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"$450 billion ($1,800 per resident) per year from 1987–1990."

Yeah, and the next sentence explains that figure as: "These losses included $18 billion in medical and mental health care spending, $87 billion in other tangible costs, and $345 billion in pain, suffering, and reduced quality of life."

Different ways to count it can result in vastly different numbers — depending on what one wishes to demonstrate, ha-ha... The point remains, though, the cost of crime, however you count it, is still below the "commie socialist programs" that serviscope_minor attempted to justify.

And, the "war on poverty" isn't solely about reducing crime

Of course, it is not! Moreover, I argue, that it is not about reducing crime at all. It is about genuine compassion for some and the ability to spread the wealth around for others. That "spreading" of the wealth of captive taxpayers is pure unadulterated tyranny, of course, and the folks advocating it usually have a vast conflict of interest.

The overhead of charities ranges from 15% to as much as 70% — with government's operations being on the greater side of it. It is an incredibly lucrative and powerful position to be in control of spending even $1 billion, even if a mere $150 million of it are yours to dispense on the "overhead". With $800 billion per year you can find words, sponsor poems, finance movies and other artworks, and even find a smooth talking nincompoop, who will sincerely protect your trough, while denouncing opponents as greedy and egoistic bastards...

If only everyone would learn that they are not either Republicans or Democrats, perhaps than we could get rid of this 2 party virus killing America.

Take the World's Smallest Political Quiz and find out what you truly are....

• In America, ONLY
  9% are Conservative (Hard core Republicans and Tea Party thanks to the Koch's $1 Billion per election per year.)
  19% are Liberal (Hard core Democrats.)
  70%+ ~ The rest of us are in the middle.

The quiz is not perfect, far from it, but probably an eye-opener for most. It needs to go into more detail in some of the areas. Some of us who have lived longer have seen so much abuse from both parties, we look at those questions with knowing eyes and knowledge on how the two parties have abused specific areas. Because of this, I use to be a Centrist, but now discover I lean more liberal, the horror of it all.

Just tired of the social welfare program for the 1% that is our two party system today. The stuff that Reagan got away with economically is not feasible today because between both parties the middle class was devastated. This is the real reason for the ongoing recession we have been in for almost a decade today.

Suggestion: Imagine you have $250,000.00 dollars to invest in the stock market. Use whatever tools are at your disposal, invest, pay fees, track your portfolio, what I have discovered over the last two years, through Shorts and other market actions that I believe should NOT be legal but our, I have watched a decent (not great) portfolio slowly diminish over time. Too many are sucking the wealth out of the market, all the while boosting the S&P, Nasdaq and Dow one after the other to newer highs. It has been a fascinating watch.

In spite of this, I believe you must be in the market, just make sure you do NOT depend on it for your day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year cash flow...if you do that you are sunk. Just one more source of income. You should have 3 or more sources of income when you retire...the market should only be one of those...

Funny, Reagan could not get the Republican nomination today. And has not been the party of Lincoln for some time. General Eisenhower warned us to beware the military industrial complex. I plan to take a strong look at the economy from the time of Clinton through to today. It will probably be more insightful that monitoring my make believe portfolio over the last two years. My Hypothesis when you consider cost of goods and services (ie. buying a car, gas, groceries, rent, mortgage, car insurance, health insurance, etc...) the recession we are in will be highlighted and there will be quantifiable data showing we are not financially better off than our parents...even if the minimum wage was $15.00 per hour or at poverty levels.

Keep in mind that when hedge funds bought pharmaceutical companies so they could be like cable companies and arbitrarily increase monthly fees to their customers forever, that they are not stopping there.

Rumor has it they are purchasing other middle-companies that support various industries, such as robotics, which can only drive up manufacturing prices greater than health care or the minimum wage ever could.

Remember, unfettered Capitalism is Fascism.

If you like to use the word 'socialism' when talking about liberals, look really hard at all the social welfare programs loosely disguised as so called capitalism aimed at the 1% in the World.

I consider myself a capitalist, I strongly believe to hire and retain good workers, they must have health care, they must have a roof over their head, they must have nutrition and they must have a means to get to/from work. And to retain the good labor, I must pay accordingly. In fact I must be willing to train American workers to do the job.

Now you workers need to help, show up on time, be ready to work, want to work and don't make excuses for other behavior that affe

Nice write-up. (I was an 18 yr old family-tradition Republican when I first voted in '72, but I was registered Libertarian by '74.) The only thing missing is a link to the World's Smallest Political Quiz (ten agree/disagree statements - five on personal issues, five on financial.)

You may not agree with the results interpretation, but the two dimensional political field representation is still of interest.

I want people to be able to smoke weed and don't want our government to run massive debts. Which party represents me? Not the two main ones.

No, not the two main ones, but perhaps the Libertarians? Take a minute or so to take The World's Smallest Political Quiz (10 agree/don't care/disagree questions - 5 on economic liberty, 5 on personal freedom.

I always like having people take the World's Smallest Political Quiz to find out if they have libertarian leanings: https://www.theadvocates.org/q...

We aren't talking about which party is preferable from a libertarian point of view. We are talking about why the libertarian party appears to be "leaning right". And the reason is simple: a substantial minority of Republicans today pay lip service to some of the principles libertarians favor, namely free markets and individual liberties, while few Democrats do. But in neither party are libertarians in the majority. The actual Republican and Democratic presidents we have had since Reagan (and including Reagan) have been about equally bad: corrupt, war mongering statist.

From a libertarian point of view, both Democrats and Republicans have sunk more towards the bottom of the diamond over the last few decades: http://www.theadvocates.org/qu...

Still, unrelated to libertarianism, I'd like to point out:

The democratic party has been the party of civil liberties since the Dixiecrats ran into the open arms of the GOP.

No, the Democratic party has been the party of civil rights; there's a big difference: civil liberties are negative rights, while civil rights are positive rights. Furthermore, the "civil rights" policies of the Democratic party are just a variation on its previous racist policies, repackaged to appeal more to minority voters. The underlying belief didn't change, namely the belief that blacks are generally incapable of succeeding on their own and need some form of (physical or legal) segregation and special support from the state.

A hearty chunk of the debt incurred during the Obama administration is due to the actions of Bush and his lapdog congresses. (Wars, Medicare Part D, tax cuts when there is a deficit, etc.)

And instead of fixing these issues when he had a chance to and his own lapdog congress, Obama just piled massively on top of them. I used to think that Bush would be one of the worst presidents of my lifetime, but Obama really has turned out to be a credible rival for that position.

You are going to have to provide some evidence that "the left" has moved farther to the left.

Where did I say it had "moved further to the left"? I said the "American left" has abandoned "free markets, freedom of association, and individual liberties". In fact, I think the American so-called "left" has actually moved more in the direction of fascism. Of course, in practice, and from a libertarian point of view, fascism and socialism are pretty much equally bad: both deny individual liberties, individual choice, and free markets. That is, from a libertarian perspective, it really makes little difference whether Democrats have "moved left" or "moved right". What matters is that Democrats have become a lot more statist and a lot less liberal. Republicans have simply stuck with their theocratic leanings, but at least some minority faction of Republicans still pays lip service to the benefits of free markets and capitalism.

Political positions are multi-dimensional. If you need a simple space to imagine this in, use the 2D space from the "World's Smallest Political Quiz":

http://www.theadvocates.org/qu...

Most of the policies currently being advocated by the mainstream Democratic candidates are similar to ones advocated by President Regan:

You're absolutely right. And libertarians like neither Reagan, nor Democrats that channel Reagan.

http://www.cato.org/publicatio...

Even the Affordable Care Act was a much more right-leaning approach to healthcare reform than what the Clintons were trying to achieve current the Bill Clinton presidency.

From a libertarian point of view, the ACA is just as much of a disaster as single payer health care would have been. Note that neither the Cato institute nor other libertarian publications had anything good to say about it.

http://www.cato.org/bad-medici...

If the ACA were "more right leaning" and libertarians were "right leaning", they would have to say something good about it, no? Of course, the way Democrats get out of that logical conundrum is simply to attribute the well-deserved vitriol libertarians and free market types heap upon the ACA to racism and partisanship.

Self-Driving Cars Will Be In 30 US Cities By the End of Next Year

Now, if only we could have a self-governing country...

(Please, don't hate.)

Now a way must be found to prevent parents from poisoning the young minds with things the vast majority of the scientific community considers incorrect.

Do we really need to go again, through the fine examples of what that venerable "vast majority of the scientific community" once considered incorrect — but does not any more?

There's no reason to outlaw parents from teaching their children mythology as if it were commonly accepted fact

The reasons are (or would be) the same as banning schools from doing it. If you ban one without another, you are leaving a "dangerous loophole" — and all that.

The school would just lose its government funding.

Distinction without (or with little) difference. With taxes as high as they are in today's Western world, loss of government funding by an enterprise currently receiving it mean certain bankruptcy.

But this a good — if unexpected — point. Nobody wants taxpayers' monies spent on unscientific matters taught as science. But whether a particular thing is, indeed, unscientific, remains a matter of opinion. Though we seem to have the opinion in this case, do you and I feel confident enough to force our opinion on other people's children? I do not...

Which all boils down to the fact, that taxes should not be spent on education — tempting though it may be, it leads to this sort of oppression, where the government taxes everybody, but spends the taxes as only some deem correct.

Hence the Libertarianism...

"hat's why instead of voting for PARTIES, you need to understand where the candidates you can choose between lie on the statist/non-statists continuum ..."

... and realize that the statist - non-statist (others call it authoritarian-independent) continuum is not directly related to the Left-Right continuum.

That's why THIS was invented.

Your points are valid, and there is certainly no way to actually apportion exact usage (or benefit) to every person, much less charge them on that basis. But toll roads can shift a great deal of the cost to those who receive the most benefits.

In an ideal libertarian world, the Clean Air Act would be unnecessary - instead, those creating the bad air would be legally accountable to those who suffer, and would either clean up their act or be driven out of business. But this is the real world, where such legislation as the CAA is far more effective at keeping us healthy. As a Libertarian, I don't oppose ALL taxes; nor do I believe that all government is bad. But I do believe that it is far too large, and involved in far too many areas. Do we really need a national agency to monitor local cable TV rates? Should it be a government function to support the arts?

BTW, I've been a registered Libertarian for close to 40 years. It is refreshing to finally see the party making the news, but distressing when extremists such as the Tea Party overshadow the rest of us. For an interesting look at the party's principles, take the World's Smallest Political Quiz. Ten questions - five on personal freedom, five on economic freedom. It may not convert you, but you may find that you agree with more of our principals than you'd expect.

Take this quiz http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz to help you understand. It's actually quite simple.

Left and right are not the only options. http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz

This has nothing to do with Left/Right politics, and everything to do with Authority/Liberty politics. You're arguing about the wrong political axis. Here's a quiz and chart that explains this.

There are other parties, you know.

Take the quiz and find the one that fits you: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz

Interestingly, taking liberalism to its logical conclusion, and taking conservatism to its logical conclusion, both can lead to about the same place.

Try the quiz: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz

Bullshit. Anyone who would ever accept the name "liberal" in the U.S. is already buying into the idea that there is only one possible spectrum of ideas, which goes from "conservative" to "liberal."

Some of us just live in the real world and can indicate which is the closest approximation (YMMV) to their high level beliefs. If you don't feel they represent you, that is fine, but there is no reason to disparage people who feel like they can.

Ex: If someone is asked for their political ideology and they say they are a conservative, would you chastise them for not articulating each and every belief? Sounds like a lot of fun for everyone. (eye roll)

I agree that people should think more critically, but name calling isn't going to win over people who just don't care as much about politics.

FYI - if you don't think the links below are propaganda, then I question your ability to think openly.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz_result?e=30&i=70_30.gif&p=70 (A 'perfect score' = libertarian)

I think both parties fail at protecting liberty. The Nolan test, for example, has in addition to a left and right a y-axis of libertarian vs. stateism. Mind you this was done in 1965 before there even was libertarian party and the political environment of 1965 was very different, but I think the general idea about the 5 general positions still hold true. The left generally believe in individual freedom with regard to personal matters but that the appropriate role for government is to manage / regulate the economy. Conservatives believe the opposite, that government should be a moral guide but that economic matters should be left almost entirely to the individual. Libertarianism is the belief that people are best left to manage both their own personal and economic roles in society, and stateism is where government can and should become involved in any important matter.

In my opinion an argument between left and right, particularly in government, is not over what people can be responsible enough to manage on their own, but what evil needs to be suppressed. The left pushes for less economic freedom with philosophical objections on the right while the right pushes for less personal freedom with philosophical objections on the left. They compromise and negotiate until they both get what they want with what isn't really centrist, but stateism.

As far as Republicans, it is all a matter of who you talk to. There is a lot of division and accusations over who is a real conservative. I differentiate "real conservatives" from "right of center", "moderate conservative", and "neo-conservative". From anyone I have heard that identifies themselves as a Republican hating conservative (but think the party can be "reclaimed") they label Bush as NOT conservative. Further, to my understanding, most "conservatives" would like to see the military come home and protect THIS country rather than going around the word "spreading democracy". IMO, congressional leadership and administration is interested in managing the entire world but for radically different reasons.

One of the talking points I frequently hear, and I will just ask for your opinion, how do you measure the protection of individual rights? Least harm / most freedom? Namely, with regard to the medical profession, how has this particular legislation worked to ensure the individual rights and freedoms of doctors, scientists, investors, and other professionals in the medical field?

We Libertarians aren't on the right! It's simple, personal freedom and individual responsibility on all issues all the time (doesn't sound right-wing to me).

Maybe you should learn what right and left really are: http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html

I'd like to see two reforms (besides revoking personhood to corporations, and if what I've read is correct it wasn't even a Supreme Court ruling, but an error made by a law clerk):

1. It should be a felony to attempt to contribute to more than one candidate in any race, as that serves no other purpose except bribery
2. It should be illegal to contribute to any candidate one is not eligible to vote for. Why is it a convicted felon can't affect an election with a vote, but he can with money? Why should Bill Gates, who isn't an Illinois resident or voter, be able to affect an election in Illinois? Corporations, unions, etc should not be able to contribute, period.

Since that K5 article my 4th amendment rights were abused twice, once on the day we commemorate those who died defending those same rights that were abused!

Right after I posted I thought of this, Prevent any politician from working in a lobbyist capacity for at least 4 years after leaving office, preferably 8 years. By that time they would have other jobs.

Surely we are not voting for people who can not hold down a job are we?

I use to think some of the best professors I had in college were the ones who had worked in the field and could relate their work experience with the text book knowledge and tell you why one concept would not work versus another based on practical experience.

Now that I think about it, term limits plus the above, plus limits on campaign contributions from individuals (ONLY, no companies) might just do the trick.

Good luck getting any of it approved through a legislature that wants to protect their future chance of becoming a lobbyist.

After all look at health care, giving MORE money to the health care companies (forcing Americans to do business with those abusing them, who will be the first America, refusing to purchase coverage that gets arrested...not exactly debtor prisons, but not much different either.), doing nothing to stem abuses, correcting the system and preventing anything good coming from the new legislation for at least 4 years further down the road.

And you would want them to pass laws that would prevent them from taking 6 figure or 7 figure salaried jobs as lobbyists? It just is not going to happen.

Tell you what, if they allow the FairTax to come out of committee, where its been since 1996, for a floor vote in BOTH the House and the Senate (two different committee road blocks here) then I will tell you that your two proposals might have a chance.

We just need to elect more people to office that do not intend to make it a profession. Serving your country was never intended by our founding fathers to be a profession, thus encouraging abuses of the system, duh moment there.

Oh for the record, as much as I would like to see Pres Obama veto it all and insist on a public option, which would make him more politically and publicly favorable than ever, I doubt he will do that. Over 57% of Americans believe Health Care should be a basic right, I suggest to you that our current level of taxation should provide more then enough revenue to cover it also.

If they can not pass something that majority of Americans want, and want badly, what makes us believe they are going to pass financial campaign reform...wishing they would, but thinking they wont.

I still like your ideas especially #1 regardless, only concerned about the new laws being abused to control voters and voter turnout.

With #2 I see the same problems that we have with the two party system, having to register as one or the other in order to vote in the primaries, that needs to be done away with. As most Americans are neither Republicans (9%) nor Democrats (18%)

In fact advocating and advertising this political reality needs to be part of the process of removing lobbyist money from politic

I don't disagree that corruption is party-agnostic, but I take umbrage to terms like Republicrat or RINO that marginalise the centre right and left. They promote a "with us or against us" mentality that was famous with the United States' last president.

We need to get past the whole left-right paradigm. Overall there's really not a whole lot of difference between the parties. Both want more government, more control, more corporatism and corporate welfare, war (though the "opposition party" tends to be anti-war), etc.

I personally prefer the graph used at Advocates for Self-Government: http://theadvocates.org/

Left = Economic control
Right = Social control
Up = Liberty, Less Government
Down = Tyranny, More Government

On that scale, both parties are fairly center. Probably a bit to the right with the Democrats being slightly left and the Republicans being slightly to the right of each other. The important part is where they are vertically. Both are rather far down towards tyranny.

(if you're wondering about me personally, I'm fairly center on that scale and up very close to the top)

Now, using a two-axis chart, where the top of the chart means greater freedoms and private market

You mean like the World's Smallest Political Quiz?

Falcon

Interview with Michael Cloud

"Finally, I found that I could get a rise out of people with over-the-top, in-your-face, shocking statements about libertarianism. So I went from ineffective conversations to actually losing friends and alienating people."

There's a very good reason few people listen to that fruitcake anymore.

He's an armed fruitcake though, he can force you to listen.

Democrats are what used to be Republican?

Not at all. Many modern-day American Democrats and Republicans, currently in office, are the same damn thing. The Democrat representatives tend to be slightly more social liberal, and the Republican representatives tend to be a bit more fiscally conservative. The terms "liberals" and "conservatives" are misused by many politicians, and media outlets to support their own agenda. The reality is the pot calling the kettle black.

Proof that by today's definition, both Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior are Liberals?

Which leads to the question, what is a Liberal?

Labeling either of them a Liberal would need qualification of context. Do you mean social liberal, or fiscal/economic liberal. I personally would say they are both Statist, who may be slight economic liberals.

These are interesting times indeed.

Agreed.

In my opinion, there is greater political diversity in the U.S. than all left, or all right. The political spectrum just is not accurately represented. I am not trying to show my Libertarian bias here, but if I were to cite this phone survey (take it with a grain of salt, it came from a libertarian website). Of those surveyed it was found that 32% were centrist; 17% could be in multiple categories or did not fit in any one particular category; 16% were libertarians; 14% were statists/authoritarian; 13% liberal; 7% conservative. What I find even more interesting is that 31% identified themselves as left/liberal and 48% identified themselves as right/conservative, 9% as centrists, 2% as libertarians, and 0% as statists/authoritarians. So even though the political spectrum is quite varied, in reality, 79% of all those surveyed identify themselves with a two party system as a Democrat or Republican.

I find that survey interesting. The candidates we get with a two party system do not accurately represent actual voters' interests. It just seems to me that political candidates have two goals, stay in office, and serve the lobbyists. But why does our so called "democracy" have to be about what the politicians want? The survey may not be an accurate representation of the political spectrum, but neither is left/right, liberal/conservative, Democrat/Republican, up/down, or black/white.

If I owned a bar I'd tell BMI/ASCAP to "fuck off; I only play public domain stuff here". A commercial entity only has power over you if you give it to them. Don't give away your power so casually.

You hit the nail on the head. It's just a money grab by them and any university that falls for this legalized extortion should not be in the business of educating anyone.

If I buy it, I want to copy it and watch the copy...thus when the copy goes bad, I can make a new copy. If a movie or CD of songs will not allow me to do this, than I will NOT buy it until it is in the "sale" bin where I can get it for less than $5.00. That way when it goes bad I will not feel as ripped off.

I would never buy music from an online store that will not let me copy it for my own use. Based on what I have read online, many others will not either. One reason the Apple online store will ultimate fail...obviously Amazon understands this simple fact.

I will not buy movies from stores like Walmart that censor the movie. (There are better reasons never to shop at Walmart ever again, but that is off topic...see for yourself!

I can censor myself, don't need your help, no thank you no way. What I see, the language I hear, is up to me. If you are offended, don't buy it. Also don't tell me I cannot see or hear it. That last part reminds me of why I disliked Tipper Gore's censoring policies so much. Al Gore almost lost my vote, not that it did any good, because of his wife's anti-American censorship leanings and policies.

Walmart - off topic:
The best show highlighting problems at Walmart was on TV (60 minutes or more I believe). One segment noted that rain was causing fertilizer (broken bags in the back of the store, supposedly for sale) was polluting a towns only water source, it took months of complaints and finally legal action before Walmart would do anything...they were literally killing the town via its only water source, amazingly bad neighbor...I use to shop there, never again. Other issues in TV Show: Chinese work force - how mis-treated; Walmart Associates how mis-treated; Walmart Managers unable to run store due to inadequate budget; Medical so high its unaffordable for associates; Lists of communities that have already banned Walmarts coming into their area; and many, many more issues, sadly I do not know the name of this show that I saw on TV. Chances are the Youtube videos will give anyone who is uneducated as I was a clue...

Note: I am not trying to start a political war either mentioning the Gores, over the years I have voted for the lessor of two evils in every election, thus I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats over the years...anyone who reads my posts already knows this.

Political off topic:
After this next 4 years both the Democrats and Republicans will have had 12 years to make things better (since the elder Bush). If they continue to play partisan politics and ignore the rest of us, shouldn't we vote for anyone other than a Democrat or Republican in 2012? If Obama gets us on track in fixing things without extra taxes and business killing policies than I would be for giving him another 4 years, considering Democratic control of the House, the Senate and the White House, they have no excuses. First he must pass the line item veto to use a scalpel to remove the partisan politics injected into everything. However if they do not get us back on track and well on our way to recovery than neither party deserves any more chances.(Besides there is over a 74% chance you are neither a Democrat or Replubican...did you know that? World's Smallest Political Quiz!!)

>>>Ideologically though, one is far left, one is far right.

Perhaps the reason they were *practically* identical to one another, is because if you move far enough to the left, and far enough to the right, you will eventually meet yourself. (The universe is spherical.) So there's no real difference between National Socialists or Communists - they are both just authoritarian control freaks.

I recommend you go a wee bit "north", and take a look at the ideas of the libertarians or the anarchists. "We would have no government at all, if it were possible. It is only to preserve our rights that we resort to government at all." - Thomas Jefferson

World's Smallest Quiz - http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp

Think hard about this. What is a conservative? Somebody who believes in their ideals and fundamentals. Thus they are not thinking about the future, but the past.

On the other hand a liberal challenges the notion of today and looks at what could be.

Wouldn't that be a progressive?

I think calling the left wingers Liberal is a phenomenon unique to the USA. In my country (Denmark), the liberals and conservatives are right-wing parties with adjacent seats; they often form a government together. Among the left wing parties are the Social Democrats and the Socialist People's Party.

Of course, politics is not one-dimensional. A dichotomy I've seen more than once is that between personal and economic freedom (c.f. http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html). And of course, those can be broken into dimensions of their own: abortion, same-sex marriage; tax-paid aqueducts/irrigation/roads/law+order; also, some of the personal freedoms have an economic impact (there's a lot of money rules surrounding married couples vs. singles).

Penn & Teller: Bullshit

Nice source. A second rate Vegas act featuring a fat loudmouth and a mute. And of course they have no political agenda. Guys like this are the reason mainstream voters are frightened of Ron Paul.

Libertarianism is about the freedom to own slaves.

You would certainly be able to indenture yourself, if you choose to — to anyone, who would want such a thing from you.

99% of people who support libertarianism will end up being serfs if their plans ever succeeds

Serfdom (and the outright slavery) disappeared, not because of laws or regulations, but because it was inefficient. Re-read your Marx-volume. As the means of production evolve, the uninterested slaves' labor falls further and further behind in value — despite being cheaper — than that of motivated free workers.

So stop this "slavery" fear-mongering, and smears. For decades the country's policy-makers have been moving away from Libertarianism despite most Americans being in the Libertarian corner of the politics. The results, to name the most obvious are:

1. the insurmountably complex tax-code, the cost of which is hurting us more and more
2. insane amounts of red-tape, hurting both businesses and consumers alike;
3. a large public-welfare system (belovingly known as "safety net") which is now able to sustain itself through votes of millions of beneficiaries and hundreds of thousands of governments employees busying themselves with the process of handing out taxpayers' monies. Politicians used to appeal to the compassion of the givers — nowadays they increasingly aim directly for the greed of the receivers as the more numerous segment of the voters.

And all you can say against that is nonsense like: "Libertarians want to bring back slavery"?.. Pathetic...

I would agree with another poster that Conservatives used to mean "personal and community responsibility". Which is fine by me if you have a whole town in B.F.Nowhere that wants to create the ideal religious fanatic haven. However, what has happened since Reagan is that the Republicans and "influencial" fundamentalists (Falwell) have decided that "community responsbility" means "the whole USA is our community, therefor everyone needs to think like us, and we'll make it happen using the law and Fox."

I use Conservative as the opposite for Democrat because I *dont* believe that Republicans are the real Conservatives anymore. The Republicans used to be about economic freedom, but now, just like the Democrats, they are all about curtailing economic freedom and diverting huge amounts of our money to their buddies companies in oil, defense, health etc. Democrat or Republican its all about the benjamins. It used to be that the opposite of Republican was Democrat. Now the opposite of Republican is Libertarian.

Take the quiz and see where you stand.

'Totalitarian right'? That's technically a contradiction in terms, actually --- the source of most people's confusion in this regard is that left/right is overly simplistic, there are actually at least four poles (left/right/north/south), plus centrist ... take the world's smallest political quiz, it'll give a basic introductory overview of why. Usually when people speak of 'the right', at least in the US, they refer to freedoms (either economic freedoms and social freedoms, or just the former - where the confusion starts); I'm not sure what you mean by "totalitarian right", but under most definitions of "right", a "totalitarian right" can no longer be regarded as a true "right" system - certainly a 100% corporate-fascism-controlled crony-capitalist system would not be.

You should read a few things:

http://ronpaullibrary.org/topic.php?id=22

http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=5&id=159
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=332
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=148
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=25&id=128

You should read a few things:

http://ronpaullibrary.org/topic.php?id=22

http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=5&id=159
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=332
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=148
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=25&id=128

You should read a few things:

http://ronpaullibrary.org/topic.php?id=22

http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=5&id=159
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=332
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=148
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=25&id=128

You should read a few things:

http://ronpaullibrary.org/topic.php?id=22

http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=5&id=159
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=332
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=30&id=148
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Category=25&id=128

If you see political ideologies as a one-dimensional spectrum, you aren't paying enough attention. Educate yourself.

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html [theadvocates.org]

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Umm. That's not a centrist. You've given almost the dictionary definition of a libertarian. Try the age-old political quiz.

A centrist beleives that government should control people and restrict their rights, just not completely. They believe that government should be big enough to do many unnecessary things, but it should strike a "balance" between liberty and socialism.

If you have a graph, where the x-axis is increasing personal freedom and the y-axis is increasing economic freedom, the libertarian is the furthest from the origin. A centrist would want a moderate amount of economic freedom and a moderate amount of personal freedom (for example, perhaps they have an agenda of being pro-life and anti-drugs, and want the government to control interest rates and feed the poor).

If you've seen a girl naked (in person!) without paying for it, GTFO
If people can't actually see your scent wafting off your body, GTFO
If your neck isn't covered by scraggly beardhairs, GTFO
If you aren't willing to make it your life's mission to piss on people for not having the same technical taste as you, GTFO

You don't understand what it takes to be a real Lunix user.

End it as you see fit, I don't know what insult you'd like there.

If I was pro-choice, pro-decriminalisation of heroin, anti-war, economically liberal but anti-welfare, an anarchist and a Randian Objectivist (I *think* I could be all of those at once) would that make me left- or right-wing?

Why, you would be a libertarian (US)/true liberal (old world).

See also: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html for more 2-D view of politics, rather than traditional 1-D left/right view...

Paul B.

Yet another poor deluded soul, given the choice of only left or right, he lashes out at whichever he's told by his peers to hate.

Well said!

IMHO, he (and it is almost certainly a "he") is not trolling. He sounds like a Libertarian. They'll twist anything to fit their pre-conceptions. Ultimately it is yet another utopian philosophy1, meaning it can be interesting, but can never work in any real sense.

1. Version of 01:00, 9 February 2007

A picture of the Windows and Mac supporters was already made public. The Linux guy is still unknown, but unconfirmed sources suggest that he's looking like this.

The government should NOT be in the business of education.

Private schools educate people for about HALF (on avg) the cost of government schools. And typically the private school students tend to receive a higher quality education for lower cost.

http://www.cato.org/research/education/testing.htm l
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_list. php?Category=7

In the late 19th century they realized that hands-off was the best approach. But they also realized that they had to protect the market in a free and competitive atmosphere.

And most Libertarians do not really want a standing Armyc nor do they want interventionism or US imperialism. The Constitution limits it for 2 years anyway. Many Libertarians would prefer a private military (of which I personally do not). I think you need ro re-read some L(l)ibertairan issue statements before you begin to talk about things in which you are obviously uneducated.

Here are some resources:
http://www.lp.org/issues/issues.shtml
http://www.theadvocates.org/publications.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

According to what I have read the largest expenditures in the Fed budget are welfare programs; NOT the military (but that is #2).

Although you are not American, your ignorance is showing like a great deal of many of my fellow citizens. I'll ignore for the second that you cannot even spell Constitution or realize that it is capitalized (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that English isn't your first language). But also each state government has a constitution of its own and they are all modeled after the US Constitution.

While our ideas might differ about quality/quantity of regulation, most everything else you have mentioned is inaccurate and pure rubbish. Please get an education or a clue.

I don't think in terms of left and right.

You're not the only one. You should take the World's Smallest Political Quiz" and see where you show up. Libertarians on the balance tend to be very pro-tech/tech-savvy. It would be interesting to see how congressional candidates (not just elected officials) would end up. I'm betting it would be Libertarians in a landslide.

I didn't say get rid of all government, no I firmly believe we have to have a strong court system.

Well, that means you disagree with Libertarianism and the so-called "free market."

I know of no Libertarian who advocates getting rid of courts, the only grous I know that does are anarchists. Taking the World's Smallest Political Quiz it says I am a Libertarian. This from one page of the Libertarin Party website says "By the way, 'Who's to says WHO has property rights?' The Courts, one of the FEW legitimate functions of government is to zealously protect the property rights of individuals and enforce contracts. Not a very 'anarchistic' stance is it?" Libertarians do believe in a strong court.

In a hypothetical Libertarian world, they would probably be all owned by the same people. World of mouth would be futile against monopolies of this scale. You could protest all you want, but in a world where corporations controlled everything, it would mean diddly-squat.

Ah but in that Libertarian world there woudn't be the Corporate Aristocracy we have now. Probably the best example of a Libertarian Founding Father of the USA is Thomas Jefferson and that is one of the things he warned was a threat to democracy, the Corporate Aristocracy, especially as concerned banks. He believed that as they get bigger they gather more and more power unto themself. Monopolies wouldn't exist in the libertarian world. Actually at first Jefferson didn't like or believe that patents should be issued, it was only after his friend James Madison talked with him when he thought patents would advance science and society. Once convinced he sat down with actuary tables and calculated they should last 14 years with one 14 year extension possible. This he felt was the optimum length of tyme to encourage inventors to keep coming with new things.