Posted on 02/01/2002 10:21:47 AM PST by Exnihilo
Welcome to the world of Libertarianism, where they will state with a straight face that they are "conservatives" and in the next breath will state what a great "constitutional" organization the ACLU is.
Commies have no standing to make arguments against freedom for the same reason al-Qaeda apologists have no standing to make arguments against Israel.
His personal opinions on other matters lead him to his views on Libertarianism. If he and/or you are to be taken seriously, you cannot incorporate solid socialism into a viewpoint and then try to separate it when it suits him/you.
Love it! :-)
Conservatives are the managers of the welfare state and the late stages prior to the death of the nation state in the Pre-Information Age time period.
Conservatives would be wise to learn to work with us as our thinkers are the only chance they have to preserve their families and culture if not their welfare nation-state they have been taught to love.
Image: moral autonomy of the individual
Reality: libertarians demand that the individual accept the outcome of market forces
As opposed to what? Redistribution of wealth or government manipulation of markets to make them more "fair"?
As you wish.
Perhaps if you fielded candidates that actually stood for small government and constitutional restraint, instead of whining about how someone stole your votes (as if you were entitled to them), you wouldn't have lost.
This statement is outright idiotic. To call market forces--which consists millions upon millions of individual decisions mad by millions and millions of separate indivduals--collectivist is out right insanity. This guy has absolutely no regard for the proper definition of words---he's worse than Bill Clinton!!!
collectivism: Despite the claimed horror at 'collectivism', libertarians share the general liberal preference for collective forms of decision-making - above all, the market. This is often legitimised by a claimed universal necessity, to "balance" or "weigh" preferences. This is an ancient metaphor, and very popular since Newton, but the 'necessity' is not self-evident. No can show why preferences should be balanced, or weighed: to want them weighed or balanced is a preference in itself. It is, by definition, a collectivist preference, since at least two people must participate. In practice, free-market decisions are always collective: supply of one product, by one maker, to one customer is not a free market. A free market in the libertarian sense needs at least three parties: with only one buyer and one seller, there is no competition. In such a free market, with multiple parties and competition, all parties influence the final state of affairs. No individual can decide that outcome alone. While claiming to reject autocracy, libertarianism has in fact abandoned autonomy.This is mostly jiberish. Calling the free-market "collectivism" doesn't make it so. The market is a vast collection of free individuals. They each, as individuals, decide the value of any given commodity. And each individual then acts upon his judgement and decides whether or not to participate in a transaction. The buyer buys at a given price or the seller sells at that price each according to his own will. If one doesn't like the price, then he is free to walk away from the transaction. In an authoritarian society, be it leftist or rightist, those commodity values are set by the State. Also, the decision to participate in the sale is made by the State. What you may buy or sell, where you may buy or sell it, and what price you will pay or get are all set by the State. That is collectivism. And it is still collectivism even if one cloaks it in a veneer of "traditional values". Changing the definition of a word may work for Humpty Dumpty or Bill Clinton, but it doesn't work in reality.
Because rights either exist, or they do not.
If our rights are brokered by the state in a semi-socialistic-centrally-planned economy, then they are not recognized by the state as rights, but priveleges.
Why is this hard to understand?
If you have failed to do any real research, that is your loss; don't expect ME, for instance, to refute this totalitarian vomit.
You have replied to none of my posts so far on any thread.
Don't bother now, Mr. Nothing; you are a disruptor, plain and simple.
I will hunt you down on every thread I can.
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