It sucks being politically all over the place.

For one thing people are always assuming things about your other views based on your views on one thing, at least thinking they match up to the usual advocate or critic of whatever.

You feel at home no where, there is no echo chamber wing bat place you can go.

I kind of line up with libertarians ON PAPER, but in reality not a chance since the far right wingers and tea party members decided it was a cool cover story. Plus I don’t give a rat’s anus about abolishing income tax or any of that while one prostitute or drug user/addict is still being kept in a cage, basically a sickening human rights violation the future will condemn the past for.

I kind line up with extreme left wingers in that I think facilities should be provided so even the homeless could eat and bathe, and for those a little more functional to be guaranteed food and housing no matter what. But I also have no problem with the ambitious rich and cut throat competition among business and corporations. Too big to fail? Too vital to national interest/commerce? Why you’re right mr. CEO! NATIONALIZED muwahaha.

I think every competent adult should be able to buy a gun without a background check, open carry should be legal hell concealed carry. No one should ever be victim to a crime where they are unable to defend themselves. Idiots who brandish weapons around or murder should be punished to the full extent of the law.

You should be able to walk into any pharmacy and buy vials of heroin and syringes as long as you’re over 18, and then walk down the street to a house of prostitution. Maybe you’ll mature and marry your husband, and two wives. It should be easy to get an abortion.

I guess my political philosophy is leave me alone, but I’m also pragmatic.

It sucks no one likes me.

I think you’re alright. Besides, I’m very skeptical of conventional wisdom. If most folks agree with you about politics, you’re not trying hard enough.

I hear ya, my friend. No matter who wins an election, I, too, usually end up finding a way I’ve lost. :frowning:

If it makes you feel better, I’m with you on most of those.

To be honest, I like it. It allows me to pick and choose who I engage with. If I want to brush off an imbecile, I just tell them that none of the major parties match my politics and that I can’t really vote for any of them. Pretty much everyone nods at this and shuts up. Or if I want to have some fun, I tell them I’m a libertarian that supports single-payer health care. That’s guaranteed to anger almost everyone despite it being a perfectly defensible position.

Overall, it allows me to cultivate a sense of superiority over other humans, which is critical for my happiness and mental well-being.

I often feel like elections are like inspecting two turd sandwiches, to see which one has the smaller bowel movement inside.

I’ll participate in the fun. The Libertarian Party would say you’re being inconsistent.

I am kind of that person in real life, I think there should be public basic healthcare offered for free on the taxpayers dime, but don’t have a problem with private healthcare existing alongside it for those who want extreme measures or experimental top of the line treatment. I actually think it would be good, it would provide competition to the private sector.

I’m certainly not a big-L libertarian.

The short answer is that, like grude, I’m a pragmatist. For me, this means that I start with a libertarian preference until I can prove to myself that it’s the wrong approach for that particular thing. I don’t want to hijack grude’s thread, but the starting point for my pro-public-health-care argument is the fact that it will always be the case that if a woman in labor with no ID shows up to an emergency room, she will get treatment. It’s true today in the US and it will always be true, because everyone knows (even diehard conservatives) that the alternative is unconscionable. But this means there will always be an open-ended, unfunded externality in the system. Follow the train of logic from there and you get some kind of public health care.

Anyone familiar with my postings on here knows that I’m definitely on the left, but damn, there’s a lot of anti-science nonsense on the left that I can’t stomach. Don’t get me wrong, the right is much worse in their rejection of science, but when I get together with a bunch of liberals and they start griping about GMO, or talking about holistic medicine or where they buy their organic produce I have to bite my tongue. And for cripes sake, pharmaceutical companies aren’t suppressing cancer cures!

Hijack away!

You make a good point in that a lot of things that are political sticking points are silly because we’re already there, it is just impossible to get people to accept it and move on.

In a lot of ways, healthcare and otherwise, the US has the worst of both worlds.

Yeah. A lot of people seem to think that (pre-ACA), we had something resembling a market-based healthcare system, when in fact it didn’t resemble one at all. You can’t have a functioning market when you have these gigantic leaks that money just pours out of, and absolutely no reasonable way to fix them. Another one that comes to mind is something that happened to a friend of mine–an ambulance ride that cost $16,000. It’s insane. Why did it cost so much? Because most people can’t or won’t pay, but obviously they get the ride either way. So the costs keep getting multiplied for the few people that can afford it.

Furthermore, he didn’t even get a choice in the matter. He was pretty much fine after a serious motorcycle accident, but who knows, he might have had a concussion or something. He wasn’t in a position to negotiate the price or even refuse (lying bloody on the side of the road kinda puts a damper on that). It didn’t resemble at all any other market based transaction like buying a TV. It just doesn’t work that way and for good reason.

It actually bugs me a lot when people scream “market failure” whenever they observe something that they perceive as suboptimal. Actually, markets work astonishingly well; far better than many give them credit for, even when consumers operate with imperfect information. But you have to have a few basics, like the ability to choose providers or walk away, and too frequently that’s just not an option when it comes to health care. So I think markets are just the wrong answer there (aside from optional extras like you mention).

I think most “little l” libertarians (i.e., not anarchists) recognize that there are a few things we can leave to the government. These generally take the form of things that don’t make sense with a market approach: defense, roads, etc. I just posit that health care is another one of those things, and provably so.

You’re not a little-l libertarian either by my estimation, but that’s your perogative. I enjoy churning the political waters with you.

FWIW, it’s how I would describe his political position. It’s not terribly uncommon for me to see people who are totally libertarian on the social side of things, and then a blend of libertarian and liberal in economic issues. That’s where I tend to be myself, but I just self-describe as a mix of liberal and libertarian, although, of the three parties, libertarian is the closest match, but I end up voting Democrat for the social policies.

I don’t know if it helps, but here are the stated positions of a career politician:

  • for gun control (complete ban on handguns, including for home defence)
  • for gay marriage
  • for public health care (paid for by taxation)
  • for abortion

How would you characterise him? Extreme left-wing, perhaps?

Actually it’s the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, who is right-wing by European standards.

I wonder how different society would be if people had to vote based on a politicalcompass.org style, issue-by-issue basis rather than by team (errr political party).