Sure, but what happens if a Hindu/vegetarian gets elected and wants to ban the sale of beef? What happens if the government is more concerned with getting elected, and decides against addressing the toxic nature of commercial feed lots? Or if the government is trying to tell us how best to eat, but can’t say “eat less beef” because it will cost American jobs?
What if a Latino gets elected and wants bilingual labeling? Do you have any idea of the cost to translate?
What happens if a religious zealots get appointed to the FDA or CDC and doesn’t believe in germ theory? Or better yet, really wants a new factory in their district so they approve a drug on the promise it will be made in the US.
Sound impossible? The EPA just approved E15 (E85?) for commercial use, requiring a warning label, and then saying it’s good for American jobs. Isn’t the EPA supposed to be looking out for the environment? Is their decision based on environmental concerns or the government desire to create jobs?
Conservative is not libertarian. You can say it all you want but that doesn’t make it true. But more to the point, when you give government excessive regulatory authority, it’s going to end up banning things you like.
So what’s worse, government fucking up or the market fucking up?
Don’t perfect be the enemy of good…
It wasn’t the free market that let the 35W bridge collapse.
Repealing prohibition was a libertarian process. That’s what it means to be libertarian, allowing people to decide for themselves. Remember the sushi example? Libertarianism. You’ve got it all over you.
You’ll notice prohibition was a massive failure, almost as if the government’s attempt to regulate our lives doesn’t work. Excessive regulation failed. It made criminals and politicians richer and more powerful.
What happens if the Surgeon General of the US wants to ban tobacco?
Look at the War of Drugs, another epic failure of the government to regulate our lives.
But he was. Repealing Prohibition was a libertarian position. He reduced the size of government, he repealed laws, and deregulated an industry. See all those words there? Libertarian, as applied to Prohibition.
Prohibition was the opposite of libertarianism, how’d it work out for you? Better or worse that the prohibition against drugs. Care to try again with tobacco?
Some day you’re going to learn what libertarianism is, I hope to see that day.
I thought Prohibition was repealed because the government desperately needed liquor tax revenue. The New Deal banned the private possession of gold and expanded “interstate commerce” to mean almost anything, ultimately leading to a law making it illegal for a farmer to grow grain on his own land to feed his own cattle. (Wickard v. Filburn - Wikipedia) . Whatever you think of F.D.R., a libertarian he wasn’t.
The Prohibition Era needs to be held as the gold standard of government failure. If you are trying to bitch about libertarian philosophy, think back to Prohibition which is the exact opposite of libertarianism. Government involvement made things worse.
Repeal of Prohibition was libertarianism, that’s what it means to be libertarian–less government involvement, and allowing people to make their own choices.
The War on Drugs is another example of the same failure. Money wasted, lives ruined, prisons packed to over-capacity.
Defense of Marriage Act is just another variation. The government trying to be involved in our lives, trying to “protect the institution of marriage.”
If you’re not careful you may find your more libertarian than you realize.
There is nothing uniquely libertarian about that at all. If you want to call yourself a libertarian you can’t pick and choose which parts you like. At best you are a cafeteria libertarian. libertarians don’t accept that there should be any limits on what you can do so long as you don’t hurt anyone else or violate property rights
No its not. Ron Paul is probably the most ideologically pure libertarian in modern politics. What do you think he would do with these things? You are just redefining libertarianism by watering it down to the point that it is simply slightly less government than we have now.
Yes but why should I pay taxes so that you can send your kids to school for free? Why isn’t that theft? Why should I pay higher taxes so that poor people can get medical care? Why isn’t that theft?
No it wouldn’t, it the system we have now. You can choose to send your kids to public school or private school but you pay taxes that pay for public schools regardless of whether or not you even have kids. That doesn’t sound very libertarian.
I think you are confusing defending libertarianism with attacking totalitarianism. Let me know when you get tired of beating the crap out of that scarecrow.
Libertarians aren’t “spectrum” sort of people. They have a very limited view of what government should be involved in at all and forcing one group of people to pay for the education of another group of people for some “greater good” isn’t part of what government should be doing. When you ask, who will feed the hungry or treat the sick or educate the poor, they claim private charities would step in and pick up the slack, at some point they would find it in their best interests to do so..
Why don’t you throw out some suggestion rather than imply that libertarianism has better answers.
Other than corporate taxes (which are income taxes) and sales taxes (which are not collected by the federal government and is simply another version of the FAIRTAX), the items you mention are miniscule and other than the estate tax, they don’t really lend themselves to becoming large enough to make a dent.
When almost every sane answer involves a progressive income tax then I think you can say that income taxes are part of almost every reasonable answer.
Yeah these positions are also not unique to libertarians. As has been said, “there is lots that is good and new about libertarianism but the good parts aren’t new and the new parts aren’t any good.”
[
Nope, that’s the way it is. I don’t need to demonize, they are doing a great job of doing that to themselves.
And are you under the impression that this potential corruption justifies eliminating the system under which we live? Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. You are starting to sound like a an anarchist. Are you under the impression that the free market is any less subject to corruption and manipulation that government?
You are engaging in true scottsmanship. These are not the posotion of a few extreme libertarians, it is starting to become mainstream conservative philosophy as a result of greater libertarian influence in the conservative movement.
And the Libertarian party would eliminate the income tax (and presumably make the government a pay for service sort of proposition); eliminate public financing of education; eliminate public financing of health care; eliminate environmantal regulations; eliminate the central bank; eliminate labor laws; eliminate social security; and leave it all up to the free market. Right?
Not all conservatives are libertarian but libertarians tend to be conservative and if you look at the really whacko conservatives on TV these days (the ones getting all the air time and tea parties) they are more libertarian than the average conservative.
The market. See great depression and our current recession.
OMFG this is a libertarian saying this?
And who do you blame for that collapse? Was it too much government with too much money or a lack of government with too little money?
I think you are talking the parts of libertarianism that coincides with democarcy generally and calling it libertarianism. Like I said, prohibition was repealed by FDR. Or are you saying FDR was a libertarian?
OMG you are saying FDR was a libertarian. I once thought you just had wierd notions about risk and how it justifies the allocation of wealth and income, now I realize you don’t live in the same world as we do. Enjoy the view from whatever planet you are on.
Wait a second. Did emacknight really post that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a libertarian who reduced the size of the federal government and reduced government regulation?
This thread (and the dozen others) are full of people bitching and scaremongering about the effects of libertarian philosophy. Repealing Prohibition was a libertarian policy. Allowing same sex marriage will be a libertarian policy. And when marijuana is decriminalized that will be a libertarian policy. Not the bullshit about roving gangs of murderous corporations.
Having slightly less regulations in the banking industry isn’t libertarian, but getting the government out of the mortgage business is.
If you have a cite for that you are welcome to present it. Otherwise I’ll take it as simply YOUR misguided opinion of a philosophy you don’t understand, laugh at you, and dismiss the rest of your nonsense as the ramblings of a person who has a bent against letting people make their own choices.
[quote=“Damuri_Ajashi, post:125, topic:586871”]
Libertarians aren’t “spectrum” sort of people.
[quote]
If it’s not too much trouble feel free to back up that statement with something other than your assertion that it’s true.
You know the answer to this and it’s not the government, it’s private charities. The US has over 1.6million non-profits, that received $227.41 billion in personal donations. Do you think the government is able to pick up the slack?
If a woman has an eating disorder or an abusive husband, where is the government? Why is it she has to turn to private charities like The Emily Program or Tubman House? http://nccs.urban.org/statistics/quickfacts.cfm
You can repeat that as many times as you like, but it’s not going to make it true, funny, or relevant.
Who said anything about elimination? Would you like your strawman back now? I am under the impression that the government is just as subject to corruption and manipulation as corporations in the free market. So why favour one over the other? One assume one can provide for the hungry but the other can’t?
No, you are looking for a True Scottsman and we’re all telling you it doesn’t exist. It’s not a religious dogma. There happen to be a handful of vocal people on tv calling themselves libertarian, and fighting for attention. There are a handful of morons that use “libertarian” to try and justify what they’re doing.
But if you want, we can say that Catholicism means raping little boys, because we all knew a few Catholic priests did just that. Any other groups you’d like to paint with a nice broad brush?
And Franklin Roosevelt - the guy who enacted the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 - is an example of the kind of libertarian deregulation you support?
Wow, I concede you’ve been right all along. Apparently I have misunderstood what libertarianism is all about.
Not a libertarian government. Unless you are some how proposing we shouldn’t allow a conservative government.
Eventually what you guys will realize is that the US has two parties that try to be left and right on the political spectrum. But in the political spectrum is at the very least 2 dimensional not 1.
So what happens is that Repubs are [kindof] economically conservative and VERY socially conservative putting them in the upper right. While the Dems are well, I guess we’ll say they’re economically and socially liberal putting them towards the bottom left. Is it possible that some Republics focus on economic instead of socially conservative? Is it possible that some Dems want socially liberal policies but not economic? Do all Dems and all Repubs have to be on the same spot on the chart?
Libertarianism is economically conservative, and socially liberal, meaning it covers the economic half of the Republican Party, and the social half of the Democratic Party. Oddly enough, only the economically conservative people get called libertarian.
If you guys didn’t have such a hardon for this topic, you’d realize that a few years ago the Republicans put a big push on the word “socialist” as a way to attack the economically liberal members of the Dems. That word represents half of the Democrat platform that wants more government involvement and less individual choice, the opposite of libetarianism.
As to the issue of education, here is the official Libertarian Party Platform on the topic:
*2.8 Education
Education, like any other service, is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Schools should be managed locally to achieve greater accountability and parental involvement. Recognizing that the education of children is inextricably linked to moral values, we would return authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. In particular, parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children’s education.*
Note that it doesn’t prevent people from starting, running, and contributing to a non-profit school that could provide education to low income families. It doesn’t prevent private for-profit schools from offering scholarships. And it doesn’t prevent religious organizations from providing the same service they’ve been offering for centuries. The difference between a libertarian system of public education and what we have now is the choice of whether or not you want to support someone else’s education.
On a personal note, I would never support a madrasah that won’t teach girls, would you? I don’t want to support schools that won’t teach proper sex ed, because that’s important to me. And I sure as hell don’t want my money providing money to schools that “teach the controversy” and give equal time to intelligent design. I very happily donate money to a school in Tanzania that teaches girls (http://www.canadianharambee.ca/), I’ve been to it and I like what they do. I’d rather my money go there than some of the shit holes in the US/Canada where high school students still aren’t literate.
Those are examples of the opposite of libertarian philosophy.
Public schools were still segregated, does this mean you support that too?!?!
Implementing the SEC was a good thing at the time. Preventing the Great Depression would have been as simple as a small restriction on investing on margin. It was identical to the current recession, people borrowing to invest on the assumption that stocks will always go up. You don’t need a hundred watered down and unenforceable laws when just one simple rule prevents it all. The stock market was also a mess of fraud, a crime, and government needs to be strong enough to fight against fraud, murder, theft, rape…
Libertarianism does not mean zero regulations, or zero laws, or zero government. When you realize that this will all make a lot more sense to you, I don’t expect that to happen any time soon though, so around we go again. A massive stock market of publicly traded companies requires rules and a governing body to enforce those rules. A huge system of public roadways requires rules and someone to enforce them.
I don’t know why I thought irony would work in this situation. So let me put this in the plainest possible language.
Emacknight, you don’t know what libertarianism is. I have no idea where you get your ideas from but you have not gotten enough of them. Go spend some time learning what it is you’re trying to post about. Hopefully, you’ll learn enough to realize libertarism doesn’t work. But at the very least you need to learn enough so that you know what it is you’re trying to argue for.
Now, what that has to do with the post you responded to, I have no idea. We were discussing the idea that libertarians would want to defund initiatives they thought were unconstitutional, and I noted that this is not unique to libertarians. And this whole thread is based on the incorrect assumption that a libertarian government would have weak policing powers.
Another one of your opinions without any basis in fact. I think you were looking for IMHO, it’s down the all and to the right. Or you could try MPSIMS, that seems right up your ally.
This used to be Great Debates, and people used to have to back up their assertions with cites. I guess deregulation of the Straight Dope has lead to chaos.
Until then, what we have is you witnessing, based on what you think libertarianism is, and what you think will happen, none of which based on any sort of reality.
And just to help you along
conservative is not libertarian
anarchy is not libertarian
libertarian will have laws, it can still have regulations, there can be public services, there will be government, the government will enforce laws.
But don’t let that stop you from building your little army of straw men that you can knock down with your brilliance.
ETA Irony didn’t work because like libertarianism you failed to understand its meaning.
Here in Mexico every imported food is labeled in English (or Italian or Polish or whathaveyou) and Spanish (as long as it comes in a bottle or can or box; they don’t do it with vegetables). They just attach a sticker, which I doubt costs even a penny. Do you have any idea what translation costs?
Hint: not much.
It’s not surprising that someone without any self control feels the need to have the government dictate the various facets of his day to day life.
Tell me something Little Nemo, now that the USDA has scrapped the Food Pyramid, how will you know what to eat for breakfast? If you drive from a state with a seat belt law into a state without one, do you unbuckle it? What do you think happens to a 20 year old Canadian, physiologically, when he crosses the border in to the US that he suddenly isn’t capable of consuming alcohol? If you had a kid and moved to Canada, would you prevent him from having alcohol until he was 21 or let him take a sip of no-no juice at 18? And what actually happens to a person if they were to purchase alcohol on a Sunday? Do they burst into flames? Why is it different from buying a beer at 1am on Saturday night, which is technically Sunday, but 1pm is off limits?
But you know, I get that God doesn’t want us to buy alcohol on Sundays, but why prevent us from buying cars? And shouldn’t the law technically allow Jews to buy alcohol (and cars) on Sundays, but prevent them on Saturdays?
I guess we shouldn’t question the will of the government, just accept that it knows what’s best for us, and loves us unconditionally.