Nothing more.

and not closet republicans

I call Libertarians "Republicans without hearts". They advocate people dying rather than living with government help. Nasty!

and anti-social to a point

but I wouldn't necessarily call it cruel-cruelty is in the eye of the beholder

than many "traditional" Republicans -- like Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and GHW Bush.

Libertarians are ultra-conservative republicans. Not not butt-nugget crazy like the TeaBaggers, but close.
Some of thier ideas have merit, but not in the context in which they place them.
Their position on taxation has appeal, but is not practical.
Their position on foreign intervention has some good points, but can be shot full of holes on specifics
As a governing philosophy, it is totally unworkable for a country of 300 million +

Some of them just want to smoke their dope, too.

Generally, they don't want anyone to receive any "entitlements" unless you start listing those they might qualify for now or in the future; then you enter "sacred entitlement" territory (for THEM not those lazy people who aren't them).

Not only on the "entitlements" but also on the not wanting to pay taxes thing while loving to travel on the open road and visiting State & National Parks.

So he's yapping about dehr guberment and how it ruins everything, then I notice that he's going to school at the University of Minnesota.

Hilarity ensued.

Their basic motto is "everyone for themselves." Totally absurd.

Conservatism accessorizes that dressing with flag pins made in China.

because of this great aphorism, and because of the Yeats quote in your sig line.

Glenn Greenwald comes to mind here.

and nearly always wrong in real-world application.

Great post... big kick and recommend.

I have a young friend that believes in all this stuff and I just say "Great, except that's never going to happen." Audit the Fed? Okay, 10 years later it's audited, what are you going to do? Who's going to decide what's okay and what isn't? Is the Fed going to have to go through bankruptcy? Are you going to put someone in prison? If anyone did anything illegal, my money would be on Alan Greenspan and he's 86 years old! Go back on the gold standard? No one on the planet is on the gold standard anymore. Unless all countries went back on a gold standard, no countries could. Free market everything? No regulations? No EPA, no OSHA, no FDA. People like the Koch brothers would feed you a hot dish of fecal matter and tell you it's health food because it's "organic".

Ron Paul and his libertarian followers are like broken clocks. Just because they're right occasionally doesn't mean their system has any chance of working.

They believe in government on the local and state level...but they hate a centralized federal government because they feel it breeds corruption, can't police itself, and can't limit itself. They feel it continues to grow in perpetuity until it either becomes a monster or it collapses on its own weight.

That's their mindset. Libertarians are not anarchists. They support strong state governments.

If you want to take apart a Libertarian, and they'll give you the time, and you have the patience, get a copy of their own "platform," and go through it with them.

The LP, for example, doesn't have the courage to take a position on abortion.

All their high flying rhetoric about individual rights, "We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives . . . "

and property

"The owners of property have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy, their property without interference"

DOES NOT EXTEND TO A WOMAN'S CONTROLLING HER OWN WOMB.

needed saying.

Ask them how they feel about 'slavery' and see what they say. Underneath their anti-government patina lies a pronounced pro-states' rights (racist) bias.

"Do you want to drink poop?"



I need to use that on one when I get in an argument.

Libertarians are extremely ignorant about what a country would be with little to no rules and regulations. They have had it too easy and take it all for granted. I do have some libertarian leaning ideas such as legalizing most drugs and prostitution. But then libertarians tell me that regulating markets and what we can do to the environment and ensuring workers' rights and gay rights and women's rights is wrong. And then I just get disgusted with them.

because I think they should know better but then they go and surprise me by being total assholes

this does NOT refer to the OP or anyone in this thread

If they're anti-war and pro-civil liberties, they don't bother me too much. I'll never agree with them on economics, but i definitely have more in common with them than with mainstream Repubs.

I think this what republicans will morph into in the future when being republican is no longer viable. Some are anti war and pro civil liberties but they all seem to share the "me and me only" attitude and are completely oblivious as to how they have benefited from the social contract.

one of those asswipes starts in with their bullshit and then bill them for our time

floor me. Do they realize that they support the idea that the STATE should control whether or when a woman chooses to have a child?

is useful for college aged (and young adult) children of Fundie parents who want to rebel, but not in any good, retrospective way. The parents probably assume that their dear, sweet yet opinionated child would never deviate from the two red button issues of abortion and gay rights. Doing so would be considered an existential threat to their soul. And maybe they don't deviate from those two issues, after all they like the attention with the label.

They hope to pass off their new found Libertarian label as some kind of a super - conservative. It also makes them feel special.

That's a good point! I hadn't thought of that before, but now that you mention it I can see how that could be the case...

Last edited Fri Dec 7, 2012, 06:09 PM - Edit history (1)

I've noticed that a lot of 20 somethings go for the libertarian label because it seemingly represents a "third path". They want to see themselves as independent thinkers so they can say they are above partisan politics. The problem is when you argue with them they only present abstract principles. I find that when I get down to really specific instances a lot of them start to back-pedal and find themselves in at least partial agreement. I'm overwhelmingly progressive, but there are specific instances when I've sided with the libertarian position, against state intervention. When I decide on the necessity of regulations or safety-net provisions, I do it by looking at the pro's and con's on a case-by-case basis. Libertarians generally don't do this unless you force them to. They would rather use this abstract default position that regulation is always bad.

Younger libertarians generally give me hope because I can see that they are just naive and might hopefully grow out of it. On specifics the more intelligent ones concede certain points but it seems like they just don't want to let go of their cherished label. It's not cool to be a boring liberal or progressive. They want to be a special snowflake but aren't left wing enough to go for the Green Party or become Socialists, so they go for libertarianism.

Unfortunately it's been my experience that most libertarians over 30 are of the "I got mine, fuck you" mindset who when push comes to shove will vote for a Republican over a Democrat. In other words they're conservatives who don't want to own up to the label because they don't want to be seen anywhere near the religious right who they see as intellectual inferiors, bigots, and racists.

They're pretty well educated (usually techies) and feel they have sufficient job skills to make themselves indispensable, and that they have "earned" everything they have. A harsh dose of reality will makes them either progressives or hard-core republicans.

They're either the stupidest people on earth, or the absolutely most useless smart people on earth. I can't decide which, but there's little practical difference.

'Utopia' comes from Greek for 'No place,' if I remember Thomas More correctly.)

Marxism is about as close as you can get to utopianism that isn't deranged, imho.

Only replace republican with anarchist.

no they are half wits.
everybody agrees with freedom but freedom without responsibility is impossible. so they only have half the picture.

they are extremely irritating b/c they talk in platitudes and are impervious to REASON. boorish selfish fundamentalists that think they are superior. i don't bother with them any more, they are a waste of time.

most of the young Libertarians out grow it, the older ones, forget it.

Libertarian isn't supposed to have anything to do with the economy one way or another.

The selfishness and disconnect from reality is stunning.

are just republicans that want to smoke pot.

For the most part, I've met two types of 'Libertarians'. Those that are so far right that they want to do away with any and all government and think we've all been microchipped and the pot smokers that only pay attention to politics enough to hear "Ron Paul wants to legalize pot" and nothing else. The rest are uninformed Independents that get their political views from bumper stickers.

because they aren't consistent. They are "selectively" libertarian more often than not, tying themselves in knots trying to reconcile their positions with fundamentalists and other right wing viewpoints.

...ask a follow up question. These people have the critical thinking skills of a small child. Taking any of their ideas to their logical conclusion always spells disaster and chaos. Frustrating thing is you can explain this on a case by case basis, in indisputable fashion, and it just goes in one ear and out the other.

tell him you agree with his view on cutting off all aid, weapons and military support to Israel because you know Libertarians are isolationists and would rather pay taxes that fight a war for another country.
I thought this poor man would actually have a cow!

Bad government can be a terrible thing. One of the worst forms of government is no government at all, exactly what anarchists and libertarians want. And then "no government" quickly degenerates into the very worst form of government--tyrannical dictatorship--when somebody sees the vacuum of power and decides to seize control by force.

And btw, #6 is valid and will be a problem in the future.

Libertarians trust people with money simply because they HAVE money. That's just stupid.

Conservatives think things are better when we all think/act/believe the same thing(that they approve of). Authoritarians are only as right as the people leading them.

They're both coming from the same place to worship the same things, so they're basically the same with a little different window dressing.

In america libertarians are just mean bullies looking for justification for their assholery.

When it works for themselves but do not feel everyone else has the same rights. Besides all this, it makes some crazy like Rand Paul.

I find it interesting Ron Paul wants to stop the spending but still adds earmarks to bills he knows are going to pass and then votes against them. Now this is a good example of someone stopping the spending.

They are smug in a way that conservatives often are not. They revel in their own supposed intelligence while the typical conservative takes pride in his ignorance. They are overwhelmingly male - don't know what that means but it's irritating as well. And the blindness and hypocrisy, geez even conservatives don't have that level of hypocrisy. They call themselves Libertarians because they are antiwar and/or pro pot and smugly, stupidly believe that's all there is too it.

That's why I call them "glibertarians". It's hard to argue with them because they have these cute little canned arguments, anecdotes, and talking points to counter anything you bring up. They love to argue and must spend an inordinate amount of time learning all the ways to rhetorically counter whatever you throw at them, but no time considering whether any of it really makes sense.

They like to flout their supposedly superior understanding of economics. They have a real fetish for Austrian economics and like to thump people over the head with quotes from Fredrick Hayek or Milton Friedman. They may have a little bit more knowledge than the average joe but immediately run into problems with anyone who has actually studied macro-economics. Their understanding is about as deep as a puddle. They only study as far as they can use it for rhetorical advantage.

I've also noticed a lot of idiocy in the way they respond with "but you don't understand economics" whenever you express an opinion against their free-market dogmatism. They don't seem to understand the "is aught" problem in that they positively advocate for a specific economic setup while pretending they are somehow value neutral. They cannot be truly value-neutral when they decide to positively advocate for a certain economic setup because they are ultimately appealing to how the world "aught" to be in their utopian vision with has almost nothing to do with any objective study of economics in the real world. In the real world the study of economics really boils down to the study of inordinately complex systems of human behavior, with varying degrees of competition and cooperation. Economics has absolutely nothing to do with "freedom". When they talk about economics all they're doing is dressing up their ideology in a bunch of jargon to sound more intelligent and sophisticated than they actually are and hopefully intimidate whoever they are arguing with into giving up. It's so ridiculously futile.

The Tea Party guys are also super nonsense but at least they generally don't act like they have some sort of professorial superiority to you while believing in some of the most simplistic ideas there are.

I debated one that viewed taxes as stolen money and the the federal government could not afford "entitlements" even thought he was in the military and living off of the publc dole. He also said that the government has put too many regulations in the way of corporations. Umm.. You can imagine how I reacted.

A guy I worked with. We got into it on Facebook right before the elections. He was in the military for years, and retired from a high paying federal job. He never joined our union nor paid dues, but he benefited by everything we did for him, including a huge pay negotiation that he took gladly. I called him a leach and a hypocrite. His wife became a citizen when he married her in Korea while in the service. Yet he bitched about entitlements, and Obama's birth certificate and non citizenship status, and how he used a stolen SS number. That kind of crap! What a total hypocrite. He said he didn't mind if rich people paid no taxes at all, as they were the job creators!
I couldn't help myself. I just came right out and called him an f'n idiot. Of course then I get the tired old line "when you liberals can no longer intelligently discuss an issue you resort to name calling! wahhh wahhh wahhhh" I responded "only because capital murder carries the death penalty! .....Stupid!" These guys just grate on my nerves they are so ignorant.

And they're really immature.

I consider them Republicans on steroids. It pisses them off when I call them that.

The ones I have met are typically well spoken and passionate about their positions. Their inability to comprehend cause and effect or logic is staggering. Their arguments are heavy on form and extremely light in substance.

I find died in the wool Libertarians (as a group) to be Intellectually Lazy, Morally Selfish and Socially Irresponsible. Much more so than mainline Conservatives imo.

When someone demonstrates they have no interest in coming to terms with the outcome that would occur if they get their way, and they can't or won't even see the trajectory that we would be on, and the consequences we would have to deal with if we did things their way, I just walk away. These folks can not be reasoned with.

No sense in getting upset at them.

Hey Libertarians...

Adolescent minds that have not and may never progress beyond the mistaken ideology that freedom = no consequences, which mistaken assumption puts them always and forever ENSLAVED to reactionary knee-jerk responses to ANY and every power and authority, actual or simply mis-perceived as such. They can't see the forest for the trees. They don't know how to pick their battles. All locus of control is external. They get USED, usually by other "Libertarians". They're doing waaaaaaaaaaaay too many drugs and I DON'T mean just cannabis.

Freedom is the ability and potential to manage and mitigate consequences as much as necessary and then to CHOOSE to act purposefully anyway at the best possible strategic moment even with whatever consequences that remain.

these folk are pusedo republicans.

there is simply too large a shortage of psychopaths in the country.

Libertarianism is the philosophy of sociopaths and dumbfucks who like to think they have political sophistication. It's the philosophy that others should starve so I don't have to pay taxes.

Whenever you explain how tax cutting and deregulation has only created greater and greater inequality and more and more extreme concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of what are effectively a bunch of global quasi-monopolies they always run their mouth off with "but that isn't capitalism, that's corporatism"

Everything I bring up that's fucked up and unjust with the current situation they claim to agree with me, but then they always go through the same tiresome mental gymnastics where they turn it around and blame government. They want to claim that things like massive monopolies, financial fraud, "too big to fail" banks, worker exploitation, etc... would never exist if we had "True Capitalism (TM)" instead of "Government Crony Capitalism (TM)". They seem to have no idea that none of these things require government/business collusion or even central banks. Capitalism rife with overt fraud, greed, exploitation, panics, crashes, and brutal economic depressions with massive unemployment where commonplace all throughout the entire 19th century when government was hardly involved.

The worst part is even when they admit how fucked up things have gotten, that the government is corrupt in in the pockets of big business, etc... they still think the solution is not to actually hold the culprits accountable. Noooo... the solution is to get rid of government subsidies and deregulate and everything will be hunky dory.

The thing that gets my dander the most...

9.) If you don't agree with me you just don't understand economics...

wherein they presume to "educate" me, until they find out I actually have a much deeper understanding (have read graduate level texts, etc...) than they do.

There's nothing that irritates me more than an idiot that presumes to be some kind of intellectual elite. No, being a soulless free-market wanker who doesn't care if people starve on the street doesn't make you smarter than me.

Since they hypocritically think our taxes should pay for the police and military to protect their stuff. They would gladly drag us back to feudalism.

I agree with every word you said. I just never saw it all laid out so well before. But yeah, whenever I see Rand Paul I really do want to slap him hard. Even when I don't hear what he says.

Libertarians operate on two presumptions:

an artificially high (and false) view of their own value

and an equally artificially low (and equally false) view of everyone else's.

Their economic policies/messaging suck but at least they aren't crazy/fanatical about social issues and mostly progressive (or at least "hands-off&quot about things like abortion rights, gay rights, etc. Unfortunately, where they go wrong for me is their belief that they can pare government back to next to nothing and still maintain a functioning society (maybe at one point in history but definitely NOT now), as well as their general Randian disregard for "others". I could just not be capable of being that cold and heartless so as to ignore the needs and suffering of others but it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to find common ground with them when we can. These are "Republicans" that I think that we have a better chance of dealing with IMHO.

Welcome to DU!

as if I really give a damn about that stuff

And according to the political compass, I am left-libertarian so it's not as if I don't have any points of agreement with them. But yes, they are generally extremely self-satisfied and not at all open to criticism of their ideas. There's a certain "cool kids club" element to the whole movement. I've known lefties who've become part of the movement for short periods of time and when it happens, they become hyper-focused on issues like drug laws and completely ignore the rest of the platform. It is no coincidence that it is very attractive to the more privileged amongst us.

I once called one on the 14th Amendment, and he defiantly proclaimed, "I've read the Constitution, and I know what it says."

I immediately turned to my computer, googled the 14th Amendment, pulled it up, then watched as his argument collapsed.

I then poked a figurative stick in him by saying, "I thought you'd read the Constitution."

He then said, "Well, it's kinda long, so I haven't read the whole thing."

"Really fuckstick? Take an hour away from movies and Fox News." OK, I really didn't say that, but I thought it.

Why? Because I find conservative advocates of "small government"who want forced vaginal insertions for women contemplating abortion more offensive than advocates of small government who do not. I find advocates of "small government" who are against man-man love in the bedroom more offensive than those who are not. I find advocates of "small government" willing to spend trillions a year locking up people for smoking weed more offensive than those who are not willing to do that.

The Republican party is conservative, not libertarian. And I find anybody willing to talk about how "Okay" these forced vaginal insertions, these totalitarian pot laws, these anti-gay laws, in contrast to a the marginalized LP, as frankly quite cowardly. Thank God we have a brave and bold leadership in the Dem party who isn't afraid to stand up against those standing up against them, otherwise there never could have been a win in the last election.

At least the people who call themselves libertarians nowadays.
In the UK, libertarian used to mean 'civil libertarian', and what is now called libertarianism was called 'laissez faire economics'. But more recently the British seem to have adopted the American terminology.

I get quite frustrated by the so-called libertarians, as they tend to be more arrogant about their beliefs than many Conservatives, and as they try to group things together that don't really go together at all. The argument is that free-market economics goes along with social liberalism and civil liberties. But it doesn't. As I've said several times on the board, if you are economically right-wing you can only be socially liberal and pro-civil liberties for those above a certain income. The threat of severe poverty, of losing your job and then freezing or starving in the street or dying from lack of healthcare, is just as oppressive as the threat of social ostracism or police action or imprisonment.

I once came across an Australian playground rhyme, which sums up the basics of libertarianism:

Australia is a free land,
Free without a doubt.
If you haven't any dinner,
Then you're free to go without!

Actually the rhyme is a bit unfair to Australia, which so far as I'm aware from the other end of the world, has a reasonably good social safety net. But it just about sums up the way libertarianism operates!

i think, on some issues, they remind them of what some republicans use to be like. it's more an embarrassment thing.

... like "conservative" and "liberal", "libertarian" has been redefined to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. For example, no person who would interfere in reproductive rights is in fact a libertarian. That the Pauls claim to be libertarians without challenge tells us we live in a degenerate culture as much as it informs us about other substantive points.

Conservatives used to favor strong central government and understand the need for regulation of commerce because proper regulation ensured competition. Then REACTIONARIES redefined their nutty beliefs as conservatism without objection from the press, and the word 'conservative' meant whatever they wanted it to mean. Similarly, liberals of my youth believed the individual was the thing and government, while necessary, needed close watching. Then radicals redefined the liberal position as advancing government rights over individual rights for the so-called greater good, again without media challenge, and another word lost closely defined meaning.


Probably the most hilarious word-game media cop out of my life is over economics terminology. In the 1980s FriedmaNUTs wanted to give a Keynesian bump to the economy through corporations instead of federal programs or even state programs, but FriedmaNUTs loathed the word "Keynesian" because it has 'big government' implications, and so pulled "supply side" out of their butts. And it stuck to the point where halfwits refuse to see supply side as anything except public welfare to private corporations.

More recently Obama criticized "trickle-down" and "supply side" economics in his campaign yet the bulk of his stimulus was pushed into the supply side through state and local governments, clearly a trickle-down (supply side) effort, and in a hilarious tribute to Swift, described as "demand side". Predictably every form of media dutifully ignored that state and local governments are forms of corporations and reported the fantasy instead of the reality.

So, to your original point, what passes for libertarians today are mostly a gaggle of delusional idiots, but are not in the original sense of the word anything close to libertarians. Like all unconstrained delusional indiots, they bear watching, but they don't anger me.

Most are all for intrusive STATE governments banning things like abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.

many libertarians affectionately give false equivalence to both sides of the aisle. They love to say things like "Obama=Bush" or "left-wing, right-wing, same corporate bird". That really pisses me off because they're neglecting the fact that RW and Republican politics are responsible for our inequality and much of our issues nationwide and worldwide. For starters, Democratic presidents have created more jobs than Republicans have since the mid-20th century.

Also another thing that annoys me about libertarians (in addition to how they love to spam "RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT" on any YouTube political video) is how they prioritize the "freedom" of corporations and the wealthy elite over everyone else. This is definitely the case when you take into consideration their opposition to the safety net, taxation, environmental standards, food standards, funding of public schools, socialized health care, and anti-discrimination laws. Apparently the freedoms of the non-rich, women, and minorities don't count to them. And neither does the freedom to live. It's okay for corporations to step in and monopolize the free market and for the 1% to hoard cash, but it's not okay for Mr. Average Joe to have enough spending cash to buy all his necessities.

I just think their vision of freedom and liberty sounds vague.

a perfect country: nearly no government, lots of guns........enjoy the freedom, buddy!

don't want to move to Somalia, and one person actually said "because I don't want to get randomly shot". You cannot make this stuff up!

If government is so scaled back corporations can gut work laws. We would go back to the days of the 80-hour work week, no vacations, child labor, dangerous work environments, ect. We wouldn't have the freedom we experience today, as we would be living in corporate tyranny. Too me, their is no difference between corporate and government tyranny, so their points are moot until they describe how an individual frees themselves from corporate without government or union power. I know what they say, that "no one forces you to work for a corporation." But when you think about it that goes against their free -market philosophy in many ways.

That's why when they call me "statists" I call them "Corporatist".

My personal favorites are Ron Paul's acolytes--the ones who like to think they're better than your average teabagging moron because they're for legalizing weed and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When called on it, they will invariably answer with something like "You should read some of the things Dr. Paul (they always call him this, it's like Jewish folks always typing G-d instead of God) has written. Maybe then you'd see the truth."

What they fail to realize about Lord Paul is that he's not against the War on Drugs--he's against a FEDERAL War on Drugs. He'd be just fine if all 50 states set up task forces to round up anyone caught with a joint in their pocket.

And he's not against killing Muslims--he's against it because it's federal money that's being spent. If the entirety of the American contingent in the Middle East was made up of private contractors and weekend warriors, "Dr. Paul" would be just fine.

Libertarians piss me off because they live in a fantasy world--where every man and woman is so generous that there's no need for a social safety net, where anti-discrimination laws are unnecessary because minorities and gays can just go elsewhere when told their business isn't wanted, and where horrible working conditions, slave wages, and godawful schedules are just hunky-dory because you can just quit and get another job! It's the political mindset of a 13-year-old and to see it in grown men and women pisses me off to no end.

"What they fail to realize about Lord Paul is that he's not against the War on Drugs--he's against a FEDERAL War on Drugs. He'd be just fine if all 50 states set up task forces to round up anyone caught with a joint in their pocket.

And he's not against killing Muslims--he's against it because it's federal money that's being spent. If the entirety of the American contingent in the Middle East was made up of private contractors and weekend warriors, "Dr. Paul" would be just fine."

Judging by his position on things like the CR Act and those newsletters that were revealed, you're probably correct. I think he could care less about all the people of color that the Drug War has disproportionately affected; he probably only cares about not having federal money go into it, like you said. Both libertarians and liberals oppose it, but for different reasons.

I constantly hear "Government shouldn't be in the business of regulating marriage - so I am opposing Gay Marriage because I don't want to expand it".

They beleive that is the path to equality - taking away the thousands of rights straight married couples have to bring them down to the ZERO rights gay married couples have.


When I ask if they file separate returns, don't use any of the federal marriage benefits, etc, I get blank stares.

you more.

Being for small govt they inevitably attract secessionists, which means mostly white supremacist neo Confederates.

All the ludicrous denials of Ron Paul being racist are annoying. You show them the evidence, they ignore it.

And oppose the drug war. On both issues they are much better than democrats.