Libertarianism is the best ideology

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Eryemil
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Eryemil » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:02 am

eXcommunicate wrote:(...)
Is your pubic hair actually shaved down to a landing strip? *saves anyway*


On the subject of the thread: I have yet to manage to actually become fully informed on the Libertarian positions due to the fact that I simply can't stand most Libertarians. They come off as everything I hate about the human race and everything that is anathema to me. I value empathy above all else and most Libertarians I've met on the internet come off as psychopaths; I can't even begin to understand their seeming lack of concern for the suffering of other beings.

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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Crocodile Gandhi » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:10 am

I don;t think the concept of libertarianism exists in Australia. Or if it does then I can't recognise it. Are there any Australians here who could point out which Aussie politicians would be considered libertarians?
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by MrJonno » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:11 am

Crocodile Gandhi wrote:I don;t think the concept of libertarianism exists in Australia. Or if it does then I can't recognise it. Are there any Australians here who could point out which Aussie politicians would be considered libertarians?
Its basically a far right American thing, most people value society
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Lucy Wiggin » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:12 am

Libertarianism is really good when you're young, healthy and rich.
With the demise of the forums and the defection of the moderators, it's is time to say our last words.

Lucy Wiggins: I don't like you. I think that you are a racist bitch with a victim complex and is narcissistic.

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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Eryemil » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:14 am

Lucy Wiggin wrote:Libertarianism is really good when you're young, healthy and rich.
And male.

You won't see many female libertarians for the same reason you don't see many female neo-Nazis.

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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Apollonius » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:14 am

I'm having a fun debate on another forum with a teabagger, who doesn't seem to have followed politics, but all of a sudden he is into limited government, vote out incumbents, and personal responsibility....

I told him keep studying, someday they will work up to being libertarians, then they will figure out libertarians are kooks anyway!
Another refugee from RD.net..
I just heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons...

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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by eXcommunicate » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:16 am

MrJonno wrote:
Crocodile Gandhi wrote:I don;t think the concept of libertarianism exists in Australia. Or if it does then I can't recognise it. Are there any Australians here who could point out which Aussie politicians would be considered libertarians?
Its basically a far right American thing, most people value society
I don't believe in the stereotypical "Left-center-Right" continuum. It's there, but only as one axis. Check this out:

Image

I believe wholeheartedly in a simplified "political compass."
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Lucy Wiggin
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Lucy Wiggin » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:17 am

Eryemil wrote:
Lucy Wiggin wrote:Libertarianism is really good when you're young, healthy and rich.
And male.

You won't see many female libertarians for the same reason you don't see many female neo-Nazis.
You're right. In short, Libertarianism is good when you are socially strong and heartless enough to throw the rest of society under the bus.
With the demise of the forums and the defection of the moderators, it's is time to say our last words.

Lucy Wiggins: I don't like you. I think that you are a racist bitch with a victim complex and is narcissistic.

-R.I.P
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Chinaski » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:18 am

The following rant is not my own work, but it expresses my ideas perfectly.

"Libertarians are just incapable of putting themselves in anyone else's shoes. I have health insurance, why can't this guy get it?

These people fail to realize that they are wired for certain types of jobs or activities, and not everyone else is. I don't really want to debate whether it is all genetics or upbringing or whatever, but some people are naturally inclined to just pick a field that requires you to read a bunch of manuals and memorize a bunch of commands and are very comfortable working in a field where they bounce around a lot and performance is very easily quantified and evaluated. IT guys talk about how they would conduct interviews for people in their field, and it was just asking them questions about programming with very definite right and wrong answers and some other pertinent math questions. IT people also know that they can usually find jobs fairly easily because their skill set is pretty universal and companies are always looking for people to run their networks. Libertarians will argue that all this is fine because he chose the right profession and got the right schooling, and that everyone who didn't deserves what they get.

They fail to consider that people, by and large, don't really "choose" professions like that, it depends on what you are drawn to and what you are good at and the opportunities you had where you grew up and a bunch of other shit.

They also fail to consider that half the people in the world are of below-average intelligence. Leave aside whether IQ is a valid measurement and whether or not there aren't multiple types of intelligence. Of course it is more complicated than all that, and even if it weren't, some stupid people still happen to be good at other random things. Maybe we'll use competence, or usefulness, instead of intelligence. Just so that it's clear that a very large cross section of humanity is incapable of doing what libertarians expect everyone to do, excel in business and manage their money and make sure to always have a skill that is in demand. Libertarians and conservatives really expect these people to manage their own retirement plans, choose from a group of competing health care providers and be shrewd enough to not get ripped off, etc. And that's just the stupid people. It is obvious that there are many people who could achieve but, for various reasons, don't. Smart people who grew up in fucked up rural towns and didn't get shepherded into elite schools like rich kids from LA or Boston. Some of them clearly made some stupid mistakes when they were young that resulted in them not finishing college, but a lot of it had to do with their temperaments and personalities, too. A woman might not really be built for most working class jobs because the ones that suited her were hostile to women and the ones she could get like being a secretary or whatever didn't work because she was too much of a ball-breaker to last in an office environment. Obviously, anyone could theoretically go back to school this instant and bust their ass to get a marketable degree and then bust their ass to get to the top, but neither of them is going to do that. So, fine, they don't get to make what a CEO makes or drive luxury cars. No one has any problem with that here. But the idea that they should have to worry about making sure their kids have health insurance and struggle mightily to keep a roof over their head, that this is how it should be, they DESERVE that because they didn't do everything perfectly? That is nonsense.

Obviously, a lot of republicans, specifically males, think like this. Women break down like 60/40 democrat/republican, and it is basically the opposite for men, and it is a certainty that a large number of female republicans support the party for reasons like stopping abortions and keeping boobs off TV. I don't think anyone would disagree with the assertion that most women possess far more empathy than most men. It's what makes them good at dealing with young children. Even though most men can understand that kids do stupid shit and need help and attention because they are young and still developing, most of them still have that automatic, "shut the fuck up! Why are you so stupid?" reaction whenever they have to deal with kids, ESPECIALLY if the kids they are dealing with are not their own. This is why basically no men except gays, pedophiles, and gay pedophiles teach kindergarten through 3rd grade or so, and even then, there are still basically none of them until middle school. It's also why men tend to be more politically conservative, although there are other factors like natural aggressiveness leading to supporting military spending and standoffish foreign policy as well as the general desire men have for simplicity and the way the conservative mindset panders to this (with us or against us, if you are poor it is your fault, racism holds no one back, everyone should have the same sexual orientation, good people go to heaven, bad to hell).

Anyway, few female republicans are really fiscal conservatives, or even know what fiscal conservatism is. This is why Bush and co have been able to raise government spending so sharply despite the cries of horror from the section of the party that reads the business pages and worship the free market. "How can Republicans do this?" they wonder. It's because a significant portion of their party couldn't give a fuck about small government and personal freedom, they just don't like blacks, gays, Hollywood movies and the coastal elites that watch them, and they want to be able to keep their guns so they can go hunting. This is what What's the Matter with Kansas is about. Whenever I suggest to conservatives that half the people who vote Republican do so because the party plays on their prejudices, they are aghast that I would even make such a suggestion.

You'll notice that most IT nerds are men, and men who have chosen a profession that has much more to do with ones and zeroes and very little to do with human interaction, so they are a subset of the population that is very unlikely to be particularly empathetic. This is true of nerds in general, there's a reason why the nerdiest nerds have asperger's and they are just one step away from autism. Nerds are outcasts because they can't figure out how to interact with other people without seeming awkward and looking foolish. Of course, Libertarians will tell you that this is all a choice, and maybe for a select few it actually is, but the vast majority of them would prefer to be liked and have a shot at getting a date. The problem is that they cannot stop being awkward, because they don't understand how other people see them and they can't pick up on social cues and protocol. This is why they will do things like talk about Doctor Who for five minutes straight when a girl who was trying to do a good deed says hi to them. They can't read the expression on her face that is clearly indicating a lack of interest and a fear of rape, and it doesn't occur to them that other people might not share their interests. If it does occur to them, they decide that people who don't share their interests are flawed.

The most common- and infuriating- conservatives do is point to that one black guy they know who grew up in the ghetto but persevered, started his own business, and achieved prosperity. They will laud him for his rare combination of skill and dedication, but then they will turn around and ask why everyone else who started in his position couldn't do what he did, as if there was nothing special about him. Christians who have no problem with all the Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus going to hell do the same thing- a small number of people convert, so why can't everyone else?

So IT nerds can't appreciate that not everyone is capable of doing what they have done, and some people are capable but are held back by things like institutionalized racism or a bad upbringing or shitty schools, and some people get sidetracked by things like unplanned kids popping up in their twenties, and some people just aren't interested in becoming computer whizzes or business executives or salesmen or partners in a law firm. Yes, in contemporary America, if you have serious drive and talent, you really can succeed, whatever your race or economic background, and that is pretty remarkable and not to be sneezed at. But few people have the kind of talent or drive it takes to get to the top, and far fewer have both at the same time. Bill Gates would probably be super rich no matter where he came from, any obstacles presented by class or race wouldn't stop him. Bill Clinton came from a pile of shit in Arkansas to the White House. Deval Patrick, the black governor of Massachusetts, came from inner city Chicago. But they are exceptional because they are, well, exceptions. Where would a black man from a working class neighborhood be with George Bush's intelligence? Jail. Bush is an extreme example, but he makes the point quite well- if your abilities place you in the middle of the pack, you will do much better if your parents are rich and white. The deck is still stacked, but libertarians want to pretend this isn't the case, mostly because it is inconvenient for them to deal with a complicated world.

And even if everything was truly equal- everyone was just as smart, attractive, dynamic, and driven as everyone else and discrimination and class barriers didn't exist, somebody would still end up having to mop the floors and take tickets at the movie theater and bag groceries. Everything is a competition, and these people lost, the libertarians argue, so they only deserve the bare minimum that the market deems they're worth. Only a very small and stupid minority advocates getting rid of competition altogether and giving the grocery bagger the same salary as the CEO. Basically everyone is comfortable with people being awarded based on their accomplishments and the value of their work. People are even okay with equally proficient people from 2 different professions getting different amounts of money. No one has a problem with the PhD in film studies making less than the guy with the MBA, or the guy who works at a small indie publishing company that doesn't make much money but finds and develops some great authors making less than the guy who runs the car dealership. Everyone is okay with some competition. People acknowledge that the best player deserves to win.

But the libertarians take it a step further. They want the competition to be blood sport. Because a guy lacked the smarts or the motivation to become more than a gas station clerk, he should be miserable for his entire life and his kids should be fucked over too. It's like having basketball tryouts and then cutting an arm off everyone who doesn't make varsity. Unless you can produce an airtight philosophical argument that everyone deserves a certain minimal level of dignity and comfort regardless of how marketable they chose to make themselves, the libertarians aren't interested.

This obsessive need for unassailable logic that can be universally applied to every situation is also related to the IT thing- Ass Trosk chose to work with computer systems that function on strict logic protocols- if you enter this, this result will happen. Input, output. Obviously, this kind of thinking is very useful- the forum works because Trotsky fixed it by finding the faulty commands and codes. But Ass Trosk tries to do this with everything, which is why he can't understand why civilians shouldn't be allowed to own hand grenades or machine guns. If they can have hand guns and hunting rifles, why not gatling guns? You are drawing the line at a completely arbitrary point. Either the right to bear arms is absolute or it isn't. If you can't produce a line of reasoning that starts at the dawn of mankind, he's not interested. Does not compute.

The idea of economic inequality or class stratification, and any attempt to rectify these things with affirmative action or progressive taxation, offends the IT libertarian because it means there is a bug in the system, and these methods are an imperfect fix for it. Some rich people are going to get taxed even though they came from nothing and earned everything they got fair and square, and some people are going to get jobs they don't deserve because of affirmative action. It's too messy, but what are the alternatives? It's better for the libertarian to just pretend the system is ok, because otherwise they get stuck on a feedback loop and are unable to live in the day to day world, and the free market is a great catchall solution to every problem. Public schools are in trouble? Privatize it and let the market sort it out. Pollution? Eventually the companies that pollute will get negative images and people will stop buying their products! The market fixes everything! American manufacturing is in trouble? Let it go down the tubes. If you can't convince me that American workers deserve their jobs more than the foreigners in sweat shops who are taking them, then it doesn't compute! What right do we have to protect our industry!

This absolute faith in the market is similar to the absolutism required by monotheistic religions. Moral quandary? The answer is in the scriptures! They are infallible! This again appeals to that male need for absolute consistency and simple answers. This is how you get people embracing such childish concepts as heaven and hell. This guy was bad, he gets eternal unimaginable torture. This guy was good, he gets eternal pleasure. Whether or not either of them had the same upbringing is irrelevant. This guy was handsome, charismatic, and interested in running a business, give him a Hummer. This guy was interested in art but he wasn't very good at promoting himself and he didn't have a great work ethic so he ended up delivering packages, no health insurance and a lifetime of debt for him. Whether or not one of them was raised in a ghetto by a single mother is irrelevant."

Fuck libertarianism.
Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his heid and a' that
The coward slave, we pass him by
We dare be puir for a' that.

Imagehttp://imagegen.last.fm/iTunesFIXED/rec ... mphony.gif[/img2]

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..............................
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by NineOneFour » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:28 am

Eryemil wrote:
Lucy Wiggin wrote:Libertarianism is really good when you're young, healthy and rich.
And male.

You won't see many female libertarians for the same reason you don't see many female neo-Nazis.
Nor gay, nor black, nor Hispanic libertarians....

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About me: Married, ethnically German, hardcore Social Democrat, ex-Dittohead, ex-Libertarian, went to Catholic school, father was a religious cultist who thought he had the gift of prophecy and could communicate with the "other side".
..............................
So, had a weird life. Better now.
Location: Surrounded by fundies and mutants in Texas
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by NineOneFour » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:32 am

Chinaski wrote:The following rant is not my own work, but it expresses my ideas perfectly.

"Libertarians are just incapable of putting themselves in anyone else's shoes. I have health insurance, why can't this guy get it?

These people fail to realize that they are wired for certain types of jobs or activities, and not everyone else is. I don't really want to debate whether it is all genetics or upbringing or whatever, but some people are naturally inclined to just pick a field that requires you to read a bunch of manuals and memorize a bunch of commands and are very comfortable working in a field where they bounce around a lot and performance is very easily quantified and evaluated. IT guys talk about how they would conduct interviews for people in their field, and it was just asking them questions about programming with very definite right and wrong answers and some other pertinent math questions. IT people also know that they can usually find jobs fairly easily because their skill set is pretty universal and companies are always looking for people to run their networks. Libertarians will argue that all this is fine because he chose the right profession and got the right schooling, and that everyone who didn't deserves what they get.

They fail to consider that people, by and large, don't really "choose" professions like that, it depends on what you are drawn to and what you are good at and the opportunities you had where you grew up and a bunch of other shit.

They also fail to consider that half the people in the world are of below-average intelligence. Leave aside whether IQ is a valid measurement and whether or not there aren't multiple types of intelligence. Of course it is more complicated than all that, and even if it weren't, some stupid people still happen to be good at other random things. Maybe we'll use competence, or usefulness, instead of intelligence. Just so that it's clear that a very large cross section of humanity is incapable of doing what libertarians expect everyone to do, excel in business and manage their money and make sure to always have a skill that is in demand. Libertarians and conservatives really expect these people to manage their own retirement plans, choose from a group of competing health care providers and be shrewd enough to not get ripped off, etc. And that's just the stupid people. It is obvious that there are many people who could achieve but, for various reasons, don't. Smart people who grew up in fucked up rural towns and didn't get shepherded into elite schools like rich kids from LA or Boston. Some of them clearly made some stupid mistakes when they were young that resulted in them not finishing college, but a lot of it had to do with their temperaments and personalities, too. A woman might not really be built for most working class jobs because the ones that suited her were hostile to women and the ones she could get like being a secretary or whatever didn't work because she was too much of a ball-breaker to last in an office environment. Obviously, anyone could theoretically go back to school this instant and bust their ass to get a marketable degree and then bust their ass to get to the top, but neither of them is going to do that. So, fine, they don't get to make what a CEO makes or drive luxury cars. No one has any problem with that here. But the idea that they should have to worry about making sure their kids have health insurance and struggle mightily to keep a roof over their head, that this is how it should be, they DESERVE that because they didn't do everything perfectly? That is nonsense.

Obviously, a lot of republicans, specifically males, think like this. Women break down like 60/40 democrat/republican, and it is basically the opposite for men, and it is a certainty that a large number of female republicans support the party for reasons like stopping abortions and keeping boobs off TV. I don't think anyone would disagree with the assertion that most women possess far more empathy than most men. It's what makes them good at dealing with young children. Even though most men can understand that kids do stupid shit and need help and attention because they are young and still developing, most of them still have that automatic, "shut the fuck up! Why are you so stupid?" reaction whenever they have to deal with kids, ESPECIALLY if the kids they are dealing with are not their own. This is why basically no men except gays, pedophiles, and gay pedophiles teach kindergarten through 3rd grade or so, and even then, there are still basically none of them until middle school. It's also why men tend to be more politically conservative, although there are other factors like natural aggressiveness leading to supporting military spending and standoffish foreign policy as well as the general desire men have for simplicity and the way the conservative mindset panders to this (with us or against us, if you are poor it is your fault, racism holds no one back, everyone should have the same sexual orientation, good people go to heaven, bad to hell).

Anyway, few female republicans are really fiscal conservatives, or even know what fiscal conservatism is. This is why Bush and co have been able to raise government spending so sharply despite the cries of horror from the section of the party that reads the business pages and worship the free market. "How can Republicans do this?" they wonder. It's because a significant portion of their party couldn't give a fuck about small government and personal freedom, they just don't like blacks, gays, Hollywood movies and the coastal elites that watch them, and they want to be able to keep their guns so they can go hunting. This is what What's the Matter with Kansas is about. Whenever I suggest to conservatives that half the people who vote Republican do so because the party plays on their prejudices, they are aghast that I would even make such a suggestion.

You'll notice that most IT nerds are men, and men who have chosen a profession that has much more to do with ones and zeroes and very little to do with human interaction, so they are a subset of the population that is very unlikely to be particularly empathetic. This is true of nerds in general, there's a reason why the nerdiest nerds have asperger's and they are just one step away from autism. Nerds are outcasts because they can't figure out how to interact with other people without seeming awkward and looking foolish. Of course, Libertarians will tell you that this is all a choice, and maybe for a select few it actually is, but the vast majority of them would prefer to be liked and have a shot at getting a date. The problem is that they cannot stop being awkward, because they don't understand how other people see them and they can't pick up on social cues and protocol. This is why they will do things like talk about Doctor Who for five minutes straight when a girl who was trying to do a good deed says hi to them. They can't read the expression on her face that is clearly indicating a lack of interest and a fear of rape, and it doesn't occur to them that other people might not share their interests. If it does occur to them, they decide that people who don't share their interests are flawed.

The most common- and infuriating- conservatives do is point to that one black guy they know who grew up in the ghetto but persevered, started his own business, and achieved prosperity. They will laud him for his rare combination of skill and dedication, but then they will turn around and ask why everyone else who started in his position couldn't do what he did, as if there was nothing special about him. Christians who have no problem with all the Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus going to hell do the same thing- a small number of people convert, so why can't everyone else?

So IT nerds can't appreciate that not everyone is capable of doing what they have done, and some people are capable but are held back by things like institutionalized racism or a bad upbringing or shitty schools, and some people get sidetracked by things like unplanned kids popping up in their twenties, and some people just aren't interested in becoming computer whizzes or business executives or salesmen or partners in a law firm. Yes, in contemporary America, if you have serious drive and talent, you really can succeed, whatever your race or economic background, and that is pretty remarkable and not to be sneezed at. But few people have the kind of talent or drive it takes to get to the top, and far fewer have both at the same time. Bill Gates would probably be super rich no matter where he came from, any obstacles presented by class or race wouldn't stop him. Bill Clinton came from a pile of shit in Arkansas to the White House. Deval Patrick, the black governor of Massachusetts, came from inner city Chicago. But they are exceptional because they are, well, exceptions. Where would a black man from a working class neighborhood be with George Bush's intelligence? Jail. Bush is an extreme example, but he makes the point quite well- if your abilities place you in the middle of the pack, you will do much better if your parents are rich and white. The deck is still stacked, but libertarians want to pretend this isn't the case, mostly because it is inconvenient for them to deal with a complicated world.

And even if everything was truly equal- everyone was just as smart, attractive, dynamic, and driven as everyone else and discrimination and class barriers didn't exist, somebody would still end up having to mop the floors and take tickets at the movie theater and bag groceries. Everything is a competition, and these people lost, the libertarians argue, so they only deserve the bare minimum that the market deems they're worth. Only a very small and stupid minority advocates getting rid of competition altogether and giving the grocery bagger the same salary as the CEO. Basically everyone is comfortable with people being awarded based on their accomplishments and the value of their work. People are even okay with equally proficient people from 2 different professions getting different amounts of money. No one has a problem with the PhD in film studies making less than the guy with the MBA, or the guy who works at a small indie publishing company that doesn't make much money but finds and develops some great authors making less than the guy who runs the car dealership. Everyone is okay with some competition. People acknowledge that the best player deserves to win.

But the libertarians take it a step further. They want the competition to be blood sport. Because a guy lacked the smarts or the motivation to become more than a gas station clerk, he should be miserable for his entire life and his kids should be fucked over too. It's like having basketball tryouts and then cutting an arm off everyone who doesn't make varsity. Unless you can produce an airtight philosophical argument that everyone deserves a certain minimal level of dignity and comfort regardless of how marketable they chose to make themselves, the libertarians aren't interested.

This obsessive need for unassailable logic that can be universally applied to every situation is also related to the IT thing- Ass Trosk chose to work with computer systems that function on strict logic protocols- if you enter this, this result will happen. Input, output. Obviously, this kind of thinking is very useful- the forum works because Trotsky fixed it by finding the faulty commands and codes. But Ass Trosk tries to do this with everything, which is why he can't understand why civilians shouldn't be allowed to own hand grenades or machine guns. If they can have hand guns and hunting rifles, why not gatling guns? You are drawing the line at a completely arbitrary point. Either the right to bear arms is absolute or it isn't. If you can't produce a line of reasoning that starts at the dawn of mankind, he's not interested. Does not compute.

The idea of economic inequality or class stratification, and any attempt to rectify these things with affirmative action or progressive taxation, offends the IT libertarian because it means there is a bug in the system, and these methods are an imperfect fix for it. Some rich people are going to get taxed even though they came from nothing and earned everything they got fair and square, and some people are going to get jobs they don't deserve because of affirmative action. It's too messy, but what are the alternatives? It's better for the libertarian to just pretend the system is ok, because otherwise they get stuck on a feedback loop and are unable to live in the day to day world, and the free market is a great catchall solution to every problem. Public schools are in trouble? Privatize it and let the market sort it out. Pollution? Eventually the companies that pollute will get negative images and people will stop buying their products! The market fixes everything! American manufacturing is in trouble? Let it go down the tubes. If you can't convince me that American workers deserve their jobs more than the foreigners in sweat shops who are taking them, then it doesn't compute! What right do we have to protect our industry!

This absolute faith in the market is similar to the absolutism required by monotheistic religions. Moral quandary? The answer is in the scriptures! They are infallible! This again appeals to that male need for absolute consistency and simple answers. This is how you get people embracing such childish concepts as heaven and hell. This guy was bad, he gets eternal unimaginable torture. This guy was good, he gets eternal pleasure. Whether or not either of them had the same upbringing is irrelevant. This guy was handsome, charismatic, and interested in running a business, give him a Hummer. This guy was interested in art but he wasn't very good at promoting himself and he didn't have a great work ethic so he ended up delivering packages, no health insurance and a lifetime of debt for him. Whether or not one of them was raised in a ghetto by a single mother is irrelevant."

Fuck libertarianism.
Bookmarked.

That was just fucking awesome.

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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Daan » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:52 am

Chinaski wrote:The following rant is not my own work, but it expresses my ideas perfectly.

"Libertarians are just incapable of putting themselves in anyone else's shoes. I have health insurance, why can't this guy get it?....
I happen to know a couple of nerds who are left-wing. I don't see what being a nerd has to do with libertarianism. My impression is that psychopaths tend to be the archetype libertarian and not the nerds.

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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Daan » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:53 am

I should have chosen the topic free market instead of libertarianism. This discussion is far too normal to me. :mob:

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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by MrJonno » Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:10 pm

I like a functioning society with a decent safety net , it protects me when I'm poor and if I become rich it protects me from the poor!.

I think you can be a self centred arsehole and still value having a decent welfare and healthcare system. I've met plenty of people in the UK who abuse the welfare state, but I would rather have them abusing me by blowing my taxes than abusing me by robbing me at knife point
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Nickel
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Re: Libertarianism is the best ideology

Post by Nickel » Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:43 pm

NineOneFour wrote:It's like all the teabaggers protesting high taxes. Most of them are on social security.

Hellllloooooo?
The teabaggers (LOL, teabag) aren't actually libertarians at all. They've stolen the Ron Paul thunder and are claiming it as their own to try and revitalize the failing Republican Party. The only consistent trait of the teabag movement (HA! It's funny because it suggests getting a load of balls in your face) is doublethink.
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