Libertarianism Lives

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Tuesday, May 28, 2002 | EDWARD H. CRANE and ROGER PILON

[TroutStalker]

Political fashions come and go, but political principles endure. President Clinton noted some six years ago that the era of big government was over. Yet today, conservatives who should know better see a new fashion. George Will, high on his Hamiltonian horse in the Washington Post last month, seemed delighted that minimal-government conservatism was dead. And on these pages recently, Francis Fukuyama declared1 the libertarianism that followed the Thatcher-Reagan revolution to be in retreat. We're all Keynesians now, apparently.

[Reagan Man]

>>>... the Republican Party I see is the home of frauds, charlatans, fools, and outright criminals.

With such an irresponible attitude, I see no good reason to further debate with you. You're nothing but a pessimist, a social misfit and a politcal malcontent.

But to answer your initial question and just for the record.

>>>Name two instances of President Bush doing something to actually shrink the size and scope of the Federal Government or reducing Federal Spending and I'll buy you a steak dinner.

Bush's Tight Budget Blueprint Appears to Contradict Rhetoric

A quick glance at the OMB budgetary estimates, show reductions in many government programs, from 2001 to 2002.

Agrilculture -$1.4 (in billions of dollars)
Commerce -$.4
Energy -$.5
Interior -$.4
Justice -$1.1
Labor -$.6
Transportation -$2.1
Corps of Engineers -$.6
EPA -$.5
FEMA -$.2

A T-Bone or porterhouse steak dinner, would be just fine with me. Thanks

[Moby Grape]

The only thing nuttier than the Libertarian idea of legalizing drugs, is their vastly overblown sense of status as a poltical force....they have only ONE significant impact on the political landscape...they help elect democrats.....and as they do, they pound their chests and proclaim themselves the only true principled among us, wanting all we lessors to admire their unwaivering devotion to our Constitution....as they ELECT democrats.....go figure!!!

[Kevin Curry]

Yep. Libertarians are the electoral equivalent of Hamas suicide bombers. They can't win the war, but in a close race they can detonate themselves and neutralize just enough Republican votes to allow the liberal Democrats survive another day in power.

They are the liberal Democrats' secret weapon.

[Kevin Curry]

I believe you take a very shallow view of libertarianism.

Most people who identify themselves as libertarians are quite shallow. It really is about drugs and only drugs for many of them; or about gratuitous and irresponsible sexual behavior for many more. They don't desire freedom to do things they've never done and never intend to do. They just don't want to be hassled in living the the boorish and destructive lifestyles they are already habituated to. Those lifestyles cause enormous damage to other people and their property, but the libertarians ignore the evidence and pretend they live in hermetically-sealed societies of one where no damage ever proceeds beyond one's own skin or home. They are fools; fools in denial of the most extreme kind.

Those that are more thoughtful tend to suffer from a stupendous lack of common sense. They really think that if their precious little society works well in the synapses of their brains it will work just as well in the blood, dirt, and sweat of real society of other people beyond their skulls. In that sense they are not much different from the Utopians, Robert Owens Communitarians, early Mormons, or Marxists.

Oh, their focus is different from these communitarian movements, but their silly and idiotic faith that a governmental ideal can hatch pristine and unchangeable from the human mind and provide the perfect environment for mankind to take wing and soar to perfect peace, absolute liberty, and nonexistent taxes simply by breathing the magic words "non-initiation of force!" in response to all of life's difficult problems is of the same bogus and impractical kind and quality.

These "intellectual" libertarians are far more dangerous than the shallow libertarians who really just want to be able to score dope at the the local supermarket. The intellectual libertarians are dangerous because their precious political theory is more important to them than the smelly reality of life itself outside their own skins. Given a chance to implement their grand schemes, they would expect perfection immediately. When it didn't happen (which is inevitable), they would look for enemies to blame. They would never find fault with their perfect theory. In the end, they would sacrifice the lives and liberties of other people (the "enemies") rather than admit their theory was flawed.

And yes, they would freely kill, jail, or fine other citizens--even though such reprisals would be 180 degrees out form their professed belief in non-aggression and the rest of the simplistic pabulam and rot they subscribe to. That's what pointy-headed intellectuals do when they are given power.

So spare me the pontificating and the huffing and puffing on behalf of your "perfect" system of government. I would rather take my chances in the imperfect and messy Republican-Democrat gridlock that characterizes our present system. I'll be much safer.

[Kevin Curry]

Post #104 is directed at you as well.

[Moby Grape]

Well said......Libertarians do indeed have this naive simplistic view of the world....it is a view in which one believes that by hiding one's head in the sand, trouble will not come calling....."those old foreign terrorist didn't attack my wife and kids, and they didn't steal my dope stash, so why should I go fight 'em?".

[marshmallow]

"Libertarianism Lives"

Just like Elvis.

[Texasforever]

I believe you take a very shallow view of libertarianism.

A shallow view is all you can get when you scrach the surface of Libertarianism. It is a thin coat of paint covering a rotten surface. There is NOTHING in the philosophy that can withstand logical analysis beyond the sterile laboratory that must be in place for the philosophy to be viable. Every time libertarian dogma is tested on this site against the reality of life, libertarians invariably whine that others "just don't understand us". I have news for you, we understand you all too well. The truth is, libertarianism is "understandable" to a 12 year old, they invented it.

[dcwusmc]

And some people wonder why libertarian threads dissolve into anti-WOsD threads. Only THREE posts and there you are, kevin, with your fear and loathing of freedom and self-control and self-responsibility...

[tdadams]

Keep posting your anti-libertarian drivel, buddy. Everytime you do, you simply display for everyone what an idiotic, puerile, bought-and-paid-for statist you are.

[Lurker]

Overall Federal spending will increase by about 4.5% this year. That's not a decrease (unless of course one is a Republican. Then an increase can be a decrease....)

No steak for you yet.

L

[Reagan Man]

You specifically asked: Name two instances of President Bush doing something to actually shrink the size and scope of the Federal Government or reducing Federal Spending and I'll buy you a steak dinner.

I gave you ten specific department/agency spending decreases, in Bushes first budget of 2002. We both know there has been no actual decrease in overall spending by the feds.

I could have mentioned Bushes $1.35 trillion tax cut. Even though most of the tax cut comes in the out years, it does remove money from Treasury coffers and that reduces government spending. If it ain't there, they can't spend it.

In Bushes 2003 budget, sent to Congress in Feb2002, there are real cuts in the Justice and Labor departments; the budget would reduce the number of job-training and work programs from 48 to 28; cut $500 million from Community Oriented Policing Services, promoted by Clinton; freeze hiring in the EPA enforcement division; and hold non-mandatory spending, for programs not required under law, to a 2% increase. That means their funding would grow by slightly less than the rate of inflation.

There are more cuts and still no steak dinner.

[Lurker]

"We both know there has been no actual decrease in overall spending by the feds."

Thanks for admitting that you were wrong.

As I said before, I'll give credit to when one single Department, Agency, or Burea is actually eliminated by Bush. I ain't holding my breath....

L

[Don Myers]

"That is an absolutly absurd contention."

Only to a Libertarian...

[Reagan Man]

>>>Thanks for admitting that you were wrong.

LOL I wasn't wrong!

I'll remind you, one more time, exactly what you asked me:

QUOTE: "Name two instances of President Bush doing something to actually shrink the size and scope of the Federal Government or reducing Federal Spending and I'll buy you a steak dinner."

I gave you, numerous spending cuts (RE:#112/#101) and now you have the gall, to tell me I was wrong.

You're a first class welsher.

Your word means nothing.

[LloydofDSS]

>>And yes, they would freely kill, jail, or fine other citizens--even though such reprisals would be 180 degrees out form their professed belief in non-aggression and the rest of the simplistic pabulam and rot they subscribe to. That's what pointy-headed intellectuals do when they are given power.<<

First of all, no libertarian is advocating some kind of Libertarian Dictatorship. Where in your fertile imagination did you conjure up such an idiotic thought?

Libertarians are basically advocating a move in the direction of freedom, and away from centralized power in the government. We are not advocating the opposite, as one would believe from your ridiculous screed.

The only groups we are advocating violence against are terrorists and countries that harbor terrorists.

However, we might help sponsor a class action lawsuit to extract reparations against those Americans who have lead the charge to imprison their American brothers for no good reason for the last 80 years. All vice crime laws are abominations to freedom.

[rebelsoldier]

Libertarians are political juveniles and theoretical hacks whose idealized universe is neither realistic or viable. Since Libertarians seldom if ever exercise political power and thus have to make the hard choices and real world compromises, they can freely bitch and moan about how they would never do such things in an environment of make-believe armchair philosophizing.

[Lurker]

You sound like a Democrat when you say that an increase in spending is actually a budget cut....

L

[TJFLSTRAT]

Go read their goofy party platform, then see how much you like the libertarians

[Reagan Man]

You sound like a Democrat when you say that an increase in spending is actually a budget cut....

Par for the course. You've lost the argument, so now you want to change the subject. Case closed!