Libertarians are winning

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Dox47
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31 Mar 2014, 7:38 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

It is possible to be anti-military and left wing... in fact, being anti-military has probably been the defining attribute of many left wing organisations. Left wingers who are anti-military (such as myself) just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cut defence spending whilst continuing to fix other issues.

I've always taken a 'cut defense spending and then consider taking on other programs' approach, otherwise you're just giving money to a junkie who says they need it to feed their kids.

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Stannis
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31 Mar 2014, 7:40 pm

Dox47 wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

So it depends on which definition of right wing we are using.

That's the crux of it, and one of the reasons I personally dislike political labeling and treat is as a necessary evil. Here in the US, when someone is called a 'right winger' it's usually due to their social conservatism, which even a quick perusal of my posting history would show is very far removed from my positions. I tend to score rightward on political compass tests based solely on my views regarding the size of the government, which are admittedly quite strong, and not on any of the other traits generally lumped together as 'right wing' or 'conservative'; my social views are positively progressive, I even support a guaranteed minimum income for f*ck's sake.

I usually interpret attacks on "Big Government" as a euphemism for cutting regulations on banking and business, and thus enabling corruption and public harm. I accept that it's probably not what you mean, but it is what many corporate and banking lobbyists mean by it; I'd be surprised if they didn't come up with the slogan.

Last edited by Stannis on 31 Mar 2014, 7:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The_Walrus
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31 Mar 2014, 7:42 pm

Dox47 wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

I've always taken a 'cut defense spending and then consider taking on other programs' approach, otherwise you're just giving money to a junkie who says they need it to feed their kids.

Are you using the junkie as a metaphor for government or speaking out against welfare?

Raptor
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31 Mar 2014, 7:44 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

Libertarians can be right wing. Dox's own score on the political compass places him to the right of you.

I re-took that stupid test. Now NOTHING is right of me. :twisted:

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luanqibazao
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31 Mar 2014, 8:07 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

Your point was that admirers of Rand haven't killed as many people as admirers of Marx, so people should be less shocked when someone claims to agree with Rand than if they claim to admire Marx.

Okay, let me try again. Imagine the following in a discussion group:

Person A: Hi, I admire an ideology whose adherents have murdered millions, but I think it's just been applied wrong!
Response: Welcome, come on in and discuss your interesting ideas!

Person B: Hi, I admire an ideology whose adherents include a number of successful businessmen, including the founder of Wikipedia!
Response: ZOMG EVIL YOU WANT EVERYBODY TO DIE EVIL EVIL

If I were a naïve young man coming across that, I might be mildly interested in learning about Ideology A. But I'd definitely be looking into Ideology B. Given the visible results, I'd be thinking, what on earth could cause such a furore?

People who publicly lose their minds whenever Rand is mentioned merely drive more of the curious to seek out her works.

Quote:

I suggested that people who would agree with Rand have killed more people than admirers of Marx.

Yeah, good luck substantiating that.

The_Walrus
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31 Mar 2014, 8:22 pm

Hi, I admire an ideology whose adherents include Arthur Miller, Jean Paul Sartre, Karl Marx, Woody Guthrie, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois, Pete Seeger and J. Robert Oppenheimer!

And it isn't hard substantiating that someone essentially agreed with Rand. Just compare their policies with those she espoused.

Dox47
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31 Mar 2014, 8:31 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

Are you using the junkie as a metaphor for government or speaking out against welfare?

The metaphor. They always say they need to raise taxes for some new social program or service, but then spend it on foreign adventurism, bureaucratic empires, pork, etc, just like a junkie saying they need money for their kids, so they can get a a suit for a job interview, etc, then using it to score. What I'm saying is that in either case the hard part, the cuts or the kick, need to come first, otherwise the money is just going down the same toilet it always does.

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Dox47
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31 Mar 2014, 8:36 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

I think you're being a little obtuse here, as introducing yourself as an Objectivist does seem to get you a lot more flak than introducing yourself as a Marxist, despite the latter's disastrous effect on the 20th century and the relative harmlessness of the former, at least around here. Hell, you don't even have to be an Objectivist, just say something nice about Ayn Rand, or correct someone for saying something untrue, and watch the knives come out.

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Stannis
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31 Mar 2014, 9:06 pm

Dox47 wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

Ok, did walrus at any point declare admiration for atrocities committed by communist countries? No.

Were the Soviet Union, or Red China even marxist? No.

Does the adoption of certain marxist principles inevitably lead to gulags and tyranny? Well, the west has consisted of wall to wall social democracies since world war 2, so no.

Were there many western marxists who spent their lives championing human rights, and social justice? Of course, that's the point of being a marxist. That and getting laid. You certainly don't do it for career advancement.

According to my shidoshi; to say that Marxism is disastrous is like saying that drinking water has a disastrous effect on health. Sure it does, when the water is tainted. But, if you reject all water drinking on the basis that some of it is tainted, then you are very foolish, because some water drinking is also a requirement for good health.

The_Walrus
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01 Apr 2014, 9:42 am

Dox47 wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

To clarify, the original discussion was "admirers of" rather than "adherents of". This allows Marxist-Leninists, Stalinists, and Maoists (and various other ists) to be called "admirers of Marx", significantly increasing the evil done in his name.

Marxism is at least as harmless as Objectivism "around here". Our countries have been largely untouched by Marxism and related ideologies. Contrastingly, Reagan and Thatcher were not Objectivists, but their free-market policies evoke the same ghoul, and they ruled our countries.

I do think that Objectivism is misrepresented and demonised as much as Marxism, but I also don't think it's any less utopian. Objectivism would be a brilliant system if everybody followed it, but that's just never going to happen- as I believe Rand herself more or less acknowledged. That's why we need regulation.

11 Dimensional Oscillation
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16 Jul 2018, 4:11 am

LibertarianAS wrote:

Hopper wrote:

LibertarianAS wrote:

This site doesn't count, it is full of fake asperger "oooh I'm an IRL failure so I must have Asperger syndrome!!" that vote for Obama or have an hard-on for Lenin or 16 years old who never learn about the science of economics

Everyone knows that Asperger meant Higher than average IQ and being logical, basically being a uber INTJ and INTJ are more likely to be libertarian AKA socially liberal and economically conservative

Ooh - do we have a new fallacy, for the board at least? "Any True Aspergian"?

Don't care

If you are socially conservative you are a bigot, if you are economically leftist you are either failing at economics or at understanding human nature or you want free things from people better(smarter/hardworker) than you

In either way I'm winning and you are losing

in my outlook i think it's essential for humanity to gain as much knowledge as possible about the natural world, and it is my view that many important subsets of the sciences that research this will be void or a "waste" in a libertarian society, as the applications in terms of profitability are either nonexistent, or very limited, meaning that a mxed economy is required to some extent for these studies to thrive , as well as anyone whose social skills are limited, such as aspies, with capitalist societies favoring extroversion over introversion due to it's role in buisness

i apologize for the run off "sentence"

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