Libertarians

[ELITEOFWARMAN8]

Clint-on left with a surplus

And the debt was still up. Need a chart?

See this is the reason people don't like libertarians.

How so? The Big two aren't doing anything for the people. You guys have yet to prove me wrong.

And that counters my point...how, exactly?

Also balanced budgets are ********. See California for why this is so.

How so?

 

[WindFish]

And the debt was still up. Need a chart?

Yes plox

 

[ace99]

How so? The Big two aren't doing anything for the people. You guys have yet to prove me wrong.

Extraordinary statements require some extraordinary proof. When you try to say that a established system is no longer working the burden is on you to prove it.

 

[sophie]

How so? The Big two aren't doing anything for the people. You guys have yet to prove me wrong.



How so?

I did prove you wrong. You just have refused to acknowledge it.

And California is a broken state because their GSP is the equivalent of the 7th richest country in the world, but unlike every other country they aren't allowed to run on a deficit. This means that California is plagued every year by massive budgetary crises and perennial financial woes. If California was allowed to operate on a deficit many of its problems would become significantly less pressing.

Also its constitution is ass-backwards, but that's beside the point.

 

[Murky]

One example of a failure of Libertarian ideology is the idea that we should privatize everything. Did you know that The Learning Channel (TLC) used to be funded by NASA? It used to feature a lot of educational programing like PBS. Now that it's private we get reality shows like "Honey Boo Boo."

 

[Berzerker]

taxing peter to pay paul may get his vote, but paul's not entirely happy with that knowledge so he gets mad when he's reminded

 

[mangxema]

In large part I think it's because libertarians, at least as they exist in the US, don't really present a unified and coherent group of what they are and what they stand for. And, like with religion, the average person outside that group does not much hear from the rational and decent among them, but rather hears from the extremists and the radicals. So if the whole picture of libertarians is of the extremists, then what kind of opinion can people have of them? Imagine if everything you knew about Christians was Jerry Falwell and the Westborough Baptist Church.

I do think this is the root of the problem. Because of our political system, most of the pragmatic people with 3rd-party sympathies tend to work with in the two major ones. So the only ones that are left tend to be a little nutty, or at least stridently ideological. And if that's all you hear about then it's not surprising that people would have a negative opinion of them.

There are also some really nasty people who justify themselves as being libertarian, so that in their minds their actions, or the actions they would want to take if they thought they would get away with it, should be considered OK.

There's also that. Atheists get that too. If you really don't give a crap about other people, you're going to make everyone else look bad.

Now beyond that you have to keep in mind that the policies many libertarians advocate for in the public sphere are really dangerous to many people. And in general are things that we have fought tooth and nail to get away from. Libertarians would undo all of the gains society has made in the past century. And so to people who really understand what they are advocating, it is not the least bit attractive.

As someone with some libertarian leanings, I would take issue with this. I mean, I know what you're referring to--presumably stuff like 'My business can discriminate against whomever I choose and if you don't like that, don't come here'--and I don't disagree that those things are bad; I've just never understood why so-called Libertarians support them. The whole 'Don't swing your fist into somebody's face' thing and all.

 

[Murky]

taxing peter to pay paul may get his vote, but paul's not entirely happy with that knowledge so he gets mad when he's reminded

It's not taxing Peter to pay Paul. That's a really bad analogy for how the system works. People pay their taxes into the government for a variety things they get in return from government spending. Most people don't rely on private roads or bridges for instance. Welfare spending is tiny part of the overall budget.

 

[Borachio]

Social welfare benefits the rich too. They can move about the streets without having to negotiate beggars and dead bodies.

 

[JollyRoger]

Damn it - beat to the punch by Murky.

 

[Leoreth]

One example of a failure of Libertarian ideology is the idea that we should privatize everything. Did you know that The Learning Channel (TLC) used to be funded by NASA? It used to feature a lot of educational programing like PBS. Now that it's private we get reality shows like "Honey Boo Boo."

This just proves that reality shows are more "efficient" than educational programs.

Oh, add the unfounded assumption that the government is always by magnitudes more inefficient than private corporations to the list of things that are annoying about libertarians. And the assumption that things that are more efficient are also always more desirable.

 

[Murky]

This just proves that reality shows are more "efficient" than educational programs.

Oh, add the unfounded assumption that the government is always by magnitudes more inefficient than private corporations to the list of things that are annoying about libertarians. And the assumption that things that are more efficient are also always more desirable.

I can easily imagine a nightmare scenario like if we privatized the police and fire departments. You call 911 and you get, "Are you a subscriber to our service? No, sorry we can't help you. Have a nice death." Or if the fire departments bought four-wheelers instead of firetrucks.

 

[sophie]

I can easily imagine a nightmare scenario like if we privatized the police and fire departments. You call 9/11 and you get, "Are you a subscriber to our service? No, sorry we can't help you. Have a nice death." Or if the fire departments bought four-wheelers instead of firetrucks.

That's what fire departments were like in the US the 19th century. More often than not you'd get a fire and 2 competing fire fighting companies would break into a mass brawl over who had the right to put the fire out.

 

[JollyRoger]

Perhaps we should privatize starting fires rather bthan criminalizing it. After all, the fire starters are creating jobs.

 

[Leoreth]

Perhaps we should privatize starting fires rather bthan criminalizing it. After all, the fire starters are creating jobs.

Also, hire people to break windows.

 

[Borachio]

And graffiti artists and thieves. Soon have this recession sorted out.

 

[Berzerker]

It's not taxing Peter to pay Paul. That's a really bad analogy for how the system works. People pay their taxes into the government for a variety things they get in return from government spending. Most people don't rely on private roads or bridges for instance. Welfare spending is tiny part of the overall budget.

Welfare is tiny, the welfare state is enormous (follow the money) - and as a libertarian of sorts, i'm happy to pay taxes for roads, bridges, cops, fire..... I dont even mind a local or state safety net for the poor. Wealthier people should pay more in taxes given their increased use of infrastructure etc (the poor aint got much to insure), but our system is based on legalized bribery and extortion - politicians want "donations" in return for favors and business wants "subsidies" and protection from competition. And I'm told the people opposing this nonsense are greedy...

Not that you did

I'd let taxpayers "earmark" their taxes and I know what part of the welfare state would disappear - corporate welfare

 

[dutchfire]

Also, hire people to break windows.

And graffiti artists and thieves. Soon have this recession sorted out.

Well, they are already paying their congressmen

 

[Leoreth]

Welfare is tiny, the welfare state is enormous (follow the money) - and as a libertarian of sorts, i'm happy to pay taxes for roads, bridges, cops, fire..... I dont even mind a local or state safety net for the poor. Wealthier people should pay more in taxes given their increased use of infrastructure etc (the poor aint got much to insure), but our system is based on legalized bribery and extortion - politicians want "donations" in return for favors and business wants "subsidies" and protection from competition. And I'm told the people opposing this nonsense are greedy...

Not that you did

I'd let taxpayers "earmark" their taxes and I know what part of the welfare state would disappear - corporate welfare

You have a good case study going on what happens if you force extensive cuts on a government. Guess whom the internationally mandated budget cuts in Greece are screwing over.

 

[Cutlass]

I do think this is the root of the problem. Because of our political system, most of the pragmatic people with 3rd-party sympathies tend to work with in the two major ones. So the only ones that are left tend to be a little nutty, or at least stridently ideological. And if that's all you hear about then it's not surprising that people would have a negative opinion of them.



There's also that. Atheists get that too. If you really don't give a crap about other people, you're going to make everyone else look bad.



As someone with some libertarian leanings, I would take issue with this. I mean, I know what you're referring to--presumably stuff like 'My business can discriminate against whomever I choose and if you don't like that, don't come here'--and I don't disagree that those things are bad; I've just never understood why so-called Libertarians support them. The whole 'Don't swing your fist into somebody's face' thing and all.

What is typically lost in recent political debate is that there is actually very little that the government does which is not in direct response to problems that the public demanded for many, often very many, years for the government to deal with. You look at the history of policy after policy, and there was a real problem with real people being really hurt behind that policy.

All to often you hear people claiming that the government bureaucrats are passing regulations or the legislature is passing laws just as a power grab. In the US that is an extraordinarily rare thing to have happen. And overwhelmingly when it has happened, religion or social conservative policy is behind it, not any economic issues.

Now that's not to say I think government always handles these things in the best way that they can be handled. They frequently don't. But saying they aren't handling it in the best way is a fundamentally different issue from claiming that they do not have a legitimate reason to be addressing the issue at all.

Look into almost any issue. Find out why the government has a policy addressing it. People did not fight to have that policy put into place to screw over other people. They did it because people were being harmed by other people. And those people being harmed fought for something to be done to protect them.

And now people say "deregulate, deregulate, deregulate", and all the people who fought for those regulations in the past can see is "stop them or where's screwed".

Wall St got deregulated after most people who lived through the Great Crash and Great Depression were dead. So they couldn't fight for it anymore. The result? The Great Recession.

That is the real harm to real people which is the price of forgetting why the government has been doing what it has been doing.