Agreed. However, I don't necessarily see this as a totally United States problem. Frequently I find other nations are just as polarized against certain valid American ideals. My main example is the right to "bear arms". Just because you have firearms doesn't mean you are a person with criminal intentions, and it doesn't mean you will ever harm another person with them. In fact, you can find examples of citizens owning firearms as beneficial to their own safety. It is unpopular in the world, but too many people fail basic logic to understand that many topics are too open-ended to make grandiose proclamations about them. Then again, I am a mathematician so logic is something I try my best to understand.
Give me a break. You are generalizing people based on a few examples that are distasteful to you. Why assume I am this way when you have no prior evidence to support it? You basically assume all people who claim to be Libertarian are Tea Party. This is completely untrue. The Libertarian party existed WAY before the Tea Party movement. That movement is wolves in sheep's clothing. It is obvious to any free thinking human being that the Tea Party is just another flavor of GOP or neo-conservative, and it is apparent to the Libertarian party. http://www.lp.org/platform
Yes it is. If you print more money then those who hold currency hold less of it, effectively, because of inflation. Wealth can be "created" in a way, because resources can be extracted and things can be produced, however it only grows so fast and typically the benefits and rewards of extraction or production falls to the wealthy class that can hedge against inflation with their wealth anyway. Inflation only hurts the poor and middle class. As far as your "give 10 dollars", consider how many times you have paid for entertainment, paid the profit margin on oil or food, etc. either directly or indirectly. If you pay X dollars, you do not gain a return of X dollars for watching a sports event, and you do not gain "X minus the value of the commodity" in dollars of return on paying the profit margin. Its all lost. The only way you make any return is by using things you buy to make more return than you put in, however frequently it does not work out that way since most people are consumers rather than producers. My example was simplistic but valid since any person capable of abstract thought can extend it to the real world.
No, Libertarians are not ever against unions so long as you can enter into them freely. Too often you are required to join a union to work somewhere and this is the antithesis of freedom. Also, too often companies try to regulate unions and prevent unions from forming. This is also not Libertarian. Libertarian is freedom to do whatever you want so long as you harm no other citizen. Our current political system is more about restricting what you do. You can't marry the same sex, you can't use narcotics recreationally, you can't be an atheist and have political office (in some southern states), you can't compete with big corporations because of laws that give them unfair advantage over smaller business, you can't get wealthy because you pay more taxes as a percentage of your income than wealthy people do (top 1-10 percent). The point is, Libertarians want to remove laws that allow a status quo to develop including ones that allow politicians to be easily corruptible such as our US government. There will still be rich people, but I have nothing wrong with that as long as everyone has an equal chance at becoming rich. I think the problem with Democrats is that they typically push for a larger controlling government that institutes MORE laws to make things fairer rather than dealing with the ones that are in place which allow the wealthy to have unfair advantage. Republicans just push for larger government to control who gets the money. Democrats and Libertarians would get along quite well in every way but size of government I think.
"Sticking it to the man". Boy, you don't know me at all. However, I see nothing wrong with what you said beyond DC trying to help the poor. They aren't trying to help them out at all. Having lived in Houston when the Katrina victims came, they were giving people 3 bedroom homes in the suburb for 10 bucks a month, and many did not try to get jobs. This is while students like me have to go into debt to afford tuition and we don't qualify for any of the benefits. However, that being said, the majority of expenses from programs like social security go to elderly people http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/basicfact.htm who paid into the program thinking they would some day get benefits.
Agreed. I am social libertarian. However I go a bit further on the economic side. Economic protections should only be FOR the people, not for corporations. IP law, Patent Law, etc. are examples of things the government grants corporations (and thus the wealthy) that allow increased concentration in wealth. This is where Libertarian philosophy appeals to me, make no law that benefits corporations and business, only laws that prevent exploitation of workers.
You are correct. Not once did I ever say I was Libertarian, though I tend to vote either that way or Democratic when it boils down to it. My point was originally that people have a very bad idea of what Libertarianism is and just disregard it without further thought. The responses I received all made blanket statements about it when there was no backing evidence. Libertarians don't advocate bribing government officials for preferential treatment, or having legislation that benefits only the wealthy. They advocate giving everyone a fair chance at success even if that means corporations have a harder time competing with one another, while the government stays out of their personal lives. For example, gay people would be allowed to marry because there would be no state sponsored marriage at all. People would be allowed to use substances recreationally as long as they don't go around hurting people. Busting Unions is not Libertarian, as that violates your first amendment and is just plain wrong in principal even if the first amendment didn't exist since its violating a persons right to do as they please so long as it harms no one else. Libertarian ideals are very Democratic. Republicans are the first to dole out government welfare or preferential treatment on corporations meanwhile claiming bullshit subjective moral authority from God. Libertarians don't do that. The Tea Party is just Republicans in disguise.
Yes, and discounting Libertarian philosophy all together won't make your government more fair. It will just make it one-sided and probably more unfair since it wont represent ideals of some of its people. At least a decentralized government would allow the states to set some of their own rules. If you don't like that gay people can't get married in Arkansas, then move to California, etc. And BTW, the Tea Party is not Libertarian.
You could argue the same thing about Communism. Its never been tried in the literal sense, and the absence of functional Communist societies today prove its not feasible. Does this mean we should ignore every lesson taught by Communist philosophy? Should we make blanket statements that "Communism will never work" when its never been tried? That is essentially what people say about Libertarianism. We don't need a Libertarian utopia to adopt principals of Libertarianism in government, and maybe even make them work.
I don't call Robber Barons bribing government officials for government contracts, or other preferential treatment such as ignoring the violation of our First Amendment rights Libertarianism.
Fair enough. However, I don't see how that disproves my statement that "Libertarianism has never been tried on large scale" since it hasn't. Its always been rule of the rich bribing government to fulfill their wishes. I agree with some Communist ideals as well as some Libertarian ones. What pisses me off is that people don't try to see the better parts of the political philosophies and just make blanket judgements on them. The Tea Party IS NOT Libertarian. They are the religious right trying to bend an economic system to their own advantage.
Yes, they do. It has been tried on large scale in the past, and it failed. However China seems to be doing pretty well with it. Granted, neither the USSR nor China practice true communism so one cannot say it has been tried in total. Libertarianism has been tried in tribes of people who make their own tools and other items, hunt their own food, and it worked for them for millenia. Same thing is true of Communism, i.e. a small tribe sharing resources and labor to survive. Both systems work on some scale. I think most people get confused about what Libertarianism really is. It just means "Individual Liberty" where people are allowed to do as they please within some civilized boundaries (i.e. no raping, murdering and pillaging). It does not mean you can just accumulate large amounts of assets and bribe politicians so that you can gain unfair advantage or piss all over your workers. What pisses me off is that people discount Libertarianism all together rather than learning the parts of it that make sense. The Tea Party IS NOT Libertarianism. Its a movement of religious right trying to secure moral authority over other people, and manipulate an economic system to only benefit themselves.
Once again, I hear this argument that Libertarianism concentrates wealth at the top when any free market system will do the exact same thing whether the government is socialist or not. If each person gives 10 dollars to one individual, then each person is 10 dollars poorer, and that person is 10*X dollars richer. This money will undoubtedly concentrate in a few peoples hands since each person only needs so much to survive. Those that spend more than they receive will end up at the bottom, those that don't will end up at the top in positions where their net influx in wealth will continue to outpace their spending. When they grow accustomed to this lifestyle, they will try to cater favors with those in positions of power to continue earning what they deem they deserve to continue their lifestyle. Its human nature 101. You cannot ever remove this problem without some money flowing from the top down, which simply wont happen for very long by nature of the system. Once you allow any system to let significant amounts of wealth concentrate in a few hands you will have problems. What if we print more money? Well inflation makes it so each person at the bottom gets poorer, whereas the already wealthy can hedge against this by buying assets other than currency. The issue is the system needs a reset where the wealth is redistributed through some means, be it public works projects, increased taxes, whatever. Perhaps if you look at Libertarianism from a context of removing laws that favor large businesses, you would see some merit in some of their philosophies. My issue with people is that they NEVER look at Libertarianism objectively or do any research about it to justify their claims. No one ever brings forth concrete evidence to support thier anti-Libertarian sentiment. I think they just react by gut because the Tea Partiers are so distasteful (and borderline insane) that people hate Libertarianism out of association.
I am not blind. I see far too well. Who says I don't agree with you in part? Robber Barons were government sponsored, BTW, since frequently they would pay off government officials to secure government contracts and to otherwise get preferential treatment. Was libertarianism at fault for that? Or was it corrupt politicians, and a revolving door between corporations and government? I am arguing people need to shut the fuck up about how bad libertarianism is since they literally have limited evidence other than ad hominem attacks and personal beliefs with no basis in reality. Communism hasn't proved to work out too well either before, and it has been tried on large scales. However, one could argue that China is an example of it working. People are too one-sided about everything and refuse to look at alternate examples.
At least with that analogy you can kick them out of your house or beat them up. We have nothing comparable right now short of possibly voting someone else into office who will be just as corrupt as the last one.
It is my concern, and who says I meant your taxes? You fall into middle class, you don't even fall into the category of people who hold 90 percent of the US wealth. Actually, the disparity came in an age of entitlements with record low taxes on the wealthiest 10 percent through tax loopholes and capital gains tax cuts. What I don't understand, is why you automatically assume everyone receiving entitlements is unwilling to work or unskilled. Plenty of hard working and skilled people got laid off because of shitty US economic policy and almost complete lack of regulation on Wallstreet. Or do you think it was ethical to create garbage CDO's betting against sub-prime mortgages for banks that issued such mortgages knowing people couldn't repay them? Since you fall somewhere in the upper 25 percent but below 10 percent you simply aren't high enough to be reaping the rewards. A 50 percent tax rate on your salary is ludicrous, however its not so ludicrous when you are making 20 million dollar bonuses every year knowing that your lower level employees could not possible be working each at 1/150th of your effort or education level. I make about 25k after taxes every year since no-one wants to employ people between the ages of 20 and 30 these days, even with graduating 3.8 GPAs and Masters degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. I suppose its partially my fault for being born smack dab ready for a recession, or for pursuing a PhD part time. You have no idea how many jobs I applied to before nabbing this one, and how much credit card debt I have as a result of living the last year being completely underemployed.
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The Libertarian party does not advocate removing government. Government is necessary for society to exist. http://www.lp.org/platform
Agreed. However, I don't necessarily see this as a totally United States problem. Frequently I find other nations are just as polarized against certain valid American ideals. My main example is the right to "bear arms". Just because you have firearms doesn't mean you are a person with criminal intentions, and it doesn't mean you will ever harm another person with them. In fact, you can find examples of citizens owning firearms as beneficial to their own safety. It is unpopular in the world, but too many people fail basic logic to understand that many topics are too open-ended to make grandiose proclamations about them. Then again, I am a mathematician so logic is something I try my best to understand.
Give me a break. You are generalizing people based on a few examples that are distasteful to you. Why assume I am this way when you have no prior evidence to support it? You basically assume all people who claim to be Libertarian are Tea Party. This is completely untrue. The Libertarian party existed WAY before the Tea Party movement. That movement is wolves in sheep's clothing. It is obvious to any free thinking human being that the Tea Party is just another flavor of GOP or neo-conservative, and it is apparent to the Libertarian party. http://www.lp.org/platform
Yes it is. If you print more money then those who hold currency hold less of it, effectively, because of inflation. Wealth can be "created" in a way, because resources can be extracted and things can be produced, however it only grows so fast and typically the benefits and rewards of extraction or production falls to the wealthy class that can hedge against inflation with their wealth anyway. Inflation only hurts the poor and middle class. As far as your "give 10 dollars", consider how many times you have paid for entertainment, paid the profit margin on oil or food, etc. either directly or indirectly. If you pay X dollars, you do not gain a return of X dollars for watching a sports event, and you do not gain "X minus the value of the commodity" in dollars of return on paying the profit margin. Its all lost. The only way you make any return is by using things you buy to make more return than you put in, however frequently it does not work out that way since most people are consumers rather than producers. My example was simplistic but valid since any person capable of abstract thought can extend it to the real world.
http://www.lp.org/platform
No, Libertarians are not ever against unions so long as you can enter into them freely. Too often you are required to join a union to work somewhere and this is the antithesis of freedom. Also, too often companies try to regulate unions and prevent unions from forming. This is also not Libertarian. Libertarian is freedom to do whatever you want so long as you harm no other citizen. Our current political system is more about restricting what you do. You can't marry the same sex, you can't use narcotics recreationally, you can't be an atheist and have political office (in some southern states), you can't compete with big corporations because of laws that give them unfair advantage over smaller business, you can't get wealthy because you pay more taxes as a percentage of your income than wealthy people do (top 1-10 percent). The point is, Libertarians want to remove laws that allow a status quo to develop including ones that allow politicians to be easily corruptible such as our US government. There will still be rich people, but I have nothing wrong with that as long as everyone has an equal chance at becoming rich. I think the problem with Democrats is that they typically push for a larger controlling government that institutes MORE laws to make things fairer rather than dealing with the ones that are in place which allow the wealthy to have unfair advantage. Republicans just push for larger government to control who gets the money. Democrats and Libertarians would get along quite well in every way but size of government I think.
"Sticking it to the man". Boy, you don't know me at all. However, I see nothing wrong with what you said beyond DC trying to help the poor. They aren't trying to help them out at all. Having lived in Houston when the Katrina victims came, they were giving people 3 bedroom homes in the suburb for 10 bucks a month, and many did not try to get jobs. This is while students like me have to go into debt to afford tuition and we don't qualify for any of the benefits. However, that being said, the majority of expenses from programs like social security go to elderly people http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/basicfact.htm who paid into the program thinking they would some day get benefits.
Agreed. I am social libertarian. However I go a bit further on the economic side. Economic protections should only be FOR the people, not for corporations. IP law, Patent Law, etc. are examples of things the government grants corporations (and thus the wealthy) that allow increased concentration in wealth. This is where Libertarian philosophy appeals to me, make no law that benefits corporations and business, only laws that prevent exploitation of workers.
You are correct. Not once did I ever say I was Libertarian, though I tend to vote either that way or Democratic when it boils down to it. My point was originally that people have a very bad idea of what Libertarianism is and just disregard it without further thought. The responses I received all made blanket statements about it when there was no backing evidence. Libertarians don't advocate bribing government officials for preferential treatment, or having legislation that benefits only the wealthy. They advocate giving everyone a fair chance at success even if that means corporations have a harder time competing with one another, while the government stays out of their personal lives. For example, gay people would be allowed to marry because there would be no state sponsored marriage at all. People would be allowed to use substances recreationally as long as they don't go around hurting people. Busting Unions is not Libertarian, as that violates your first amendment and is just plain wrong in principal even if the first amendment didn't exist since its violating a persons right to do as they please so long as it harms no one else. Libertarian ideals are very Democratic. Republicans are the first to dole out government welfare or preferential treatment on corporations meanwhile claiming bullshit subjective moral authority from God. Libertarians don't do that. The Tea Party is just Republicans in disguise.
Hear hear.
Yes, and discounting Libertarian philosophy all together won't make your government more fair. It will just make it one-sided and probably more unfair since it wont represent ideals of some of its people. At least a decentralized government would allow the states to set some of their own rules. If you don't like that gay people can't get married in Arkansas, then move to California, etc. And BTW, the Tea Party is not Libertarian.
You could argue the same thing about Communism. Its never been tried in the literal sense, and the absence of functional Communist societies today prove its not feasible. Does this mean we should ignore every lesson taught by Communist philosophy? Should we make blanket statements that "Communism will never work" when its never been tried? That is essentially what people say about Libertarianism. We don't need a Libertarian utopia to adopt principals of Libertarianism in government, and maybe even make them work.
If people would take the First Amendment more literally, Unions would never have been able to be fought against.
Any free market will result in the same.
I don't call Robber Barons bribing government officials for government contracts, or other preferential treatment such as ignoring the violation of our First Amendment rights Libertarianism.
Fair enough. However, I don't see how that disproves my statement that "Libertarianism has never been tried on large scale" since it hasn't. Its always been rule of the rich bribing government to fulfill their wishes. I agree with some Communist ideals as well as some Libertarian ones. What pisses me off is that people don't try to see the better parts of the political philosophies and just make blanket judgements on them. The Tea Party IS NOT Libertarian. They are the religious right trying to bend an economic system to their own advantage.
Yes, they do. It has been tried on large scale in the past, and it failed. However China seems to be doing pretty well with it. Granted, neither the USSR nor China practice true communism so one cannot say it has been tried in total. Libertarianism has been tried in tribes of people who make their own tools and other items, hunt their own food, and it worked for them for millenia. Same thing is true of Communism, i.e. a small tribe sharing resources and labor to survive. Both systems work on some scale. I think most people get confused about what Libertarianism really is. It just means "Individual Liberty" where people are allowed to do as they please within some civilized boundaries (i.e. no raping, murdering and pillaging). It does not mean you can just accumulate large amounts of assets and bribe politicians so that you can gain unfair advantage or piss all over your workers. What pisses me off is that people discount Libertarianism all together rather than learning the parts of it that make sense. The Tea Party IS NOT Libertarianism. Its a movement of religious right trying to secure moral authority over other people, and manipulate an economic system to only benefit themselves.
Once again, I hear this argument that Libertarianism concentrates wealth at the top when any free market system will do the exact same thing whether the government is socialist or not. If each person gives 10 dollars to one individual, then each person is 10 dollars poorer, and that person is 10*X dollars richer. This money will undoubtedly concentrate in a few peoples hands since each person only needs so much to survive. Those that spend more than they receive will end up at the bottom, those that don't will end up at the top in positions where their net influx in wealth will continue to outpace their spending. When they grow accustomed to this lifestyle, they will try to cater favors with those in positions of power to continue earning what they deem they deserve to continue their lifestyle. Its human nature 101. You cannot ever remove this problem without some money flowing from the top down, which simply wont happen for very long by nature of the system. Once you allow any system to let significant amounts of wealth concentrate in a few hands you will have problems. What if we print more money? Well inflation makes it so each person at the bottom gets poorer, whereas the already wealthy can hedge against this by buying assets other than currency. The issue is the system needs a reset where the wealth is redistributed through some means, be it public works projects, increased taxes, whatever. Perhaps if you look at Libertarianism from a context of removing laws that favor large businesses, you would see some merit in some of their philosophies. My issue with people is that they NEVER look at Libertarianism objectively or do any research about it to justify their claims. No one ever brings forth concrete evidence to support thier anti-Libertarian sentiment. I think they just react by gut because the Tea Partiers are so distasteful (and borderline insane) that people hate Libertarianism out of association.
I am not blind. I see far too well. Who says I don't agree with you in part? Robber Barons were government sponsored, BTW, since frequently they would pay off government officials to secure government contracts and to otherwise get preferential treatment. Was libertarianism at fault for that? Or was it corrupt politicians, and a revolving door between corporations and government? I am arguing people need to shut the fuck up about how bad libertarianism is since they literally have limited evidence other than ad hominem attacks and personal beliefs with no basis in reality. Communism hasn't proved to work out too well either before, and it has been tried on large scales. However, one could argue that China is an example of it working. People are too one-sided about everything and refuse to look at alternate examples.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_age#Labor_unions
At least with that analogy you can kick them out of your house or beat them up. We have nothing comparable right now short of possibly voting someone else into office who will be just as corrupt as the last one.
Sure thing. If its never been tried on large scale then you cannot say it wont work. It must be logical fallacy day.
Key phrase here in my last post buddy : Its laws FOR the wealthy causing it just as much as lack of regulation on them.
Actually, its caused both laws preferentially treating those who hold wealth and the fact they have it in the first place. That's my argument.
It is my concern, and who says I meant your taxes? You fall into middle class, you don't even fall into the category of people who hold 90 percent of the US wealth. Actually, the disparity came in an age of entitlements with record low taxes on the wealthiest 10 percent through tax loopholes and capital gains tax cuts. What I don't understand, is why you automatically assume everyone receiving entitlements is unwilling to work or unskilled. Plenty of hard working and skilled people got laid off because of shitty US economic policy and almost complete lack of regulation on Wallstreet. Or do you think it was ethical to create garbage CDO's betting against sub-prime mortgages for banks that issued such mortgages knowing people couldn't repay them? Since you fall somewhere in the upper 25 percent but below 10 percent you simply aren't high enough to be reaping the rewards. A 50 percent tax rate on your salary is ludicrous, however its not so ludicrous when you are making 20 million dollar bonuses every year knowing that your lower level employees could not possible be working each at 1/150th of your effort or education level. I make about 25k after taxes every year since no-one wants to employ people between the ages of 20 and 30 these days, even with graduating 3.8 GPAs and Masters degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. I suppose its partially my fault for being born smack dab ready for a recession, or for pursuing a PhD part time. You have no idea how many jobs I applied to before nabbing this one, and how much credit card debt I have as a result of living the last year being completely underemployed.