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They call themselves libertarians; I think they're antisocial bastards
Guardian ^ | 12/20/05 | George Monbiot

Posted on 12/19/2005 8:30:57 PM PST by Pikamax

The road-rage lobby couldn't have been more wrong. Organisations such as the Association of British Drivers or Safe Speed - the boy racers' club masquerading as a road-safety campaign - have spent years claiming that speeding doesn't cause accidents. Safe Speed, with the help of some of the most convoluted arguments I've ever read, even seeks to prove that speed cameras "make our roads more dangerous". Other groups, such as Motorists Against Detection (officially known as Mad), have been toppling, burning and blowing up the hated cameras. These and about a thousand such campaigns maintain that speed limits, speed traps and the government's "war on the motorist" are shakedown operations whose sole purpose is to extract as much money as possible from the poor oppressed driver.

Well last week the Department for Transport published the results of the study it had commissioned into the efficacy of its speed cameras. It found that the number of drivers speeding down the roads where fixed cameras had been installed fell by 70%, and the number exceeding the speed limit by more than 15mph dropped by 91%. As a result, 42% fewer people were killed or seriously injured in those places than were killed or injured on the same stretches before the cameras were erected. The number of deaths fell by more than 100 a year. The people blowing up speed cameras have blood on their hands.

But this is not, or not really, an article about speed, or cameras, or even cars. It is about the rise of the antisocial bastards who believe they should be allowed to do what they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: liberals; liberaltarians; libertarians
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To: Howie66
As a recovering Libertarian, I'll agree with your detractors and say that you don't have the foggiest idea as to what Libertarianism is.

To call a Libertarian a socialist is like claiming that it is too sunny at midnight. Or why it is so dry under water. Completely incongruent concepts, all three.

The important tenant (to me) of Libertarianism is the sovereignty of self; this concept in itself is completely incompatible with socialism.

A Libertarian is a Republican who excuses himself from the social war. In other words, fiscal conservative, social liberal and / or agnostic.

Hope that clears it up a bit for you.

APf
21 posted on 12/19/2005 9:21:16 PM PST by APFel (Loose ships sink lips.)
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Bring back tpaine!!!!!
22 posted on 12/19/2005 9:22:56 PM PST by RabidBartender
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To: Howie66

Would you accept PayPal funds to help you buy a clue?

NAZIs are Socialists; libertarians aren't.


23 posted on 12/19/2005 9:27:53 PM PST by Eagle Eye (There ought to be a law against excess legislation.)
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To: Howie66
"They are really Socialists that lack the intellectual honesty (and/or nuts) to admit it."

That statement is just so incorrect I'm not even going to bother responding to it ROFL! Do some reading man.

24 posted on 12/19/2005 9:28:18 PM PST by KoRn (Merry Christmas!!)
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To: Howie66

You have no clue what the actual Libertarian platform is with a statement like that.

I was kind of an activist with the Libertarian Party for two years when I was absolutely disgusted with the entire Republican Party; I left for a few reasons, but I still believe that their general platform is the best of any of the national parties.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt... Perhaps the 'sample' of Libertarian Party members you know personally ARE socialists, who themselves have no clue what the actual platform of the LP is... They are only there because of the 'cheap, legalized recreational drugs for everyone' attitude that is so prevalent in the LP.....
(One of the main reasons I went back to the GOP by the way.)

But saying the Libertarian Party in general is socialistic is about like saying that Ayn Rand was a socialist.


25 posted on 12/19/2005 9:28:23 PM PST by LegendHasIt
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To: Pikamax

Most Libertarians are anarchists, whether they admit it or not..they would love to do away with ALL laws, everywhere.


26 posted on 12/19/2005 9:29:30 PM PST by Windsong (Jesus Saves, but Buddha makes incremental backups)
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To: Howie66; Windsong
Having many up close and personal discussions with so-called "libertarians", I can only conclude that these people are Socialist...
Most Libertarians are anarchists....

Howie, meet Windsong. Windsong, meet Howie. Have fun.

27 posted on 12/19/2005 9:32:23 PM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: JCEccles
Marxists and libertarians share a similar conceit in that purists in both camps are convinced that government is evil and unnecessary.

Wrong. Just plain simply wrong.

Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, have a wiser, more healthy and realistic understanding of the limited strengths and pervasive limitations of government.

Sounds like you've got the conceits that you accuse others of having. And a buttload of hypocracy to go with it.

28 posted on 12/19/2005 9:32:37 PM PST by Eagle Eye (There ought to be a law against excess legislation.)
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To: Howie66
"Libertarians" are to cowrdly to admit the TRUTH. They are really Socialists that lack the intellectual honesty (and/or nuts) to admit it.

"Republicans" are too cowardly to admit that they're really greedy, power-mad, control-freak Big Stupid Government political hacks who don't hesitate to lie about all these aspects of their personalities in order to get elected to pursue their government-growth, deficit-enhancing agenda. They also stomp the First Amendment and choke kittens.



The difference between our two statements? I'm right.

29 posted on 12/19/2005 9:33:05 PM PST by Hank Rearden (Never allow anyone who could only get a government job attempt to tell you how to run your life.)
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To: Windsong
Wrong.

They are for personal responsibility and limited Federal government, not anarchy. There IS a difference.

Maybe it is just too subtle a difference for some people to discern, but it is a real difference

30 posted on 12/19/2005 9:33:47 PM PST by LegendHasIt
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To: Windsong

Folks, here's another one Stuck on Stupid.


31 posted on 12/19/2005 9:34:45 PM PST by Eagle Eye (There ought to be a law against excess legislation.)
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To: Howie66
Good evening.
I'm a libertarian and I'm not intellectually dishonest. I am pretty much fearless, so I guess I may be slightly nuts.

You don't know what being a libertarian means, yet you post ignorant crap about us. That makes you look mean spirited or stupid. I don't know you, so I won't make a judgment one way or another.

Michael Frazier
32 posted on 12/19/2005 9:40:26 PM PST by brazzaville (no surrender no retreat, well, maybe retreat's ok)
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To: Pikamax
...As a result, 42% fewer people were killed or seriously injured in those places than were killed or injured on the same stretches before the cameras were erected...

I'm sure comparable statistics could be manufactured to prove the efficacy of gun bans, too.

33 posted on 12/19/2005 9:43:34 PM PST by Sloth (Freedom of speech doesn't mean the rest of us have to shut up.)
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To: Petronski

I like this , this seems to be a revolt against the police state mentality. I like the idea of foam in the radar box. Wish it would take hold here.
DC has all it speed radar traps on the commuter routes. Not where accidents and people get hit. No it is all the money making routes.
Could understand to reduce speeders in neighborhoods, would not like it, but a rational reason. But all on the commutter routes to make as much money as possible.


34 posted on 12/19/2005 9:48:07 PM PST by Rhiannon
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To: JCEccles
Marxists and libertarians share a similar conceit in that purists in both camps are convinced that government is evil and unnecessary. The greatest difference is, marxists had almost a full century to test their foolishness to abject failure...

Congratulations -- you've somehow surpassed the idiocy threshhold already established on this thread by Howie66... no small accomplishment.

35 posted on 12/19/2005 9:54:39 PM PST by Sloth (Freedom of speech doesn't mean the rest of us have to shut up.)
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I don't like speed cameras. I don't like red light cameras. I don't like the devices that have been proposed in GB that tax you based on what roads you are on and when. Essentially I don't like the nanny state, and I don't want to live in a society where the government knows your movements and cameras are everywhere.


36 posted on 12/19/2005 9:57:35 PM PST by SmoothTalker
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To: Howie66

"
Having many up close and personal discussions with so-called "libertarians", I can only conclude that these people are Socialist in their "feelings", just lacking in the intellectual honesty to admit that they are "Socialists", first."

Thats one of the strangest comments i've ever seen. A libertarian believes in a small, weak, and handsoff government. A socialist wants a large, and very powerful goverment that has control over a lot of aspects of our eveyday lives.


37 posted on 12/19/2005 9:59:21 PM PST by SmoothTalker
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To: Howie66

This is frustrating. Any conservative who does not understand libertarianism, is someone who probably hasn't read a book not connected to the Left Behind series. No one who understands the intellectual foundations of capitalism and the market economy, would foolishly equate libertarianism with socialism. Anyone who would do such a thing, hasn't read Human Action by Von Mises, Road to Serfdom by Hayek, Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt, The Economic Way of Thinking by Heyne, anything by Thomas Sowell or Milton Friedman or Lord Acton, or any other book from the litany of pro-libertarian works that should be required reading for everyone across the political spectrum, yet alone those who claim to be a defender of the free market system.

Because if you are well versed in the intellectual side of the Conservative movement, you wouldn't be calling Libertarians--such as Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek--Socialists. That's just ignorance, and representative of the disgusting anti-intellectualism trend in the Conservative movement. It's pretty simple: If you don't understand the arguments from the Austrian school and Monetarist school, you don't understand Conservativism. If you do understand the Austrian and Monetarist schools, you know that Libertarianism isn't Socialism, and that Conservativism and Libertarianism share the same intellectual roots.

I'm not a Libertarian, and I'm not a pure laissez faire economist. I'm more in line with Hayek, who believed that not only was Government necessary to protect the market system (Rule of Law), but that the Government could actually make a positive contribution to the market process in other ways. I have my qualms with the Libertarian party, many many qualms. But just because you disagree with an ideology, doesn't make it wise to hurl any insult at it, because when you do, you open yourself to harsh criticism from those who know more about what you're talking about than you do.


38 posted on 12/19/2005 10:17:17 PM PST by 0siris
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To: Howie66
Having many up close and personal discussions with so-called "libertarians", I can only conclude that these people are Socialist in their "feelings", just lacking in the intellectual honesty to admit that they are "Socialists", first.

You should cut back on making conclusions. Just a suggestion...JFK

39 posted on 12/19/2005 10:23:51 PM PST by BADROTOFINGER (Life sucks. Get a helmet.)
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To: Pikamax

Libertarians are right on so many things.


40 posted on 12/19/2005 10:51:55 PM PST by GeronL (1678 computer infections and still Freeping!!!)
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