Libertarian screwballs run amok!

The BBQ Pit
21

and why in the world are you all allowing some twit to hijack this thread. “It’s all about meeeeeeeeeeee” should only elicit a :rolleyes: in each person, not an actual response.

damn. :mad:

I’d emailed Fenris with my own personal local LP er story. This is sad, it’s one thing for individual party members to be a little, um, well, you know, but when they are elevated to the Party Candidate! Kinda like when the (insert political party here) nominated (insert liberal/conservative twit of choice here)

22

(Climbing out of shell hole, still shocked and woozy from an excursion into the gun control – Amend 2 debacle)

Don’t you guys have anything better to do? Irony was a concept introduced in Jr. High school. Surely you know what it means and you can tell what is and what isn’t ironical when you see it?

In the meantime, it looks like the Libertarian Party has a big tent that embraces political view ranging from the merely nostalgic to the down right loony. Come out to the flat lands where the primary candidates are arguing about who is the most conservative (apparently meaning the cheapest, most reactionary and patriotic—vote for me ,I am a Marine and a farmer and my home town has a water tower with a red roof and my father milked fourty cows by hand and my flag has no yellow fringe).

(Crawls back into shell hole)

23

Damn!–Forty cows.

24

Sorry Kamandi; just because you don’t get the joke (such as it was) doesn’t mean I used the word incorrectly.

And continuing the theme of not getting the joke, gobear, Kamandi’s “straightforward” comment was in fact a “snarky,” ill-informed and mistaken usage correction couched in a much-overused quote from The Princess Bride.

25

I know the quote–Inigo says it to the Sicilian when he keeps saying, “Inconceivable.” I just didn’t connect PBism<slaps self on wrist>. Anyway, as has been said, you are a self-centered twit hijacking an interesting thread, so I’m out.

26

You think Colorado’s got problems? In California the Libertarian party members are in turmoil because of the religous beliefs of the gubernatorial candidate: a druid for governor!
(sirenlike lulling voice)Fenris, come join us in the Green Party, where we all love each other, and all is sweetness and light! :stuck_out_tongue:

27

Yeah. A circus tent. I’ve never understood why so many thinking people in the U.S. become Libertarians. It is one thing to be a libertarian (small l). It’s another to be a Libertarian (capital L). Isn’t it?

The Libertarian party often strikes me as a bunch of seeming wackos besmirching a respectable philosophical position. Personally, I find the Natural Law Party much more entertaining. They’re a bunch of seemingly respectable people promoting a wacko philosophical position.

28

Simply stupid. Why the hell can’t the mainstream parties attract the nutjobs? Libertarianism isn’t a wacko philosophy. It is simply the desire to have as little government interference as possible in our lives. It is the desire to have the government’s power restricted to preventing coercion via force or fraud.

It isn’t that tough to explain or understand. How come so few outside the party even know of it, and so many in the party are loonies?

I hope those people aren’t representative of the rest. They certainly don’t represent me.

29

“Seemingly respectable”?

< blinks >

Every spokesman (granted, not that many) I’ve seen for them has been a barely controlled loon (often in a bad suit) frothing at the mouth.

Fenris

30

lissener said:

Gee, I wish I had never said anything. Then maybe this massive hijack of Fenris’s thread wouldn’t have happened.

The difference in Necros saying it, lissener is, of course, that lissener is not a member of the Libertarian Party and lissener is not in Colorado, so lissener would have been talking out of his/her ass, trying to rile things up.

And before gobear takes me to task, I am a supervillain. :slight_smile:

31

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I heard a clip of Candidate Stanley the other night. He was saying that people who vote FOR concealed carry laws are traitors, since we have the explicit right to carry guns any time at any place in the Constitution. Thus, by voting for concealed carry laws (which inevitably have some restrictions (schools, etc) on where one can carry a weapon) , they’re undermining the Constitution. Since lawmakers swear to uphold the Constitution…

I’m very much in favor of concealed carry, I do think that the Constitution grants us the right to carry weapons but in point of fact, if I carry without a permit, I’ll be arrested. Telling the cop “This is Unconstitutional” won’t make the handcuffs vanish. Laws that enforce and restore the Constitiution are good even if they only go “partway”. *

Aaargh…lord protect me from my “allies”.

Fenris

*Can we please not have a gun-control hijack? I accept that many of you don’t agree that we have a Constitutional right to bear arms and think it’s a State right. Can we let it stand at that? Please?

32

Nah, too easy.
:stuck_out_tongue:

33

If I’m not mistaken, the conspiracy of a gold fringe and eagle topped american flag is the symbol of the “Fake united states”, and only a soveriegn citizen that flies a non-fringed flag is a citizen of the “real united states”

:stuck_out_tongue:

34

I enjoy convoluted legalistic arguments based upon shakey premises and overanalysis of the language (What did they mean when they said “more perfect union”? ‘Perfect’ does not take a modifier unless the Founding Fathers were hatching a Masonic plot to create a Federal District on top of the true Soveriegn States of America. (Loosely based on the Republic of Texas screed.)) as much as anyone, but I keep my comedy and my politics seperated into two distinct segments of my mind.

My love of hysterics and my passion for liberty do not cross paths, unless the Demrepublicrats are At It Again ™.

Anyway, I do enjoy taking apart arguments I hear. Like the basic one from the Republic of Texas webiste: The Federal Government consists of Washington, DC, and fifty Administrative Districts called ‘states’ to confuse the masses. This came about because the Fourteenth Amendment made it illegal for the States to question the authority of the Federal Government, ending the States’ soveriegnty and creating states (Federal Districts) out of States (Independent Entities) (notice use of capitalization, as it was used in the original). Therefore, a good chunk of the US (all of it acquired after the Fourteenth Amendment passed) has no legal existence outside of Washington, DC: It is simply subdivided pieces of the Federal Government.

Which has interesting implications for the division between the state and federal levels of jurisdiction and authority.

Somehow, the States kept their existence, and can still act as independent entities, issuing specie (another Texan rant is how paper money is fictional and worthless) and blowing off the state status. Texas, which was never a part of the US to begin with (a third rant, and the central one), would, presumably, be a good place to start this process. Hell, the RoT already has a president and an emergency government. Can’t get much better than that. :smiley:

Kookiness? Certainly. Libertarian? Hell, no!

I suppose the RoT is pissed about what was settled when the Constitution superceded the Articles of Confederation: The Federal Government gained an existence in its own right, instead of simply being a corporation of thirteen independent beings. The Fourteenth Amendment simply finished the process. It didn’t begin anything.

And while the Libertarain Party is pro-States’ Rights, we don’t need pseudo-legal arguments to back it up. We can simply state the observation that centralized governments tend to be either inefficient or brutal, and that neither system is compatible with individual liberties.

As for currency: Specie is the wrong way to go for numerous reasons, not the least of which being the fact that making the currency dependent upon physical artifacts hamstrings the economy and severely limits growth. If your currency is based on fractions of an ounce of gold, it is too easy to become deeply inflationary (print too many certificates entitling the bearer to so much gold) and it is too hard to grow without becoming inflationary. In a system like the one we have now, where a free market decides the value of currency, inflation and growth are not synonyms.

35

Derleth:

The problem comes, of course–as we’ve seen in numerous GD threads–in defining the terms “government,” “interference,” “power,” “restricted,” “preventing,” “coercion,” “via,” “force,” and “fraud.” Perfectly ducky political philosophy otherwise, however.

36

Hmmm…we’ve a natural law party here too, which presents candidates in pretty much all elections. One of the main point in their platform is that is they get enough people to levitate (can’t remember how much it is) all the problems of the world will be solved (and they’re die-hard serious). I’m wondering if it’s the same party…

37

Gadarene: It’s simpler than that, even: The government is not strong. The government prevents others from hurting (coercion via force) or lying to (coercion via fraud). The government does nothing else. The market (aka the people themselves) does the rest.

38

Let’s try that sentence again:

The government prevents others from hurting (coercion via force) or lying to (coercion via fraud) other people.

39

Wait a sec: I thought the “Natural Law” party was the really weird, extremist “Turner Diary” style right-wing Christians, not the Levitating TM types.

:: Checks here ::
(fantastic site, btw)
Oops. I take back what I said above: I had 'em confused with the Constitution Party ('cause “natural law” is Constitution Party code for “The Bible Sez So!”).

Fenris

40

That’s not actually so simple, Derleth. Or rather, it’s simplistic. Check out the ass-long Non-Coercion Principle thread from a couple years ago.