Can the Libertarian party or policies ever work?

Gander said:

Dude, "far-right" in comparison to what!? Hippy communists at Berkley and European socialists? This is the United States of America, Jack. Adam Smith and Friedman are free-market capitalists. Nothing "far-right" about that.

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Free market capitalism is a right wing philosophy.

Gander;1058680176By the way said:

close[/I] to being an anarcho-capitalist. Retract your false accusation.

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Sorry, i meant to say he is basically a completely free-market capitalist.

Gander said:

Radical left!? They were adamant supporters of the free-market. The Founders cannot be viewed through the classic left/right dichotomy anyway. They were economically conservative and socially liberal. They weren't "far-left" or "far-right".

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in terms of their movement from monarchy to a more democratic philosophy, that is moving to the left.

Z3n said:

Libertarianism is to anarchism, as Authoritarianism is to totalitarianism. Just lighter flavors. As you move more and more libertarian, you move closer and closer to anarchy. Same with authoritarian principles, after a while you are a police state.

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And as you move more and more towards the left, you move closer and closer to authoritarianism.

Libertarianism is to anarchism, as Authoritarianism is to totalitarianism. Just lighter flavors. As you move more and more libertarian, you move closer and closer to anarchy. Same with authoritarian principles, after a while you are a police state.

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Thus explains the hyper-liberal view. Anything that disallows you to whine to a bloated bureaucracy when anything happens to you is anarchist. Under a true libertarian state, welfare would still exist (although greatly reformed), public funds would still exist, taxes would still exist, and many other programs. You just wouldn't see a bunch of helpless idiots clamoring for the state to bail them out of a myriad of self-created problems. Teach a man to fish and you make a libertarian. Give a man a fish and you create a socialist.

Gander said:

And as you move more and more towards the left, you move closer and closer to authoritarianism.

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That is not true at all. Authoritarianism does not cohere with either left-right on the political dichotomy. If left-right is economic, up-down is social and there can be authoritarian right(hitler) and authoritarian left(Mao)

Gipper said:

Thus explains the hyper-liberal view. Anything that disallows you to whine to a bloated bureaucracy when anything happens to you is anarchist. Under a true libertarian state, welfare would still exist (although greatly reformed), public funds would still exist, taxes would still exist, and many other programs. You just wouldn't see a bunch of helpless idiots clamoring for the state to bail them out of a myriad of self-created problems. Teach a man to fish and you make a libertarian. Give a man a fish and you create a socialist.

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That's a straw man argument. Actually ask a socialist what he believes and it doesnt involve the state

Yes it does. It always will. Democratic socialism is a pipe-dream construct spread by lazy individuals who violently masturbate to Marx posters.

All socialism is authoritarian.

TheGirlNextDoor said:

How so? Can either of you explain to me what you mean by this?

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The first thing that comes to my mind is the french revolution. Now the french nobility were not libertarian (so please don't take this as me saying that they were), however one of the reasons it came about was because of food shortages (I am sure we all remember the famous quote by Marie Antoinette, "let them eat cake"). One of the principals of libertarianism is very strong property rights. Now this is an extreme example, but if people do not feel that they are getting what they need out of life, they will ignore this principal and steal food. If things are bad enough, they will go so far as to topple a government (not the only reason for the french revolution, but one of them) in the effort to gain basic necessities.

Libertarianism relies on the existence of rules that are basically set in stone, such as the idea of natural rights, and relies on the idea that people would have to be innately moral (in terms of how a libertarian views morality) since we would have a simple government that does not do very much. However, history has shown that people will commit all sorts of evil to get what they want, whether it is through intimidate, exploitation, theft, etc. Libertarian government is very minimalist and would not present enough of a deterrent against the worse sides of our nature. Sure we would have law enforcement, but it wouldn't protect against even simple things like people putting poisonous substances in our food in order to turn a quick profit. And by the time action was brought against whatever company did that, people would already be dead, as happened in China recently with their pet food problem (they are not a libertarian government, but they have very loose controls over this sort of thing, so there is a similarity.)

In short, I think a purely libertarian government would not last long in a pure state and it would result in a lot of injury and death as people are as inherently immoral as they are moral.

I am not saying that libertarian ideas are bad, in fact on an individual level they are excellent, but I do think they need to be balanced with other ideologies to be workable society wide.

Also, there is no good voting option for me, because I would love to be a libertarian if I thought the ideas were workable without harm.

Z3n said:

Free market capitalism is a right wing philosophy.

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:rofl

Yea, it was all Fox News' idea! And Karl Rove and Paul Wolfowitz! The right-wing, fathers of free-market capitalism!!!

Sorry, but you just sound ridiculous right now. Free-market economics was the product of the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment"]Age of the Enlightenment[/ame], not the "right-wing".

Sorry, i meant to say he is basically a completely free-market capitalist.

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He's not a "completely free-market capitalist". He's a proponent of the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics"]Chicago School of economics[/ame], a modernized and refined theory of free-market (not completely free-market) economics.

in terms of their movement from monarchy to a more democratic philosophy, that is moving to the left.

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Socially, they were "leftist", economically, they were "rightist", thus, they do not fall under the classic left/right dichotomy.

Z3n said:

That is not true at all. Authoritarianism does not cohere with either left-right on the political dichotomy. If left-right is economic, up-down is social and there can be authoritarian right(hitler) and authoritarian left(Mao)

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All leftist economic philosophy is ultimately authoritarian, whether it's the state or the collective exercising said authority, it is authoritarianism nonetheless.

Z3n said:

That's a straw man argument. Actually ask a socialist what he believes and it doesnt involve the state

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And how do you propose to arrive at your stateless, classless egalitarian society if not through coercive state/populist action?

Gipper said:

Yes it does. It always will. Democratic socialism is a pipe-dream construct spread by lazy individuals who violently masturbate to Marx posters.

All socialism is authoritarian.

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[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anarchism]Social anarchism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Gander said:

And how do you propose to arrive at your stateless, classless egalitarian society if not through coercive state/populist action?

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im not advocating it, but obviously it would be revolution etc

megaprogman said:

The first thing that comes to my mind is the french revolution. Now the french nobility were not libertarian (so please don't take this as me saying that they were), however one of the reasons it came about was because of food shortages (I am sure we all remember the famous quote by Marie Antoinette, "let them eat cake"). One of the principals of libertarianism is very strong property rights. Now this is an extreme example, but if people do not feel that they are getting what they need out of life, they will ignore this principal and steal food. If things are bad enough, they will go so far as to topple a government (not the only reason for the french revolution, but one of them) in the effort to gain basic necessities.

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Help me out and tell me how that pertains to libertarianism, please. Are you under the assumption that libertarianism means everyone obeys the law or are not punished accordingly for times they don't? Or that other systems provide methods to ameliorating hunger for any reason? "He who does not work, neither shall he eat" was a famous quote...by Vladimir Lenin. I think it's safe to assume he wasn't libertarian.

Libertarianism relies on the existence of rules that are basically set in stone, such as the idea of natural rights, and relies on the idea that people would have to be innately moral (in terms of how a libertarian views morality) since we would have a simple government that does not do very much. However, history has shown that people will commit all sorts of evil to get what they want, whether it is through intimidate, exploitation, theft, etc. Libertarian government is very minimalist and would not present enough of a deterrent against the worse sides of our nature. Sure we would have law enforcement, but it wouldn't protect against even simple things like people putting poisonous substances in our food in order to turn a quick profit. And by the time action was brought against whatever company did that, people would already be dead, as happened in China recently with their pet food problem (they are not a libertarian government, but they have very loose controls over this sort of thing, so there is a similarity.)

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I disagree. All economic and political philosophies would hope and work on the assumption that people are innately moral outside of fascist and totalitarian regimes that rule through oppression and fear. I would condone a federal, state, and local police system much like it is now, with minor cutbacks. For instance, I would prefer that cops who focus more on who is or is not wearing a seat belt get laid off before a cop who focuses more on someone's house getting robbed or getting shot at. Also, with the decriminalization of many illicit drugs (or marijuana at the bare minimum), a smaller police force would be ideal since they don't have to "sweat the small stuff".

Libertarian government does not remove culpability at any level. If the "pet food" thing happened in a minarchist government, they would be appropriately punished because they broke the law, which would be unchanged.

In short, I think a purely libertarian government would not last long in a pure state and it would result in a lot of injury and death as people are as inherently immoral as they are moral.

I am not saying that libertarian ideas are bad, in fact on an individual level they are excellent, but I do think they need to be balanced with other ideologies to be workable society wide.

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Well, if people are immoral, they are punished. Nothing wrong with that.

Oh, and FYI - every time you link wikipedia, you become that much more insignificant. Just thought I'd tell you now.

No political movement who has birthers, truthers and college students in the same room agreeing on so much **** could ever hope to get policies that the rest of this country would agree with. To most people Libertarians are that relative who says random crazy **** every once in a while, we all nod to and then get back to our dinner while they tell us how we're all sheep for eating meatloaf.

Gipper said:

Help me out and tell me how that pertains to libertarianism, please. Are you under the assumption that libertarianism means everyone obeys the law or are not punished accordingly for times they don't? Or that other systems provide methods to ameliorating hunger for any reason? "He who does not work, neither shall he eat" was a famous quote...by Vladimir Lenin. I think it's safe to assume he wasn't libertarian.

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No, my point was that with strong property rights (as reflected in low taxes and few government run social programs) if a person is down on their luck and cannot find food, work, or charity, they would likely die if the problem persisted. If that becomes a big enough problem, it would force a social revolution and regime change because people want to eat before they want to hold up some idea of government. With a libertarian government, there would be no controls, such as food stamps, and it would be vulnerable to this type of problem. I shudder to think what would have happened to this country in our current downturn if we didn't have social programs. I believe we would be in danger of our social fabric falling apart or in the middle of a revolution. For the record, I consider the new deal to basically be a revolution since it drastically changed the fabric of government and society, our constitution happened to be flexible enough to let it occur without a coup, which is a good thing.

Gipper said:

I disagree. All economic and political philosophies would hope and work on the assumption that people are innately moral outside of fascist and totalitarian regimes that rule through oppression and fear. I would condone a federal, state, and local police system much like it is now, with minor cutbacks. For instance, I would prefer that cops who focus more on who is or is not wearing a seat belt get laid off before a cop who focuses more on someone's house getting robbed or getting shot at. Also, with the decriminalization of many illicit drugs (or marijuana at the bare minimum), a smaller police force would be ideal since they don't have to "sweat the small stuff".

Libertarian government does not remove culpability at any level. If the "pet food" thing happened in a minarchist government, they would be appropriately punished because they broke the law, which would be unchanged.

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Yes, they would be punished after the harm was done. As happened in China. However, without an agency such as the FDA, which prevents a lot of the harm from happening in the first place, injury or death would have to occur first. With companies the size of Kraft or General Mills, that could be a huge amount of harm done. And don't say that market forces would prevent it, if that was the case, than the problems out of China would have never happened and we would have never found it necessary to make an agency such as the FDA due to problems with the meat packing industry in the early 1900s.

This is why regulation (which is a type of enforcement) is necessary. I have no problem with the existence of the Police, FBI, etc, but my point was that if they were the only type of law enforcement then we would be in a lot of trouble since a person is not capable of being responsible for everything and researching every possible thing they buy. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Society is too complex and we need help.

Gipper said:

Well, if people are immoral, they are punished. Nothing wrong with that.

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Agreed, but that was not the point I was making.

Z3n said:

im not advocating it, but obviously it would be revolution etc

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Just like I said, populist authoritarianism.

Rightwing86 said:

Hey everyone. Please be informed on the party's positions before commenting. I am a libertarian myself. But sometimes I do run into problems. Such as, I believe it is a persons right to take their own life. It is none of my business and if they feel that way so be it. For instance according to my stance Dr. Kavorkian should not have been punished for his actions of assisted suicide. But what would happen in a world where he was not punishd but let's say that someone who was mentally unstable came into the Dr's office and the doc just complied with his task and assisted in his death. Than what would happen? Or what if someone was drunk or mentally incapable of understanding a written contract between two adults that suggested that the husband could beat and rape the wife whenever he wanted? If she signed the contract but than it was found out she was not mentally stable? Who would step in and intervene in this type of situation?

Also if a libertarian could explain to me what the parties position is on going after terrorists who attacked us on 9/11? Would this mean going after the Saudi's since that is where most of them were from? Or would we just sit back and tighten our own borders in hopes of preventing them from attacking us here? I know the Iraq and Afganistan war is not supported at least according to our libertarian homepage. I also know that certain libertarians are split on the war in Afgahnistan not Iraq.

I also know that we only had .5 percent of the Nations vote. Is it even remotely possible we will ever win? Or see our policies take effect? Even in the likes of someone like Ron Paul running as a repub? Anyone know how many votes he garnered? Sometimes it is very depressing to be the minority. Makes me feel hopeless.

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I think the Libertarian movement would have more momentum if they tossed the anarchists, and had a more realistic platform than simply gutting the government and cutting back on entitlements. The system needs a complete overhaul from the ground up, starting with the very way that people live which tends to be unhealthy and co-dependent.

I also don't trust the libertarians to restrict corporate powers or not cave to the power of lobbying. Power corrupts and I don't think they are immune to it.

megaprogman said:

No, my point was that with strong property rights (as reflected in low taxes and few government run social programs) if a person is down on their luck and cannot find food, work, or charity, they would likely die if the problem persisted. If that becomes a big enough problem, it would force a social revolution and regime change because people want to eat before they want to hold up some idea of government. With a libertarian government, there would be no controls, such as food stamps, and it would be vulnerable to this type of problem. I shudder to think what would have happened to this country in our current downturn if we didn't have social programs. I believe we would be in danger of our social fabric falling apart or in the middle of a revolution.

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Food stamps and welfare, I would hope, would not be completely eliminated in a libertarian society. However, you'd just see far less of it. In addition, a working philosophy in libertarianism is that when you reduce taxes on the populace, private charity would increase and that would take some of the hole left behind. So yeah, you could argue that libertarianism operates under a somewhat moral backing, chiefly in the reason that people will "do the right thing" to a small extent with their money when they are not choked by the wallet every time a dependent bureaucracy decides to squeeze the last dollar from you. I don't give now, but if I was given a tax break I'd be more inclined to do so.

Yes, they would be punished after the harm was done. As happened in China. However, without an agency such as the FDA, which prevents a lot of the harm from happening in the first place, injury or death would have to occur first. With companies the size of Kraft or General Mills, that could be a huge amount of harm done.

This is why regulation (which is a type of enforcement) is necessary. I have no problem with the existence of the Police, FBI, etc, but my point was that if they were the only type of law enforcement then we would be in a lot of trouble since a person is not capable of being responsible for everything and researching every possible thing they buy. They just aren't enough hours in the day. Society is too complex and we need help.

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First of all, you'd lose me on the FDA argument because of their policies. As of today, because of the FDA's philosophies and enforcements, it costs almost a trillion (that's trillion with a TR) dollars to license a drug for distribution. Much of that is pretty much wasted money.

That aside, corporations are like humans insofar that they are falliable. If a company did that, you could assume that it was the last thing they ever do, and that's not how you run a business.

Also, comparing China to libertarianism practices would not be wise. That's not apples to oranges, that's apples to Buicks.

Libertarianism elevates those who succeed through the rules. Breaking the rules is a quick way to find yourself destitute. Sometimes money is all the moral compass you need.

Gipper said:

Food stamps and welfare, I would hope, would not be completely eliminated in a libertarian society. However, you'd just see far less of it. In addition, a working philosophy in libertarianism is that when you reduce taxes on the populace, private charity would increase and that would take some of the hole left behind. So yeah, you could argue that libertarianism operates under a somewhat moral backing, chiefly in the reason that people will "do the right thing" to a small extent with their money when they are not choked by the wallet every time a dependent bureaucracy decides to squeeze the last dollar from you. I don't give now, but if I was given a tax break I'd be more inclined to do so.

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I wish I could believe that charity would increase, but whenever I think about it, I keep coming back to the idea that if charity was sufficient, than government would never have had to take on that role. However, overall, I just don't think a libertarian society would be a stable one because of the things I wrote in my last two posts. Government has to do it since, even though its not efficient, it is very stable.

Gipper said:

First of all, you'd lose me on the FDA argument because of their policies. As of today, because of the FDA's philosophies and enforcements, it costs almost a trillion (that's trillion with a TR) dollars to license a drug for distribution. Much of that is pretty much wasted money.

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I agree that many regulations are too strict and they are designed to protect against problems that occur very rarely. However, overall, I would rather take a bloated, inefficiently created, but known to be safe drug, than something unknown and inexpensive since I value my health and life over money.

Gipper said:

That aside, corporations are like humans insofar that they are falliable. If a company did that, you could assume that it was the last thing they ever do, and that's not how you run a business.

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Yet we have issues today with corporate officers who will negotiate a golden parachute and lose incentive to care whether or not their business will do well since they will get their bonus anyway.

Gipper said:

Also, comparing China to libertarianism practices would not be wise. That's not apples to oranges, that's apples to Buicks.

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I knew someone would bring this up. I am not comparing all of China to all of libertarianism. I am comparing specific policies (in this case, loose market controls) that would be very similar. This, I believe, is logical and correct. Also, I made a note of this when I did it hoping you would catch that.

Gipper said:

Libertarianism elevates those who succeed through the rules. Breaking the rules is a quick way to find yourself destitute. Sometimes money is all the moral compass you need.

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People will find ways to cheat any rule. I don't see how this would change under libertarianism.

Gipper said:

Libertarianism is not anarcho-anything. Libertarianism is a minarchist philosophy, and does recognize a power of state to perform actions that fall in the cracks of market failures.

Libertarianism probably will not exist on a large level for one of the main reasons mentioned early on in the thread - eventually money, in a libertarian construct, will make its way into the hands of a random few who decide to elevate themselves above others, as is a right. The bottom will fall from mouth-breathers who prefer to live an oblivious life and suddenly find themselves unable to make a claim on a welfare state and have it heard in a compassionate way.

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So you're saying libertarianism supports wealth staying in the hands of a few monopolies who would be allowed to use unethical business practices, such as operating at a loss until competition goes out of business, and the inability for the government to ensure healthy and safe work places for it's employees, and no social safety net for health care or retirement. And it's those employees' fault for not getting rich themselves. Or for the businesses screwing them over.

Sounds great to me!

Z3n said:

Go ahead, explain to me why libertarianism is the sh1t

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Why don't you explain why your initial contribution to this thread was "libertarianism lol"? That way, we can discuss, specifically, what you do not like about it.

EgoffTib said:

Why don't you explain why your initial contribution to this thread was "libertarianism lol"? That way, we can discuss, specifically, what you do not like about it.

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I have a fundamental disagreement on the extent the "Free market" is free. I am more of a keynesian

Gipper said:

Oh, and FYI - every time you link wikipedia, you become that much more insignificant. Just thought I'd tell you now.

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Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica - CNET News

Z3n said:

I have a fundamental disagreement on the extent the "Free market" is free. I am more of a keynesian

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Okay, so why do you feel that free market is not a good thing?