Libertarians; Useful Idiots?

Darla has introduced me to New Wave freedom, defined as "non-freedom." It's brilliant, and will cleverly set humanity back a mere five centuries. Long live the king and the lord if the manor!!
 
Point of order, I am a RINO, not a libertarian. I vote for them because I want to rock the boat. My view of government is far too robust and Hamiltonian to be called libertarian. I also think Dr. Paul has a naive foreign outlook on the world.

I just get mad at leftists for DELIBERATELY misunderstanding what libertarianism means
 
Carlos Spicy Weiner said:
Point of order, I am a RINO, not a libertarian. I vote for them because I want to rock the boat. My view of government is far too robust and Hamiltonian to be called libertarian. I also think Dr. Paul has a naive foreign outlook on the world.

I just get mad at leftists for DELIBERATELY misunderstanding what libertarianism means
Click to expand...
I think Dung said it best about Libertarians when he stated, and I'm paraphrasing, "they have a few good ideas and a whole lot of bad ones."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the failings of Libertarianism as both a political ideology and a political movement.

To address criticism as a political movement is just to easy. As a political movement they are inept, ineffective, not unified and, as a result, inconsequential. Libertarians, until recently, have shown an amazing inability and ineptitude to build political coalitions that are the life blood of any political movement. There are two primary reasons for this. The first is ideological infexibility, that is, the inability to compromise on some aspects of ideology, in order to build common ground with other polities. The second is their abysmal leadership. Their insistence on decentralization as a political movement is not only impractical but is also self defeating as it prevents the development of leaders around which a constituency can rally behind a consistent central theme or message. That also gives a real big clue as to what kind of governance one could expect from Libertarians. None of which has anything to do per se with Libertarianism as a political philosophy other than that it is probably this philosophy which creates this problem for them as a political movement.

As a political philosophy Libertarianism has a host of problems.

Probably the biggest is that Libertarianism reject utilitarianism as a central ethic for governance. They believe their philosophy is superior, with out any substatiation to that affect. Now considering all governments of the world, that are not despotic, use utilitarianism (both act and rule utilitarianism) as their central ethic of governance why should any politie or constituency trust a political ideology that has a completely different central ethic of governance that has never been demonstrated or substantiated to actually work? So the central ethics of Libertarian governance is deeply suspect and it is up to Libertarians to prove their case for their ideology and not the other way around.

Then there are moral issues with Libertarianism. Their justification for the primacy of property is incoherent. For example if the liberty of a human to own another human is trumped by equal human rights then shouldn't the rights of others to own large amounts of property, at the expense of others, also be trumped by equal human rights? I mean this right here discredits Libertarianism as a philosophy. It sanctifies relativism, that is, it creates an arbitrary authority for the individuals right to do wrong.

Then there is the fact that Libertarians advocates Laissez-Faire Capitalism. This alone disqualifies libertarianism as a political philosophy for me. Lassiez-Faire Capitalism was tried in this nation and it failed! Only an idiot would argue that market failures do not reqauire government intervention in the economy. Non-interventionleads to monopoly capitalism which in turn leads to lack of competition, stiffled inovation not to mention the cold hard fact that unregulated markets are economically unstable (as we've just recently experience with the recent housing bubble fiasco). Libertarians argue that markets always produce the best and most efficient outcomes despite the overwhelming evidence that peoples actions are not always rational. So Libertarianism advocacy of Laissez-Faire Capitalism alone is reason to reject their ideology.

But it doesn't stop there. Another major failing is that Libertarians have no method to deal with collecitve issues or problems because of their rejection of collective regulation and control. This means they would be completely unable to deal with issues like environmental degradation, resource depletion, disaster response, work place safety, food and drug safety, transportation safety, infrastructure development and maintenance, etc, etc.

What may be most damning about Libertarianism as a political philosophy is that their demand to decentralize government shifts far to much power to local authorities where parochial interest will prevail over the whole. We have a large history of what asinine things parochial interest will do to the detriment of our society. Slavery and Jim Crow come to mind. So does the inability to economically develop depressed areas cause it may counter the parochial interest of a minority in a particular region. That's just plain lunacy.
 
Darla said:
I'm happy to hear it! I wonder why I didn't know it before? Maybe it's because you have never argued with the "Libertarians" 3D and Superfreak when they have posted their positions on this subject. Maybe if you talked about more than guns STY, more people would be exposed to a different kind of Libertarian than they are used to. That could be a good thing!
Click to expand...

Maybe YOU should open your ears, connect them to the gray matter and try HEARING instead of listening? Just a thought.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
LOL, wrong. I see all the liberals doing just what i've said. Darla see's one libertarian against freedom in a certain area and suddenly ALL libertarians are against freedom.
Click to expand...

On this forum (and in RL) conservatives attack liberals, liberals attack conservatives. That's politics, unfortunately. So why should libertarians get a pass?
 
christiefan915 said:
On this forum (and in RL) conservatives attack liberals, liberals attack conservatives. That's politics, unfortunately. So why should libertarians get a pass?
Click to expand...

Because, when those two sides go at it, the truth (or at least the ability to grasp and retain it) doesn't get lost.

All of these insipid attacks on libertarianism, as always, are done with the specific purpose of burying the truth. Leftists and neocons both seem to think that constantly giving false definitions of libertarianism is appropriate (see, just about every post by Mott on this matter, where he basically admits it), and they view this as a necessary approach to defeating it in the political arena.
 
Carlos Spicy Weiner said:
Because, when those two sides go at it, the truth (or at least the ability to grasp and retain it) doesn't get lost.

All of these insipid attacks on libertarianism, as always, are done with the specific purpose of burying the truth. Leftists and neocons both seem to think that constantly giving false definitions of libertarianism is appropriate (see, just about every post by Mott on this matter, where he basically admits it), and they view this as a necessary approach to defeating it in the political arena.
Click to expand...
I haven't seen anyone give false definitions of libertariansim. I've seen people make legitimate criticisms of libertarians and instead of answering them ya'll have just run away by saying "Oh well that's not what libertarianism is". Ya'll keep giving a moving target which leads me to believe that you yourself don't even know what Libertarianism is.
 
Derp Derp said:
I haven't seen anyone give false definitions of libertariansim. I've seen people make legitimate criticisms of libertarians and instead of answering them ya'll have just run away by saying "Oh well that's not what libertarianism is". Ya'll keep giving a moving target which leads me to believe that you yourself don't even know what Libertarianism is.
Click to expand...

LMAO... Darla has done so non-stop.

As for the 'moving target' bullshit... what the fuck are you talking about. It has been stated that Libertarians want first and foremost to protect the individual. That has not changed. If the individual has his/her rights violated, then the first course of action is to try and resolve it on their own. If this fails, local government involvement should be sought after. If that fails, then the state. If that fails then the fed.

The only ones moving definitions of Libertarians are idiots that have no clue what they are talking about.

Or did you miss how Darla believes that Libertarians/Conservatives/Republicans/Right wing Authoritarians are all interchangeable?
 
christiefan915 said:
On this forum (and in RL) conservatives attack liberals, liberals attack conservatives. That's politics, unfortunately. So why should libertarians get a pass?
Click to expand...

There degrees of libertarianism too, from liberal libertarians to paleolibertarians, just as there are degrees of liberalism, and conservatism..
 
Rana said:
There degrees of libertarianism to, from liberal libertarians to paleolibertarians, just as there are degrees of liberalism, and onservatism.
Click to expand...

Rana you are correct. I think the mistake a couple of posters make on this board is thinking Libertarians are all right-wingers when that is far from the case.
 
Rana said:
There degrees of libertarianism too, from liberal libertarians to paleolibertarians, just as there are degrees of liberalism, and conservatism..
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that doesn't make a very good bumper sticker. It's better to just say Liberals are bad, Conservatives too, but Libertarians are the shizmet! It makes everything easier...

:D
 
Rana said:
What is funny, if it doesn't apply to your kind of libertarianism, why are you offended? Thre are Libertarians who fit her descriptions, if you aren't one, then don't be offended.
Click to expand...

The issue is she was basing her definition of Libertarians on comments non Libertarians were making on this board.
 
cawacko said:
Rana you are correct. I think the mistake a couple of posters make on this board is thinking Libertarians are all right-wingers when that is far from the case.
Click to expand...

It is like when some posters talk about nutter liberals, well I don't identify with that, so I don't take offense ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top