you throw the “neocon” label around. We are the Republican Party, we are the Tea Party. Before we joined them last February, only a small fringe even knew about the meetups and few of us identified *our* Tea Parties with Paul.
I can tell you that “these people” were during the Bush Administration: we were on FreeRepublic, we were gathering in Florida, Austin and DC to ensure the election of President Bush. We were organizing the Swift Boat meetings, chasing the Texas Dems to Oklahoma and New Mexico, and fighting to win every prolife victory and every conservative judge appointment we could while we had the chance. We were electing Conservative, not Libertarian, legislators.
I can tell you that the TARP was opposed by most of us, but we know that that legislation was not as simple as we’re being told by Libertarians or Progressives. There’s a mountain of difference between TARP and the Stimulus.
They sound like Hippies from the 60’s......you know the flower people. Let everybody do their own thing their own way...and anti-gov. types.
OR they sound like those characters in Calif....
Darn Comcast! I missed “Super Ninja Bikini Babes”
parsy, who has Highlander on
BTW, did you know Rockwell was behind von Mises dot org? Last I read, he was president or chairman of the board.
parsy, who found out earlier this year
I didn’t know until today. Knew him as the editor of Reason magazine.
Cato and von Mises do good work. They go too far, often, though.
I’ve got a strong libertarian streak and flirted hard with the Libertarians for a few years. But, there have to be a few rules and a few responsibilities, and I won’t accept that altruism is insanity.
You watch the weirdest stuff. LOL
truth be told I watch junk food for brain stem cells.
Points taken. But a few clarifications. The thinking libertarian does not want to cast out government completely, just confine it. It’s ridiculous to say there will be no government, but hey, let’s split the difference between no government and what we have now, and I’d say that’s a good start.
Turning to the idea of Garden of Eden. All politics should be about what “should” or what “ought” to be, so I don’t accept the idea that we are all supposed to be so jaded, that if we are aspiring to a government confined to certain functions, that it is necessarily a utopian approach. Of course humans need government, no one is saying no government, we are saying government as a specialized tool, i.e. that minimum amount of government that liberates individuals to succeed or to fall.
Of course we must cooperate, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that government is the only vehicle of cooperation among individuals. Quite the opposite. Government is the instrument of coercion, i.e. the act of compelling by force. Coercion and cooperation can be argued to be opposites. One is an arrangement entered into by two willing parties. The other is an arrangement imposed on one party by another using the threat of force, so I would like to explore further the premise of your assertion that to cooperate means to be coerced by a government, because I think that’s a critical distinction.
The rest of your argument turns on that point. Because we must be coerced, therefore these are the things we must be coerced to do: mandatory education, military, welfare, and regulation.
Let’s explore that. Why should education be mandatory? If a person does not have to good sense to get educated, then why should the state spend resources educating him? Its been my experience that education becomes more efficient and productive at the moment when the individual realizes what role the education will have in his life. Its is at that moment that education takes on meaning, and becomes inspired and productive. Can you imagine the resources we use forcing people to sit in classrooms that really have no business being there? If a person truly wants the consequences of no education, I say we let that person have those consequences. Subsequently, if they realize the need, they will return to the endeavor supremely motivated.
I think the idea that less government means you legalize drugs or you don’t legalize drugs misses the point. Its not about drugs. Its about the individual dealing with the consequences of his actions. Right now you have an entire generation, a culture if you will, of people who have come to expect to be supported by the government as their right from god.
Going to your next point. I don’t understand how the goober’s kids will be a drag on society if we leave them to starve. I didn’t quite understand how that would work. If they starve then in fact they wouldn’t be a drag on society.
The 1890’s were not a golden age. They had certain problems. One of those problems was the increasing culture of need, and the increasing role of government within the culture of need. There was something fundamental and philosophical growing within the capitalist system. I think that’s where you are misinterpreting things, even though you named a child or a dog Rand.
In all seriousness, serious minded libertarians are not yearning for the past. We are trying to form a philosophical basis for the future. The problem with modern Conservatism is that liberals (generally) have conservatives in a philosophical corner. More about that later. I am off to bed. Although I’ve enjoyed your posts, and look forward to continuing the conversation.
Same here. Read Atlas Shrugged like four times, starting in high school. But as you get older, if you keep an open mind, you start to see that altruism isn’t a bad thing. I think it is the “liberty” part that gets us all because the first reaction to the word “liberty” is to say “Uhmmm- liberty good”, then you realize all the stuff built into their concept. Somewhere there has to be some common sense.
parsy
I have cable in the room, so after a while, different is good. Now, I’m on “Tank Overhaul” waiting for “World’s Deadliest Airplanes” - the A-26.
parsy
Same.
parsy
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.