An Honest libertarian Discussion Thread

----- This!

 

Libertarians just need a good candidate, but they are not shallow enough in their ideals. In a perfect world, the Republicans and Democrats would agree to only run candidates for the offices in the legislative branch, and then endorse the candidates of the Libertarian party in the executive departments.

 

For me, I agree that we need to find common ground. However, I also feel like we're too small to begin focusing in on that, just yet. What I mean by that is, piggy backing off of what Ted stated, we need to pull more folks onto our side. The reality is folks hear too much and don't really know what libertarianism stands for. There is a few events that are state hosted but the Libertarian party has a booth setup to talk to folks. My plan is to volunteer for one or more of them to help spread the message. What folks have to know is there are varying views, but that's a good thing. Even in both political parties, there are varying views on various policies. Since they have such a large caucus, they can talk among themselves and collectively come up with an agreement. Even if all Libertarians put their minds together and stated the same exact thing, our numbers would still be dwarfed by the other two political parties.

In every day life & on various forums, I try to state my views on everything. Even if I get varying responses, at least you know why I believe in what I believe. From there, we can begin drawing out different conclusions and come up with a collective agreement that each of us can agree on. We both want the same thing, it's just the case of how do we get there, that's where the questions come in. The more folks willingly discuss libertarianism, the more, I believe, folks are willing to accept it, possibly even believe in it.

 

Yeah I just found that Political Compass site today actually. Turns out I'm economically centrist and socially libertarian. I took the test three times and I never strayed beyond 1 point left or right, and always between -5.5 and -7 socially (libertarian, in other words). I guess I'm a good judge of my own character in this regard, unlike a lot of people who get conned by politicians into supporting positions they actually detest.

 

You conflate constitutionalism with libertarianism. It would not be libertarian to leave slavery as a "states rights" issue. For one, states don't have rights, and two, there is no room in any libertarian principle that I know of that allows for humans to be treated as property.

 

So then you'd agree with the comparison to abortion?

 

Being in my early thirties, and finding myself a former Republican and Democrat, I label myself as "pissed off." I am also reminded of the Winston Churchill quote. "If you are conservative in your twenties, you have no heart. If you are a liberal in your forties, you have no mind." I am floating around in there somewhere.

Former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/​

 

I curious what social issues divide them so far that they'd go to the nanny state side. If gay marriage is one, as far as i know most conservatives are happy for gay couples to have equal rights they just dont want the word marriage used. Most Libertarians as i understand it dont want govt in the partnership business at all let alone in the word redefining game. What other issues, i find it hard to believe they support AA.

 

I don't think that it's necessarily authoritarian to be opposed to abortion. It will depend on how abortion is to be treated, and whether the rights of the mother are treated.

 

The big problem I see with Libertarianism is that they believe in some things which simply never occur in real life.
1. "The Market will correct itself." The belief that if a company hurts consumers, produces dangerous products or whatever, that The Market will drive it out of existence and all will be fine. Therefore, we don't need those "forceful oppressors" like the SEC, FDA, EPA, NRC etc....
Except that The Market almost never corrects itself in real life and certainly not with major global corporations.
2. "The Market will protect employees." The belief that if a corporation is horrible to its employees, they will all just go get better jobs and the company will change its policies or go out of business because it won't be able to get anyone to work there. Except that this never happens in real life either.

I could go on but those are two of the biggest economic theories that seem pretty universal among Libertarians and which are just completely removed from reality.

 

These strawmen never exist among libertarians, either. They exist only among those who lack any substantive argument so they create something that seems similar to libertarian arguments and against which their weak positions seem strong.

 

OMG! There's no point in discussing anything with people who consider the leftist GOP "radical right" and the socialist-fascist DemocRAT party "center right".

- - - Updated - - -

Hmmm.....strawman much?

Just in case you missed it, it's morally repugnant to murder children, who their sperm donor was is irrelevant.

 

And America loses every election thereby.

 

Rather than... well forget it that's just you.
1. Are you saying that I can't find posts from people identifying themselves as Libertarian, making arguments about the market being able to correct itself in the manners described above?
2. Are you saying disagree with the theories described above?

You may be a Libertarian and completely disagree with the ideas above. I don't know. It's difficult to find universal beliefs among you guys.

 

I'd agree with you if the woman was irresponsible with her sexual actions. But if she's raped? What if she can't afford a child, or can't afford to take time off work due to her pregnancy? Also, who's going to pay for the child? Because if she can't, then the state will have to.

 

They don't. "Left" and "right"does not pertain to authoritarianism, but to social values.

 

Let's examine this little quiz in detail, pointing out where it fails. The structure of the questioning appears to require a "yes" down the board, but let's see.

where the Mayor said "no", and why:

11: Would school vouchers be an improvement over government schools?
No.

Reasons:
A) Who's funding the vouchers? If it's the federal government, then the government is in violation of the Constitution, as it is now. Strict adherence to the Constitution is not necessarily a libertarian virtue, but it's a usually reliable guide. In the case of education spending, it's the PARENTS of the children who bear the only true responsibility for educating their off-spring, not the barren couple next door.

B) He who spends the money controls the curriculum. States funding education set limits and requirements. This is true in the current system and it is true in any variant of state-funded education, including vouchers.

Ergo, the questions suffers under a false premise, that voucher schools aren't "government" schools.

PRIVATE schools are generally superior to government schools, especially after Carter nationalized them.

12: Should we relax immigration laws?
No.

Reasons:
Libertarianism isn't a suicide cult, it isn't even a cult of national suicide like the Democrats are. Today's immigration problems stem from the fact that the immigration laws are not enforced. It makes no sense to "relax" laws that aren't enforced in the first place.

The Marathon Masacre bombers were immigrants.

The Virginia Tech shooter was an immigrant.

The Long Island commuter train shooter was an immigrant.

There's a fair list of high profile mass murder perpetrators who were all "immigrants".

Any nation has the libertarian right of self-determination, and that cannot happen with "open borders". Certainly no nation can survive without controlled borders, just as no dog can live without it's skin.

13: Would housing vouchers be an improvement over government housing?
No.

Reasons:
Same as for the public education scam. The federal government is not Constitutionally authorized to spend the money, the people who spend the money control the project, the money doesn't come out of thin air, and there ain't nobody who owes anyone else housing, not even parents of homeless adult offspring.

30: If it has to fight a war, should the U.S. try harder to avoid civilian targets?
No.

Reasons:
A war is fought to protect US citizens, not enemy citizens. Taking excessive measures to mimimize enemy casualties carries the requirement of putting US troops at greater risk. US troops are US citizens (or will earn the privilege), and hence more inherently valuable to the US than enemy citizens. If the enemy does not like it's citizens getting fire-bombed en masse, they can surrender. It's not difficult.

Refusing to recognize the Magical Shield status of enemy civillians leads the enemy to understand that building bomb factories under hospitals isn't helping their side win the war.

31: Should taxes be cut by 50% or more?
32: Should spending be cut by 50% or more?
33: Would you abolish at least half of existing federal regulatory agencies?

The Mayor answered "Yes" to these, however, the correct answer is:

31 & 32: Government revenues should not be in excess of government outlays for recurring prolonged periods, but a minor deficit is acceptable, if the spending/tax equation is adjusted in subsequent years to rectify the immoral lapse.

Lawfully expenditures by the federal government are clearly defined in Article I, Section 8. Expenditures not allowed by that section are:

Welfare, education, social security, medicare, public broadcasting, art, humanities, etc. Restoring the budget to a constitutional basis will wipe out well more than 50% of current expenditures.

From the libertarian perspective, not one of those programs listed is consistent with the obligations of government.

Because the specific programs are listed later in the quiz, Questions 31 thru 33 are redundant and provide the opportunity for contradictory answers.

39: Should all of the public lands be privatized?
No.

Reasons:
The use of the word "all" is an absolute, encompassing not just the national parks and the stolen but unused land in the western states, but all military bases and all government buildings.

The government land grab is immense and a large majority of the seized lands must be returned to the states. But not "all" of it.

41: Should immigration laws be abolished?
No.

Reasons:
A differenty worded redundancy from question 11, in absolutist form.

42: Should the FDA and medical licensing be abolished?
No.

Reasons:
The FDA serves no function that cannot be served by a private reviewing board, and is as subject to corporate demands as any independent reviewer. It is possible for this abusive organization to be replaced. It is also recognized that Europe and Canada enjoyed the birth of thousands of Thalidomide babies, from which the FDA spared us.

Medical licensing could be done by independent agencies. After all, the State of California licensed the "doctor" who went to medical school in place of Alan Bakke, and the reverse racism worked well, doctor in that seat enjoyed a fine practice in Compton. He even allowed some of his liposuction patients to go and bleed to death in the comfort of their own homes.

Government has a regulatory role. There's no debate on this. The debate concerns "how much".

43: Should all of the Federal Reserve's discretionary powers be eliminated and the monetary base frozen?
No.

Reasons:
The Federal Reserve created the Great Depression of the 1930's, it helped create the crash of 2008, and its' currently enacting an "Infinite Quantitative Easing" program, aka, printing money.

The Federal Reserve must be eliminated, audited, and all criminals associated with it prosecuted.

45: Should the Supreme Court strike down economic regulation as unconstitutional?
No.

Reason:
Taxation is part of economic regulation. No matter how it's collected, a government has to have money to run. Libertarians recognize that a limited government is necessary to ensure freedom.

47: Should anti-discrimination laws be abolished?
No.

Reason:
Anti-discrimination laws should be re-written to make it perfectly clear they apply solely to governments and government agencies and to prime-contractor vendors doing business with the government, but not to subs.

48: Should the military budget be cut by at least 75%?
No.

Reasons:
Again with the arbitrary number to capture the unwary. The military has a defined function in a libertarian state: defending the nation. The cost of that defense is based on present and projected needs. The definition of those needs is the responsiblity of the legislature and the president....and morally they're required to fund the military as needed to meet the needs they define.

49: Should the U.S. withdraw completely from Europe, Asia, and other foreign bases?
No.

Reasons:
The role of each individual facility must be reviewed periodically against the current and projected defense needs of the US to determine if that facility is adequate, inadequate, or redundant, and the continuation of such assets should be determined in a rational way.

Only a fool would demand to unilaterally recall all forward deployed troops and assets. That's like trying to deter a fight with your hands in your pockets. A bad, foolish, and dangerous idea. And it has nothing to do with being a libertarian.

50: Is bombing civilians in an enemy country morally equivalent to murder?
No.

Reasons:
Stupid question. It's the civillians in a nation that build that nation's capacity to wage war. The goal of defense oriented war is to wreck the opposing nation's industrial capabilities. Bombing civilians is a wartime necessity.

51: Should all taxes be abolished?
No.

Reasons:
Governments can't work without money, freedom doesn't exist without government.

Who should pay the taxes? EVERYONE.

52: Should highways and roads be privatized?
No.

Reasons:
Proper transportation is essential to liberty, a network of roads can be considered part of the "commons", and thus everyone using the roads should be expected to pay their share in the upkeep...via user fees such as fuel taxes.

The "car pool lanes" (lately called HOV lanes for "high occupancy vehicles" for no other reason than liberals love syllables) were donated to the Fast-Trac company in California, clearly for political payback. Given that the taxpayer funded car pool lanes impeded traffic and made rush hours even longer, it's natural that making people pay more to use what they've already bought would jam up the roads even more.

Almost no one uses the Fast Trac lanes on the 110 freeway in Los Angeles. When they were car pool lanes, people used them to advantage, and traffic across all six lanes flowed reasonably well. Now there's a practically permanent jam as Governor Moonbeam continues to screw things up.

53: Should the Fed be abolished and replaced with free banking and privately-issued money?
No.

Reasons:
What backs up the money. The fed should be abolished. The government has to resume it's constituional fiduciary responbilities.

54: Should all legislation be replaced by judge-made law, arbitration, and other private rule-suppliers?
No.

Reasons:
It's bad enough that every Representative and Senator and President is owned, they at least face re-election, and, sometimes, lose.

Private "judges"? How would they be accredited, trained, reviewed, appealed over, etc?

This system is unlikely to be workable in a large community.

55: Is all government inherently evil?
No.

Reasons:
Uses the word "all". Government is a necessity, like oxygen. But too much oxygen is unhealthy.

56: Is government an unnecessary evil?
No.

Reason:
Limited government is necessary

57: Should police be privatized?
58: Should the courts be privatized?
59: Should the law itself be privatized?
No.

Reasons:
The police are the enforcment arm of government, since the law itself should not be privatized, the enforcement arm should not be.

The law shouldn't be privatized because it's the government that protects freedom. The Magic Sky Pixie might know what a privatized law is, but the law has to apply equally to everyone in the nation, and be enforced equally, and be judged equally. And that ain't gonna be done by whoever it is that writes a "private" law.

60: Should the state be disarmed and its military disbanded?
No.

Reasons:
Rapist to woman: "you put your gun down first, then I'll drop mine".

62: Is all government essentially exploitation of the productive members of society for the benefit of a parasitic ruling elite?
No.

Reasons:
That word "all" again.

Socialist/collectivist governments are, like that currently running the US. A libertarian government would not be.

63: Should the state be abolished?
No.

Reasons:
Well, the State of New York should be, and Connecticut, California, and the other gun-grabbing freedom raping red states ("red" is the symbol of communism, and hence applies to what the media pathetically mislable "blue"). But, generically, since government is necessary to freedom, then the state can't be erased.

64: Would you call yourself an "anarcho-capitalist?"
No.

Reasons:
Capitalist is an economic system that requires a minimal level of government to ensure protection of private ownership of property, anarchy is Los Angeles in the Rodney King looting.

And there's a picture of that ass Murray Rothbard, who conned the gullible masses that anarchy is a form of libertarianism.

The Mayor's score: 60.

The Simpering Yes to everything score: 160 gee, that's perfect. Not!

 

If she's raped...is the rapist executed? is the baby guilty of a crime? Where's his indictment, his miranda warning, his trial, his appeals, and his petition to the governor and president for a reprieve?

"If she can't afford a child"? You advocate the killing of innocents for the financial benefit of others. Way to go! We all know of societies in history that do what you want done. You should move to one of them.

 

In the original post, you may notice that I state "[FONT=&quot]but its (libertarianism) coagulation was attributed by Rothbard to St. Thomas Aquinas." This infers that libertarianism has a strong foundation in some religious principles. [/FONT]The inference would not be accurate. While Aquinas stated ""that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act.", he still was a strong proponent in Aristotelian principals of philosophy and though that humans did not require divine intervention to attain knowledge of the universe. He also wrote "Now every form bestowed on created things by God has power for a determined act[uality], which it can bring about in proportion to its own proper endowment; and beyond which it is powerless, except by a superadded form, as water can only heat when heated by the fire. And thus the human understanding has a form, viz. intelligible light, which of itself is sufficient for knowing certain intelligible things, viz. those we can come to know through the senses.". Safe to say, the the more secular believes of libertarianism remains of the left side of the y-axis and the more religious on the right.

Like their authoritarian counterparts, some libertarians are "pro-choice" and other are "pro-rights". This is a very personal decision. Being a more conservative libertarian myself, I still apply the NAP in this regard, meaning my interpretation dictates that unless the birth of the child endangers the life of the mother then the mother has no right to abort. This is a fairly straightforward axiom, but where this gets more entangled is when you ask the question "When does the child's life begin?" (See- same issues as the authoritarians!). Some can successfully argue that scientific evidence definitely rules out the existence of life in the first trimester. Personally, I am uncomfortable ruling out that possibility and I would rather not rule out the possibility that when completing an abortion, we are not infringing upon the right to life of another individual.

Now, these are not the perspectives of all libertarians- me claiming this is like a Democrat claiming social views for all Republicans as well as all Democrats and that just doesn't make sense. So, as a libertarian what is your view on abortion, and how do you see it relates to your libertarian beliefs?

 

I dont agree with this at all, look at Marxism, critical theory and the likes and clearly the left is running off that play book if they know it or not - even Fascism is a collectivist leftist ideology. The right is about free markets while we see the left ban big gulps and increase govt. While i admit the GOP along with Dems are sell outs to the corporates, theres only one side that speaks of individual accountability, the other wants to hug you to death while pursuing equality/ social outcomes which is totally counter to the individualist ideology imo.

 

What's your opinion on welfare? Because that's what a raped woman would have to go on if she can't afford the child.

And no, I'm not saying money is more important than a child's life, but abortion is a complicated topic with many different sides and angles, and someone will have to pay for the child.

 

Indeed, likewise with the IRS. How much must they waste chasing down people who don't play by their rules? They create more problems than they solve, these authoritarian rules and organisations. As with the plethora of laws restricting behaviour, e.g. drinking and drug laws, they attempt to establish unnecessary and wasteful order.

Then there's government welfare, another case of good intentions gone horribly, horribly wrong. They not only end up wasting untold amounts of money to fraud and bureaucracy, but they encourage people to become dependent upon them and develop an entitlement mentality.

 

What is this nonsense? No "innocents" are suffering or dying in an abortion. Abortions are typically carried out long before the developing child could possibly have any awareness of what's happening.

Also, you sound mighty preachy all of a sudden. Were you supposed to be a libertarian?

 

Outstanding post, i struggle to find much i disagree with other than the above. I understand the premise of individualism/ libertarianism but i must admit im not comfortable with denying people basic education and healthcare. This is where voucher systems come up trumps imo, they allow the free market to do its thing while making sure citizens have enough money to make a choice. Some get the bare bones packages others add to it and get more. No doubt theres some socialism in there admittedly, and probably why i hesitate from saying im libertarian - im still learning, but leaning that way

We know capitalism is supply and demand, theres always going to be the unemployed, disabled ect - we cant just allow our own people to suffer and die from minor things. Yes with more money in our pockets im sure we'd look after those few with charity but we dont want people to slip through the cracks either. With the border, immigration controls you speak of i dont see voucher systems being a bad thing. Rest of your post - pretty much nailed imo.