Funny. That means no classical libertarian was one.
Iirc, government steps in to protect when private parties cannot. Also, the pollution would be harming public property, so that would be in the public interest.
I agree with Whack-a-Mole’s point.
There are pure Libertarians who believe that there should be no coercive government. Like true Communism this would only work if human nature changed.
And there are the regular Libertarians. They believe in government and laws and all those things. If pressed on the point, they generally can’t explain how their platform is any different from a typical pro-business Republican’s. Except that saying you’re a Libertarian sounds cooler than saying you’re a Republican.
I think it’s mainly that they don’t want to get lumped in with Republicans in terms of the limitations they put on civil rights and a few other points. So, on an economic front - yeah, there are definite similarities, with a pretty big exception around corporate subsidies.
But, more importantly, most people with beliefs leaning towards Libertarianism:
[ul]
[li]don’t support the war on drugs[/li][li]are pro-gay marriage[/li][li]don’t believe in government censorship / FCC[/li][li]don’t oppose euthanasia[/li][li]don’t support religious based laws - stem cell restrictions, no booze on Sunday, etc[/li][li]are pro-choice[/li][/ul]
For me, those issues are often more important than economics, so I’ll be damned if I’m going to pick Republican as a label. I like pragmatic free market democratic weak minarchism - but it doesn’t fit on a button very well and nobody knows what the hell I’m talking about.
Of course, “Liberterians” are going to be all over the board in terms of their beliefs or opinions - but so is everyone else, so big surpsrie. It’s just a decent term for people who lean left on a lot of social issues and lean right on a lot of economic issues. Expecting it to be a perfect set of exact beliefs on every item under the the sun that leads to perfect utopia and has no disagreement among anyone who used the term is just silly. Yes, I realise that’s a bit of a strawman - but here’s the point - it’s not even close. Because no political philosophy is - everything is grey, politics is messy, utopia isn’t possible as far as I can tell (at least not any time soon), a lot of people throw a lot of terms around without thinking about them a bunch, a lot of people use words that are ‘close enough’ because there isn’t a better word, and you can never really get any sufficiently large group of people to agree on much of anything. The world is messy, life goes on.
What is a true libertarian? Does that mean a true Republican is Gingrich? A true Democrat is a socialist?
I guess I always separated big L and little l libertarian. I have not encountered the internet kind, though.
Mace has been taking lessons from Bricker it would seem.
If you’re pro-gay marriage, against the Patriot Act, against censorship, etc. I’m right there with you. If you’re in principle opposed to infringement on your civil liberties, I have sympathy for you. It’s when you insist that government in intrinsically evil and that all regulation is bad that you lose me. What they fail to account for is that there are some things that government does that only government can or should do- public works projects, food and drug regulations, etc. To blindly insist that all highways could all be privately owned is just silly. The Ohio Turnpike yes, Fifth Avenue in New York, no. To state that hey, no problem, if you get poisoned by bad meat your heirs can sue is just stupid. I’d much rather prevent the problem by sensible inspection and regulations than let my heirs takes someone to court, thank you very much.
You see them go off on rants about how farmers in Saskatchewan don’t need no steenking safety net, they have each other. Maybe it works in Saskatchewan, it sure as hell doesn’t work in Detroit. You can’t take the principles of these idyllic agrarian communities and apply them to a post-industrial urban society. Of course, when you point out the imbecility of how their Gilligan’s Island pure unregulated paradise would work in the real world, they get all smug and condescending.
Libertarianism is a morally and intellectually bankrupt philosophy. It is embraced by people who have no desire to actually run things, they just want the smug self-satisfaction that they just KNOW that their way is better. It’s really just a pseudo-intellectual way of saying “I got mine, fuck you”.
You don’t absolutely have to be a moron to be a libertarian, and you don’t absolutely have to be an asshole to be a libertarian. But the vast majority are both.
So, socially liberal and economically conservative. Fine.
This works with Libertarianism in that it comports with the “get government out of my business” ideal.
It says nothing about the other side of the coin though which I described above.
In practice I have found those actually engaged in politics who claim a Libertarian bent to not agree to things like gay marriage and others on your list making them pretty much just a Republican trying to give themself a new label.
I’m no fan of those either, in general.
But those are all Social Value Republican issues. The Pro Business Republican wing doesn’t really care about any of that. Their button issues are deregulation, anti-unionism, and favorable tax rates - as far as they’re concerned you can drink, smoke, gamble, and watch porn all you want and they’ll be happy to sell it to you.
So you’re saying you never fought the giant squid.
Wait…which kind are we talking about again?
Yeah, there are those guys but to get elected they need to beat the social issues.
You can see it today. Republicans are making a mess of fixing the economy so, despite rhetoric in the 2010 race that they were all about fixing the economy and lowering deficits, now seem overly concerned with social issues. To wit there are more anti-abortion measures being considered and passed than any time I can think of in the past.
If you fuck up on the economy fall back on the evil gay people who want to marry or abortion and scare your constituents that way. Distraction works.
I think Darth (and others, no intent to single him out) should put on his Big Voter Panties, admit to being a Republican, and bemoan the party’s takeover by social and religious conservatives. I also think progressives should go back to calling themselves liberals, but on that side there is the massive marketing campaign (Fox et al) to warp the meaning and understanding of the term. The former is candy-assed sidestepping, the latter more linguistic defense.
Well, Progressives ARE liberals. However I think Progressives want to focus more on making big business play by some rules as a means to fix things rather than just tax people and give poor people some money.
Progressives are anathema to Libertarians. Where Libertarians want government out of everything and think government is the problem Progressives think government is a solution.
That is horribly broad but something like that.
I hope I don’t offend any gay seeking marriage (and I might feel different if that were me) but most of these social issues seem quite unimportant compared to the severe and urgent (mostly economic and environmental) problems we face today. As other posters point out, the major funding and punditing for “liberty” is not about these social issues, but all about deregulation and lowering taxes.
“Pragmatic free market” is a good description of my economic approach, but Libertarians have a mindless belief in unfettered free markets. Many of them must not have studied economics since it’s no secret that supply/demand feedbacks are non-instantaneous. For example, Libertarians may think food inspection is unnecessary: consumers will stop buying food prepared so cheaply it’s toxic. They ignore that this feedback takes months, by which time the culprits have opened a different factory or restaurant under a different name.
One needn’t invoke Somalia to see an interesting example of Republican Libertarianism in action. Much of the destruction in Iraq immediately after the 2003 invasion was deliberate, with the country run by young right-wing idealogues prattling about “creative destruction” and “deregulation.”
Who’re you calling a horrible broad?
Anyway, I agree that progressives are a type of liberal. It should be a GD thread about where and when the term ‘progressive’ started down the one-to-one substitution path.
Perhaps: liberals rebranded themselves as progressives in reaction to the right-wing attack on the term and successes in turning it into a derogatory term. Libertarians rebranded themselves in response to an embarrassing political party. They ran from themselves, not a coordinated opposition attack.
I would like to see some poll numbers because I get the impression that a large proportion of Republicans embrace both viewpoints, despite the contradictions.
And IMO, “doesn’t really care about any of that” doesn’t go far enough. The fundamentalist worldview is total bullshit and I would like to hear some Republicans say so out loud.
*Nitpick:*Hearing Republicans say it is one thing, hearing Republican politicians say it is another.
I’ve never voted Republican in any election. Sorry.
I agree that econmic issues are currently more urgent, but civil liberties, in general, are more important to me.