Libertarians Rising

Time Magazine ^ | October 18, 2007 | Michael Kinsley

[Eric Blair 2084]

To oversimplify: Democrats are for Big Government; Republicans are against it.

To oversimplify somewhat less, Democrats aren't always for Big Government, and Republicans aren't always against it. Democrats treasure civil liberties, whereas Republicans are more tolerant of government censorship to protect children from pornography, or of wiretapping to catch a criminal, or of torture in the war against terrorism. War in general and Iraq in particular--certainly Big Government exercises--are projects Republicans tend to be more enthusiastic about. Likewise the criminal process: Republicans tend to want to make more things illegal and to send more people to jail for longer. Republicans also consider themselves more concerned about the moral tone of the country, and they are more disposed toward using the government in trying to improve it. In particular, Republicans think religion needs more help from society, through the government, while Democrats are touchier about the separation of church and state.

Many people feel that neither party offers a coherent set of principles that they can agree with. For them, the choice is whether you believe in Big Government or you don't. And if you don't, you call yourself a libertarian. Libertarians are against government in all its manifestations. Domestically, they are against social-welfare programs. They favor self-reliance (as they see it) over Big Government spending.

[MNJohnnie]

Domestically, they are against social-welfare programs. They favor self-reliance

Pure and utter nonsense. Today's Libertines want the social safety net provided by us, the responsible adults but object to being asked to play their fair part as a member of a free society.

They all got their education paid for by us, the responsible adult portion of the population. They want access to our health care system if they are sick or injured. They demand the right to use our roads, our military, police and fire protection. They demand we guard their borders, maintain the purity of their food, water and environment etc etc etc etc

What they Libertines object to is being asked to pay their portions of the costs of those necessary burdens of a free society. They want all the rights and none of the obligations of a free society.

Like Marxism, Libertineism works only in theory. When confronted with the harsh cold realities of organizing a society, it is wholly collapse as a fraudulent intellectual con game.

[MNJohnnie]

Oh you want to play too?

Try actually providing a rational, factual response to posts 28, 29, 36, and 41 of this thread

Or is screaming bile at anyone who is critical of your god Paul, the sum total of your intellectual abilities?

[Oberon]

Pure and utter nonsense. Today's Libertines want the social safety net provided by us, the responsible adults but object to being asked to play their fair part as a member of a free society.

This isn't true of me. I'm a working father and husband in a single-income family, a Christian homeschooler, and I work very hard to make sure that my family lives within its means.

My parents were both Nixon Republicans, but there's no corresponding segment of the GOP today...so I'm registered Independent with small-L tendencies. If Barry Goldwater were alive and running for office today, I'd be contributing to his campaign.

[Oberon]

Or is screaming bile at anyone who is critical of your god Paul, the sum total of your intellectual abilities?

There...you've won your little game, you've thoroughly trounced me, just as I predicted. Congratulations. Don't forget the Kleenex.

[Mamzelle]

Libertarians helped put two new western Democrats into the Senate.

[mysterio]

Instead of whining hysterically at everyone who makes logical, reasoned critics of your god, Der Paul, how about you try actually defending some of his insanity?

You are a liar. I stopped reading after this sentence. Refer to the other thread that I corrected you on.

[Dead Corpse]

Today's Libertines want the social safety net provided by us

I can only assume you are still trying to slander libertarians. As for the LP party:
Highlights of the Libertarian Party's "Ending the Welfare State" Proposal

From across the political and ideological spectrum, there is now almost universal acknowledgement that the American social welfare system has been a failure.

Since the start of the "war on poverty" in 1965, the United States has spent more than $5 trillion trying to ease the plight of the poor. What we have received for this massive investment is -- primarily -- more poverty.

Our welfare system is unfair to everyone: to taxpayers who must pick up the bill for failed programs; to society, whose mediating institutions of community, church and family are increasingly pushed aside; and most of all to the poor themselves, who are trapped in a system that destroys opportunity for themselves and hope for their children.

The Libertarian Party believes it is time for a new approach to fighting poverty. It is a program based on opportunity, work, and individual responsibility.

1. End Welfare

None of the proposals currently being advanced by either conservatives or liberals is likely to fix the fundamental problems with our welfare system. Current proposals for welfare reform, including block grants, job training, and "workfare" represent mere tinkering with a failed system.

It is time to recognize that welfare cannot be reformed: it should be ended.

We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating AFDC, food stamps, subsidized housing, and all the rest. Individuals who are unable to fully support themselves and their families through the job market must, once again, learn to rely on supportive family, church, community, or private charity to bridge the gap.

2. Establish a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for contributions to private charity

If the federal government's attempt at charity has been a dismal failure, private efforts have been much more successful. America is the most generous nation on earth. We already contribute more than $125 billion annually to charity. However, as we phase out inefficient government welfare, private charities must be able to step up and fill the void.

To help facilitate this transfer of responsibility from government welfare to private charity, the federal government should offer a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for contributions to private charities that provide social-welfare services. That is to say, if an individual gives a dollar to charity, he should be able to reduce his tax liability by a dollar.

3. Tear down barriers to entrepreneurism and economic growth

Almost everyone agrees that a job is better than any welfare program. Yet for years this country has pursued tax and regulatory policies that seem perversely designed to discourage economic growth and reduce entrepreneurial opportunities. Someone starting a business today needs a battery of lawyers just to comply with the myriad of government regulations from a virtual alphabet soup of government agencies: OSHA, EPA, FTC, CPSC, etc. Zoning and occupational licensing laws are particularly damaging to the type of small businesses that may help people work their way out of poverty.

In addition, government regulations such as minimum wage laws and mandated benefits drive up the cost of employing additional workers. We call for the repeal of government regulations and taxes that are steadily cutting the bottom rungs off the economic ladder.

4. Reform education

There can be no serious attempt to solve the problem of poverty in America without addressing our failed government-run school system. Nearly forty years after Brown vs. Board of Education, America's schools are becoming increasingly segregated, not on the basis of race, but on income. Wealthy and middle class parents are able to send their children to private schools, or at least move to a district with better public schools. Poor families are trapped -- forced to send their children to a public school system that fails to educate.

It is time to break up the public education monopoly and give all parents the right to decide what school their children will attend. It is essential to restore choice and the discipline of the marketplace to education. Only a free market in education will provide the improvement in education necessary to enable millions of Americans to escape poverty.

Summary

We should not pretend that reforming our welfare system will be easy or painless. In particular it will be difficult for those people who currently use welfare the way it was intended -- as a temporary support mechanism during hard times. However, these people remain on welfare for short periods of time. A compassionate society will find other ways to help people who need temporary assistance. But our current government-run welfare system is costly to taxpayers and cruel to the children born into a cycle of welfare dependency and hopelessness.

The Libertarian Party offers a positive alternative to the failed welfare state. We offer a vision of a society based on work, individual responsibility, and private charity. It is a society based on opportunity and genuine compassion It is a society built on liberty.

IOW... you are STILL an idiot who has no clue what he is talking about.

[haroldeveryman]

Ummm... the only civil liberties that the Democrats support are those that involve furthering their agenda. Get the Dems in TOTAL power - and I guarantee that all meaningful civil liberties will be gone. I believe the Republican tolerance for some “infringement” on liberties (particularly privacy) are to protect the rest of our liberties.

Bulll’s eye. When people like Kinsley claim to be in favor of civil liberties they are being confusatarians. They call special privileges for groups that vote for them “rights” And as soon as they manage to get control of an institution (schools, the media, the courts) real rights like freedom of speech or religion and property rights suffer or disappear.

[Redcloak]

Why am I not allowed to be for BOTH limited government and be a social conservative?

Only simpletons like Kinlsey insist that you can't be both.

As a socially conservative libertarian, I don't want government promoting or hindering anyone's social values; whether they be mine or Hillary Clinton's.

Gay marriage? I don't want government sanctioning any type of marriage. It's a contract between individuals. So long as they are competent to sign contracts, then why should government be checking their plumbing? If some psuedo-church wants to marry three womyn and Oscar the Wonder Llama, that's the business of that psuedo-church. I don't want a gay marriage law that tells them they can't perform the ceremony any more than I want a law telling the Catholic Church that they must perform it. I want government to stay out of it altogether.

Abortion? There's a libertarian answer. It's the aggressive use of force against another and cannot be condoned by libertarian principle.

Most social/moral issues have a libertarian answer if the libertarianism isn't taken in half measures. Allowing recreational drug use makes no sense if we don't ban public funding if drug rehab programs. Open borders don't make sense if we allow illegals to gorge themselves at the public trough. We can't be somewhat libertarian.

[Redcloak]

Libertines

My! Aren't you the clever one! Did you make that up all by yourself?

[Moonman62]

My guess is the L’s won’t be able to come close to the half a percent they got in the last presidential election.

[MNJohnnie]

So strip away all the hysteric rantings and self serving verbiage and the short answer is:

NO, the Libertines cannot present a rational, serious, defense of their god, Der Paul, and are only capable of Junior High School level ranting and emotionally hysteric responses.

Wonder how many of you self absorbed twits would be so gung ho for Der Paul if you extended his position to your chosen piece of Federal pork?

No Student Loans or grants. No aid to students. Any education you want has to be paided wholly out of your own pockets.

No subsides for farmers so you had to actually pay fair market prices for you Doritio and Twix bar binges.

Abolished the border patrol and all immigration restraint as well as all wage and OSHA legislation so you had to place you lack of any marketable skills up against a hoard of cheap third world labor in any working conditions your employer decided to impose upon your unskilled lazy butts.

No social safety net so when your parents finally get tired of your free loading butts and throw you out of their basement you will have NO one to carry your sorry butts but yourselves.

No free medical care so when you crash your car after your latest Rave you actually are expected to pay for your own care and pay for the damages.

Yeah, Libertineism sound real great if you are a young and dumb and totally self absorbed lazy slacker who is convinced he will never have to actually be responsible for himself.

Adults know better. The real world doesn't revolve around the lazy libertine's butt contrary to what their mommies always told them.

You all have been given a great deal by this society. We, as a society, have a right to expect you to be responsible productive members of this society, not free loading bums expecting a free ride on everyone else's dime.

[muleboy]

my aren’t you deathly afraid that somebody, somewhere is having a good time?

[Oberon]

NO, the Libertines cannot present a rational, serious, defense of their god, Der Paul, and are only capable of Junior High School level ranting and emotionally hysteric responses.

If it makes you feel better to think so, go right ahead. It is, after all, a free country.

But I'm for minimal government along Constitutional lines. I have no "favorite piece of Federal pork," as you put it. I'm a conservative according to what the word used to mean, back when Carter was running for president and took the whole country down the toilet.

What you say is incorrect, if you mean it to apply to me.

[samm1148]

The trouble with these third parties (and I’m in one) is that none of them are interested in a solid strategy for victory.

For instance none of these clowns is going to be president or even get into a congressional seat. That goes for the nazi side as well. A better strategy would be to send third party people to city and county councils to: lower property taxes, reverse affirmative action in hiring, put the cities on a pay as you go basis, institute illegal alien control such as Hazelton PA, and rescind the plethora of local nanny state laws including forbidding local police to engage in illegal drunk driving checkpoints, gun registration and reversing smoking bans. All of these are local issues.

These people could in turn go to their statehouses to advance a conservative agenda there. No serious third party would win overnight but people interested in seeing change ten years down the road (and willing to stick it out) could do it.

[Cacique]

btt

[mysterio]

I support smaller, less intrusive government. What do you support?

I support a restoration of our Constitution and its limits on federal government. What do you support?

[Eric Blair 2084]

This has got nothing to do with the Libertarian Party. This is about libertarianism as a philosophy.

[Eric Blair 2084]

I posted an article about libertarianism...free markets, individual liberty, personal responsibility.

What is this Libertineism philosophy that you write about? It sounds like you are describing crack whores, heroin addicts, drunks on disability or some of my roommates in college. Those people are not libertarians, they are just dysfunctional. I guarantee the crack whore is a Democratic voter.

What does this have to do with libertarianism? Who here is arguing that they want freedom without personal responsibility? (Besides all of us when we were 15 years old??)

[Eric Blair 2084]

ping.

"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path".

--Ronald Reagan

Inside Ronald Reagan: A Reason Interview from July 1975