I'm a libertarian, please don't hate me.

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...or you're going to be a useful tool to the corporatocracy in dismantling government to the point that multi-nationals become the new de facto power structure with no democratic counterbalance to keep it in check.

I love how people always love using extreme libertarianism as a punching bag while these same people will lecture you on how not every faction within a leftist ideology is the same if you do likewise.

I think its likely to end up a lot like Marxism. Right Libertarians, just like left Libertarians in the Russian revolution, will be key in dismantling the state, but a power vacuum will be filled by something that's antithetical to the utopian ideal that they dream up, theorize, and think they're fighting for. What I think will happen is corporations will become the absolute political and economic authority just as the communist party did in Russia.

Isn't that the same straw man that's applied in just about every discussion though? I've become quite accustomed to "this is not what I personally believe, thus it is not [insert ideology]" it's to a point where I'm tempted to ask people to write their manifesto at the beginning of a discussion so that I know exactly what I'm arguing against.

What pisses me off more is the "even though this has happened in every incarnation of [insert ideology] and mine is 99% the same thing, it wouldn't happen in mine!".

It happens when it comes to both sides, but libertarianism in particular seems to be an easy target because of its individualism. The reason I'm calling em out on it is because of how much these particular lefties like to preach against generalizing and project this whole vibe of being civilized and sophisticated while their condescension accomplishes the same tribal us and them crap that their ancestor's spears have.

Oh God tell me about it. If hair splitting details make your personal views so fundamentally different from your ideology, then you don't have a strong foundation in your views or a coherent line of thought to begin with.

I'm not exactly a libertarian since it's more of a rule of thumb than an all-encompassing law for my views, but for the most part I am moderately libertarian and I don't need any vague incoherent postmodern horses**t to obscure that. I'm not against basic regulations and social programs, though one exception is environmental regulations which I think is an all-encompassing collective issue. In this case, it is actually for the "Greater good" since it isn't just some glittering generality that represents exclusive interests under the guise of common interest. It literally affects us all and unlike property it isn't divisible and its inherent problems aren't easy to isolate.

I do have a lot of nuances in my views but that doesn't mean they get in the way of clearly and specifically defining my fundamental principles. I'm a moderate libertarian who generally believes in less Government. I don't think regulations and social programs should be absolutely minimal, but keeping them simple rather than convoluted and overly expanded keeps them streamlined. There you go guys, being able to sum your views up without obfuscating isn't a bad thing.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 13 Oct 2012, 10:44 am, edited 2 times in total.

This is a reply to TM in the Nobel prize in Economics thread that I think is worth a reply:

Exactly, the financial crisis would not have happened without government and that's why pure libertarianism will never happen. Atleast governments are elected, period. If the bums drive the country into a ditch or we just don't like them, we can remove them from office but with plutocrats running the country our only recourse, if history is any indication, is rallying around Lenin or the guillotine.

If you love your liberty then hate the State or Government. If you can not hate them then at least be suspicious of them and beware of them.

ruveyn

I can change the word Government to Plutocrats and this means the same thing.

They are in bed with each other locked in a steamy embrace.

Have you every heard of the Golden Rule? It goes like this: Whoever has the Gold makes the Rules.

ruveyn

It would be too good if their fortunes were in something understandable like gold because then maybe they wouldn't be such self pitiers like David Siegal. That guy got rich by essentially starting a David Mamet theater club that decided they need to do Glengarry Glen Ross all of the time and for real.

In all fairness, you are expecting "leftists" to be consequent in their priorities and policies and I think based on my observations that such a thing would be impossible. You're actually expecting them not to have the moral flexibility of Werner Von Braun.




I just think people obfuscate because it makes their views harder to argue against (near impossible actually).

Here is our differences, a plutocrat is often in that position due to merit, a politician is there because he was good at pandering to stupid people so they'd vote for him. The sad part is that a country should be governed by the "best it has" but so long as there is a glorification of the mediocre, the best rarely end up governing.

Merit? Ok. They used to just say that they have a Divine right to be King and the lords and nobles got their right from the King. Then feudalism collapsed and religion changed so it became that the plutocrat is in that position because he's been blessed by God or that he's simply one of God's predestined Elect, depending on what you like in Reformation theology. This was when we were still pretty agricultural but then eventually the fields became factories and then the factories became subdivisions and finally it is in this era that the hegemony of the plutocrat is rooted in 'merit'. A politicians campaign of lies lasts for only a season. The plutocrats? A lifetime.

The government does supply certain freedoms though, and so do corporations for that matter. You get a free education from public schools, cheap food from WallMart and Monsanto (less time and human energy put into food production), relatively cheap fuel from Exon-Mobile (3.80 a gallon might seem like a lot, but its still cheaper, in terms of having to walk or ride a horse), cheap glucose from government subsidized corn, food stamps, various technologies developed on government grants, etc etc.

Self sufficiency could be held as an ideal for freedom, but there's actually a lot of freedom that is lost from having to depend on yourself for everything and not a super human organization.

The only reason I generally dislike corporations and government is I don't trust it. Monsanto could easily screw up one of its GM crops, and half the earths population could die. ...and the government pours all kinds of money into shady stuff, like super viruses and atomic bombs.

History already provides a pretty good reason why you shouldn't trust Monsanto. They made Agent Orange.

Yah, and we trust them with our food for some reason. I don't really know what freedom is either. I have a general idea, but its difficult to pin down. There's something about existence, in general, that seems fundamentally unfree (perhaps its being confined to the laws of nature or the difficulty of physically manifesting my imagination and will), but I still want to be here for some reason.