On libertarianism and Ron Paul

With the trendiness of the Ron Paul candidacy, I'm moved to share my thoughts about libertarianism.

"Libertarian" is an impressionistic term like "emo," for which no two people agree on a definition. It can mean:

• I'm an independent thinker who cherry-picks the best parts of right- and left-wing politics
• I hate any sort of government or governance (see also: "fair-weather anarchist")
• I'm a Republican in sheep's clothing (see also: "I'm an Independent" and "Reynolds, Glenn")
• I'm a disgruntled Democrat
• At my high school, the cool kids read Ayn Rand
• I'm attracted to fringe candidates

When one dons the term "libertarian," one selects the meaning that suits him or her, but conveys no clear identity to the beholder. Definitional arguments are nearly certain to ensue.

Though there are, to be sure, left-leaning libertarians, the commonality between libertarian aspirations and GOP rhetoric (grunts of "government bad, taxes ugh!") makes the "L-word" a gateway drug for support of the corrupt, valueless Republican Party.

Riding a wave of supposed populist iconoclasm, Mr. Paul may yet choose to run as a Libertarian candidate (upper-case, or as a libertarian independent).

But which party's nomination has he been seeking thus far? Which party has he been only-too-happy to help make a Congressional majority these past several mournful years? The free-spending, theocratic, rights-encroaching Republicans.

His platform is to make good on what the Republicans promise but don't deliver: to completely de-fund America’s safety net. As Shania Twain says, that don’t impress me much.

I salute him for not supporting this disastrous war. But fighting against all social programs is not, methinks, an admirable position.

In the abstract, there is much to like about a libertarian philosophy — live and let live, etc.

Some who call themselves libertarians are staunch defenders of unpopular speech, including the sort practiced on progressive and atheist blogs, and I do not dismiss such folks out of hand.

In practice, though, I'm both concerned about the danger third-party candidates pose to the goal of ousting the corrupt, valueless Republican Party and about a doctrine so focused on not looking out for the other guy.

In a period of liberal primacy like the Johnson years, a libertarian perspective can be a healthy corrective to government lethargy and bloat. But in the Reagan/Fox/Bush/Drudge era, it’s often just a welcome mat for the worst of all worlds: welfare and freedom only for the most powerful, and a monstrous deficit for our children to pay.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

The Libertarian for the most part expresses the views of the liberal on social issues but opposes social justice on the economic area.

I just shake my head when I see liberals giving him words of support because he opposes the Iraq occupation.

When you start looking at his positions on domestic issues, you realize he is a right-wing dickwad just like the rest of the Republicans.

I do like his stand on the Iraq occupation but for everything else he is to the right of Attila The Hun and a bit scary for those leaning left, IMO.

A libertarian is a republican who likes to smoke dope.

In fact it paints a rather childishly cute picture of them. The libertarians are a completely vile bunch.

And I don't mean internet libertarians - those poor Democrats and Republicans who have taken "the world's smallest political quiz" and found themselves - surprise surprise - to be Libertarian! That quiz is a rigged political gimmick to make anyone who's not an absolute Nazi come out as a libertarian. The test itself relies on a greatly flawed understanding of its own terms, in addition to misleading questions and rigged results. It's absolutely stunning that people take it any more serious than the "What sort of tropical fish are you?" quizzes from some teenager's livejournal. Nobody goes around telling their friends "Yep, it turns out I'm a corydoras catfish!" and yet so many say "Well guys I took a test, and I'm apparently more Libertarian than anything!" These people are otherwise sane, rational people (that is to say, they aren't Libertarians) who have been schnookered to support something they likely won't research.

There's also these poor schlubs - and many of them are here on DU - who say "Well, the economic principles are crap, but I like the social ones, so I support them for that" - case in point, the simpering Ron Paul supporters. You cannot divide libertarian social mores from their economic ones, because the libertarians themselves draw no such divide. People who try are deluded - if they like some of the social ideas the Libertarians have, then they need to take them and incorporate them into a party that's actually somewhat sane.

No, I mean actual libertarians. The ones who know what they're talking about, and embrace it.

To the true libertarian, everything hinges on "personal responsibility." I put that into quotations because they use the phrase in a very different manner than most of us would. When we talk about personal responsability, it means taking the blame for your own screwups. An expected behavior from adults. To the Libertarian, though, it's blame transferral. Everything is your fault, never anyone else's, no matter what - ESPECIALLY if it would result in restitution of any sort.

Did you get food poisoning from a restaurant? Your fault for not researching their health record in-depth!
Did the transmission fall out of your "brand new" car? Well that's your fault for not inspecting it more thoroughly!
Did I run over you? Your fault for not moving fast enough!
Did that factory up the road allow lead and mercury to leach into the town's aquifer causing skyrocketing cancer rates? You should have been drinking and bathing in bottled water!
Is your little girl dying of a rare bone disease that your HMO won't cover? Well you should have thought about rare bone diseases before getting that HMO. And you and your partner should have checked your genetic compatibility!

What Libertarians call "taking personal responsibility," sane people call "blaming the victim." You find a lot of libertarian thought involves kicking people while they're down.

Take, for instance, another Libertarian concept - "bootstrapping." The idea, as I'm sure you all know, is that if you work hard enough, someday you'll be a billionaire, too! In fact this concept is so entrenched in modern America that there are countless people who think it's a founding principle. But the fact is, millions work every scrap of their lives away. Desperately scraping and scrabbling for more, so that they too can be successful billionaires. And they fail. They are told that because they failed, they are lesser human beings, and should be content with their lack of privilege and truncated rights - You didn't succeed in life, it's your fault because of personal responsibility, take your plate of shit sandwiches and move on for the next failure in the line.

Why do you think so many of America's retirees fall into depression? It's not age, it's not medical issues. It's the fact that all their lives, they were brought up to believe that with hard work and dedication, they too would "make it," that it's the American dream... and they didn't, and now they're retired. How many of our parents and grandparents spent their lives grinding away at a job they hated, in pursuit of this fever dream?

This is how they think society should work, folks. These are their social platforms, as surely as that it's their economic one. Their economic policies hearken back to the days of feudalism.
If you have money, you're a better human being - divine right
With no taxes, there are no police, and only those with money will be able to protect themselves - private armies
If you have no money, you're encouraged to work for and bow to those that do, not only because they're better people, but because if you're good, they might extend some of their largess to you - serfdom

Talk to a true blue cuckoo libertarian about the government. They all want a tiny, starved government that has no power over anything, except perhaps running the presses down at the mint. Now ask them what power will rise to replace this small, ineffective government. Most of them will stare at you blankly, and then fall back on comparing you to Stalin (Actually libertarians prefer to use Pol Pot to evade Godwin's Law, but you get the idea.)

This isn't because they have no understanding of the concept of "power vacuum," but rather they're just surprised that you do. The Libertarians know that a small, starved, and powerless government will be quickly replaced by something strong and powerful by comparison. That something are rich, powerful people who own the businesses. However, Libertarians refuse to admit this rather obvious result, and would vehemently deny that a ruling body of elites counts as "government" - Like Republicans, they believe that if you call a cabbage a horse, it is, in fact, a horse, and will even comment on how lovely it looks when it gallops.

"Libertarianism" is a cutsey, faux-intellectual term for a bunch of fuckwits that want to undermine and overthrow our constitutional Republic and replace it with feudal fiefdoms of debt slaves and absolute plutocratic rule. And every single actual Libertarian holds that goal, that I have ever encountered. They are worse than Republicans.

thank you very little.

Somehow I manage to be able to reconcile my belief in a livable min. wage and a SPHC system with my belief that consenting adults should generally be free to make their own decisions about their own personal lives.

I guess I'm too dumb to realize I've been "schnookered". Maybe a few more of these harangues will convince me that I'm really an authoritarian control freak, and that despite the fact that the government is currently run by theocratic, flat-earth nutjobs it really does know better in every single instance (particularly when those instances involve the choices of consenting adults about what they want to read, watch, smoke, drink, or who they want to screw), and I really shouldn't assosciate myself with that word which causes so many here to break out in hives with spastic, apopleptic fits:

libertarianism

damn, I had to double-check that post's author line to make sure I didn't write it myself.

I'm a small "l" libertarian in a lot of ways myself. I found my self splitting from my libertarian friends on labor and economic issues a long time ago, mostly because I figured out that (a) feudalism doesn't serve the cause of liberty and (b) I have rolled out of bed and punched a time clock a hell of a lot more at sweat-ass jobs than any of them ever have.

The fact is, I want the absoulte minimum of government intereference in my personal life as possible. I understand the need for government to regulate business enough to keep poision out of our food and water etc. etc. and am pro organized labor and livable wages.I also understand the need for some kind of safety net for those not able to take care of themselves.

but, unless absoultely necessary, leave me the hell alone, I'll hit the timeclock and take care of me and my own as long as I am able.

What is a "left libertarian," anyway? 'Cause to me it sounds rather like "Gay republican", "Jewish national socialist" or "Corporate Anarchist."

Just from what you've told me, I can surmise that you pretty much just use the term to look cool; No ma'am, I'm no liberal, I'm a Left-Libertarian! You believe in an actual society beyond either corporate feudalism or gun nut free-for-all survivalism. You seem to realize that taxes are not, in fact, theft and assault, but are simply the fees we pay for living in a civilized society. You seem to have a notion that people have an inherent right to remain alive, too.

All this flies in the face of the basics of libertarianism as a political philosophy. Sure, you share the idea that prohibition of products and ideas is bad. But I'll guarantee you your reasons are not libertarian - they are progressive.

Take the drug war. A progressive, such as myself, sees that this little exercise in stupidity is a gigantic waste, used simply to look busy fighting an idea, while causing most of the problems attributed to that idea. All the tax dollars that goes into fighting drugs would be five times as effective if put towards drug education and treatment. Millions can be spent busting one heroin smuggler, possibly resulting in a shootout, followed by the guy's trial and cost of incarceration... Or those millions can be spent for a methadone clinic and the money saved from the cost of trial and incarceration could go towards something more useful.

This is not the libertarian position. The libertarian position is that the drug war infringes on a private entity's rights to decide if it wants to dispense justice if it wants, vigilante-style, and also prevents the rise of corporate entities based around pedding an addictive substance for profit. They may yabber about "freedom" but in the end the goal is to see you addicted and turning into a cash cow. You will have no infrastructure to turn to if you decide getting hooked was a bad idea, by the way.

Which position is closer to your own?

There are the left authoritarians, like Stalin, the left libertarians, like Noam Chomsky and other Anarchists, and then finally the "gray zone" leftists, such as traditional democratic socialists and social democrats. The ones who fall in the gray zone may exhibit certain tendencies seen either with the left authoritarians or the left libertarians. They are at neither extreme. A person who believes in legalizing all drugs but also believes in a government-run single-payer health care system is a "gray zone" leftist. An anarchist or left libertarian would likely never agree to such a system, citing concerns of concentration of decision-making power into a centralized bureaucracy, but they would agree as far as condemnation of the American health care system goes.

You've even decided, on the basis of.. what the fuck, I don't know.. that I use the libertarian label because I want to "look cool". Uh Huh. That's what I spend my days focusing on, the most. looking cool. :eyes:

No, let me clue you in on a little secret: There is probably very little I worry about in this world less than whether or not someone (who? DU? The folks at the grocery store? The people I went to high school with, decades ago?) thinks I'm "cool" or not.

You've gone out of your way to define "libertarianism" using a definition that I've never heard from anyone, except you. (You also reject the political compass model, which many find very useful) I suppose I could remind you that the philosophy of "libertarianism" and the big-L libertarian party are NOT synonymous, but that's probably a waste of time. But even the Libertarian Party, as much as I disagree with them (about 50% of the time) doesn't stand for the nonsense in your post.

Let me break it down for you. The drug war is an excellent example. I agree with what you put out there as the "progressive" point of view, but that's not the whole story. Nowhere in what YOU put out there as the "progressive" view on the war on drugs is the word "freedom", and judging by your disdain for it (you know, we like to "yabber" about it) that's not an accidental oversight. I think it's telling that you don't get that. It's also telling that, while according to some the dirty dreaded word "libertarianism" is supposed to only be about money, your progressive position is really only about what makes more sense in terms of our spending money.

So you have greatly maligned the libertarian position. Where you get that, for instance, libertarians want pot legalized (pot, as I'm sure someone so obstensibly well informed as yourself, is the primary focus of our "drug war") so we can all addict people to it and slaver over the profits, I have no fucking clue. Let me tell you what the REAL small-l libertarian position is, in one sentence--- and it's not very hard to get the mind around:

What a consenting adult does with his or her own body is his or her own business, insofar as he or she isn't harming or endangering anyone else.

End. Of. Story.

Yeah, there's that "yammering" about "freedom", again. That's what it's about. Addiction? I know a little something about addiction. I have alcoholism all over my family tree like a bad set of christmas lights. My dad died of lung cancer from cigarettes. But I also know that attempting to criminalize the choices consenting adults make, even bad or self-destructive ones, is a waste of time. And even if it wasn't a waste of time, people have the right to engage in even self-destructive behavior. Making help available is one thing, trying to "save" them from running their own lives or making choices you may not personally agree with is something entirely different. Infantalizing people, saying they are the poor "victims" of industries that force them to make choices they shouldn't make, is a favorite tactic of control freaks of every stripe. (Along with dragging non-adults and non-consent into arguments about, again, consenting adults) Anti-Choicers use the the same tactics the Pro-porn-censorship crowd uses, to wit:

"The (porn/abortion) industry magically brainwashes women into making choices with their own bodies that are clearly immoral; therefore, the (porn/abortion) industry victimizes women, because any woman who would choose to (take her clothes off in front of a camera/get an abortion) must have been hyp-mo-tized into a state of total inability to make her own decisions."

Now If I wanted to play your game, I would make a bunch of unwarranted, ass-hat assumptions about you based on the little information in your posts, like you obviously don't hold a very high opinion of the word or concept "freedom". But I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'll merely say that I would hope you respect the concept of freedom enough to understand that if individuals don't have the freedom to own and control their own bodies, lives and decisions, then the word "freedom" is pretty fucking meaningless.

THAT is "libertarianism", friend.

:yourock:

Thanks. You said it much better than I could have. I'm glad that someone here still has the time and energy to stand up to the "Libertarians are just pot-smoking Republicans" BS over and over again. Keep up the good work.

Do you believe in there being such a thing as a civilized society?
Do you realize that taxes are not a violent institution robbing you of your livelihood?
Do you believe that people have a right to stay alive?

You believe in a livable minimum wage and single-payer health care. Tis is what you said. Am I wrong in assuming this makes you a fairly rational person when it comes to society, taxes, and keeping people alive? If so, then I apologize for putting words in your mouth. If I'm not wrong, then I can't see where I'm doing that.

Given that you allude to these assumptions being unwarranted and asshatted, though... Maybe I AM wrong.

Every libertarian I've ever come across has used the "consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't harm anyone else" as justification for a pure free market system. In fact, the idea of "libertarian = free market asshole" is so ingrained in my head, that I have trouble imagining there is any other kind. Looks like a fair number of other people around here are stuck in the same rut. Now why the hell is this, do you think, if I'm using a take on libertarianism you've "never heard of from anyone"? Obviously SOMEONE who's calling themselves a libertarian is filling our heads with this stuff. I would wager it's a whole lot of someone's, in fact. Which leads me to wonder just where you've been to have missed all of that while deciding you're one, too.

As the original poster said, though, "libertarian" seems pretty damn subjective. Here you are telling me - trying to tell me - what a "real" libertarian is, whereas every libertarian I've ever come across would, like, totally not let you into their clique, because you're, you know, like TOTALLY the same as Stalin. Odds are you would say the same about them.

Libertarianism, even the sort you're spouting, is an incredibly teenager-ish philosophy. Let's take a look at it.

"I should be free to do whatever I want, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else!"
and
"People should take responsibility for harm they cause to themselves"

What, precisely, constitutes "hurt" in the mind of a libertarian? Does it have to be the total ruination of a person's livelihood, or does a mild inconvenience count? Would a libertarian even try to figure out what "hurt" actually is, or would they rather make it up as they go along, in order to prevent from potentially infringing on their freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want? Furthermore, there's the argument that, since everyone should be free to do as they want, even at harm to themselves, it's their own fault that you hurt them, because they put themselves into position to be hurt by you. Why aren't they taking responsibility for getting themselves hurt? Furthermore, why should you have to pay taxes? You should be free to keep all that money for yourself, right? Let someone else take up the burden of a civilized society, ain't your job! You're not actually hurting anyone, all those people who receive your tax money are needy because of their own poor life decisions. You have no obligation to cover their asses - they need to take responsibility for themselves! Why, as a libertarian, you exist totally separate from society. You are an independent mobile object moving among and occasionally interacting with a sea of other independent mobile objects, rather than a person in a society.

THAT is "libertarianism," friend.

Now, given, individual selfish assholes libertarians salad-bar this to their liking depending on the degree of conscience they have. You seem to have a conscience, given your support for SPHC and minimum wages. On the other hand, you also jump to the defense of industries that wind up screwing people over as a matter of course and state that it's those people's own fault for letting themselves be screwed over.

How sad that you can't see the difference between industry regulations, and "Saving people from themselves"

Hanging around objectivists will certainly lead to such a condition, but continuing to remaining ignorant of the fact that the word originated in the European anarchist labor movements when people keep telling you that your definition is narrow and incomplete is most assuredly a sign of pigheaded stupidity.

If you wish to save yourself from continuing to look silly in responding to leftist libertarians, I suggest you find a copy of this book and read the essays of some real libertarians.

In the mean time, trust us left libertarians when we tell you that there are plenty of libertarians who believe that you CANNOT be a capitalist and a libertarian at the same time, despite protests of the Ludwig von Mises fanboys.

But if you're too lazy to do even that then consider this: Subcomandante Marcos is a libertarian.

I'm aware of the history of the word libertarian. I'm also literate on the history of lots of other words. Languages evolve, and many words end up being used to describe something different from what they were originally used for.

Libertarian means something different now. The history of the word is irrelevant to discussion of the subject it currently describes. Libertarianism, in modern political context, means exactly what it means now, not what it meant then

And for fuck's sake, don't get me started on anarchism.

You consider their opinion irrelevant?

As I said, much like log cabin republicans do.

big-L Libertarian Party are NOT one and the same. Rinse. Repeat.

My one piece of advice would be to stop hanging around objectivists. It's tantamount to self abuse.

No thanks. I'd rather waste my time talking to door-to-door Mormons, and that's saying something.

Making sure that the gin you buy from the liquor store is actually gin, and not turpentine-

and...

Making the gin you buy from the liquor store against the law.

Seems to me, you're the one who can't see the difference. And, because of what I can only assume is a total inability to respond to the arguments *I* have put forth, you continue to make up a bunch of shit, try to put it in my mouth, and then argue against it. That may work with this guy-



But I'm not going to play along.

For example, you throw this out:

"I should be free to do whatever I want, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else!"
and
"People should take responsibility for harm they cause to themselves"

I didn't say that. For instance, I support a SPHC system. And unlike some who would pick and choose which "sins" they think everyone's public health dollars should cover, I understand that just about everyone has done something potentially stupid and/or detrimental to their health that could rack up health costs. The person bitching about smokers may have had numerous sex partners. The person griping about druggies may eat a lot of trans fats. The person complaining about alcoholism may ride their motorcycle like an idiot. And so on. Either we get into this never-ending game about "who costs what and why", or we accept that everyone makes bad choices sometimes, and the price we pay in society is covering everyone's health, regardless. (Which actually ends up being cheaper, because under the current system we pay for those things anyway.) Beyond that, fund treatment on demand and make help available for people who have problems when they're ready to deal with them.

Which does not change the fact that consenting adults need to be free to make their own decisions about their own bodies. Get it? Do I need to say it in a different language? MY body doesn't belong to any church, or any state, it belongs to ME. Maybe that's a "teenagerish" philosophy. I don't give a fuck. I haven't been a "teenager" for quite a long time, and if anything, I'm MORE fed up with the busybodies and control freaks on this planet who seemingly have nothing better to do than try to run everyone else's life.

Now, in answer to your questions, which really don't have anything to do with the arguments I've put forth:

Do you believe in there being such a thing as a civilized society? Yes, like I also believe in the square root of -1. It's an abstraction, as well as a conglomeration of terms that are even harder to nail down than "libertarian". What's a civilized society? I believe in societies, I think we live in one. "Civilized"? I don't think it's civilized to lock people up because they choose to smoke a plant that other people don't want them to smoke. I don't think it's civilized to wage war on other countries based on lies. But, on the other hand, we have a civilization, so by definition we're "civilized". We're also a lot more civilized (using what I consider the moral definition) than many other societies have been throughout history, probably most.

Do you realize that taxes are not a violent institution robbing you of your livelihood? Yes.

Do you believe that people have a right to stay alive? Yes. I do NOT believe that other people have the right to tell those people what they can or cannot do, no matter how much they insist it is "well-meaning" control to keep those people alive. For instance, if a terminally ill person wants to die, I think they should have that right, TOO.

Okay, I answered your questions. Here are a few for you:

1) Do you think marijuana should be against the law?

2) Do you think alcohol should be against the law?

3) Do you think tobacco should be against the law?

4) Do you think that processed sugar should be against the law?

5) Do you think it should be against the law for two consenting adults of the same sex to have sex with each other in the privacy of their own home?

6) Do you think it should be legal for those two consenting gay adults to make a film of themselves having sex with each other?

7) Do you think it should be legal for the two consenting gay adults to give that film to another consenting adult to watch for their enjoyment?

8) Do you think it should be legal for the two consenting gay adults to sell that film to another consenting adult to watch for his or her enjoyment?

9) Now, repeat questions 5-8, but with consenting adult heterosexuals.

10) Do you think people should have the right to use birth control?

11) Do you think individual women, and not politicians and tv preachers, should be the ones in charge of their bodies when they're pregnant?

12) Do you think that the "right to stay alive" includes the right to use government and laws to tell other people what to do, when you don't like the choices they're making for themselves?

13) If an individual doesn't own his or her own body, and shouldn't be the final arbiter of all decisions pertaining to his or her own body, who does, and who should? (What other individual, individuals, or institution?)

"MY body doesn't belong to any church, or any state, it belongs to ME. Maybe that's a "teenagerish" philosophy. I don't give a fuck. I haven't been a "teenager" for quite a long time, and if anything, I'm MORE fed up with the busybodies and control freaks on this planet who seemingly have nothing better to do than try to run everyone else's life."

Well said.

You've got the righteous indignation down. In your other latest post, you also pull out the "you can't possibly understand libertarianism if you don't agree with it" fundie-style bullshit. And here you do the "duh, I forgot that you can quote my earlier words!" thing that I've noted libertarians as being so good at.

You didn't say this?

"What a consenting adult does with his or her own body is his or her own business, insofar as he or she isn't harming or endangering anyone else."
Then from the paragraph after that:
"Infantalizing people, saying they are the poor "victims" of industries that force them to make choices they shouldn't make, is a favorite tactic of control freaks of every stripe."

I should be able to do what I want, provided I don't hurt anyone, but if someone happens to get hurt, it's their own fault for putting themselves in that position. There are no victims for my actions, there is only myself, my wants, my needs. Me, me, me.
To me it looks as though you're doing away with the notion of people being capable of being victimized in that second sentence. Even if I'm way off base, you would still need a definition of "harm" for the first.

To answer your long line of repetitive questions, sure, do whatever you like to your own body. Are you perhaps arguing that myself - and a bevy of other people here at, say it with me here, DemocraticUnderground.com - are a bunch of dirty nanny-state communist librul hippies who want to snatch your guns and your beer? :) Well, some might be.

Beer, sugar, tobacco, trans-fat... Ingest all you like. Do you think that I should be allowed to sell you what amounts to disease in packaged form without informing you of such? Want to screw until your cock falls off? Go right the hell ahead, I see nobody standing in your way but the party of Sex Offenders and Child Molestation. Should it be allowed for a pimp to beat a woman because it "comes with the job?" Making a law against it would infringe her right to be a prostitute, after all.

in this thread have been mostly about name-calling and tautological would-be insults ("libertarians are selfish poopy-heads, because any libertarian who isn't a selfish poopy-head isn't really a libertarian!") and now, when all else fails, the best you can do is flail around at me with a bunch of ad hominem bullshit. I've put it clearly, concisely, and simply. Your response is, "oh! selfish libertarians! it's all about me!". Here's a news flash- Not only can I quote your words, I can quote the words you try to put in my mouth, that bear no fucking resemblance to words I've actually said, like:

"you can't possibly understand libertarianism if you don't agree with it"

...those are words you put in my mouth, which you called "fundie-style bullshit." That might... might, mind you, be "fundie style bullshit" if I had ever said anything even remotely resembling that. I didn't.

Find where I said that.


I'll wait.

...


No, see, you can't, because I never said anything like that. What I said was, you're conflating libertarianism with the big-L Libertarian party. And it seems to me you're denying that you're doing it (or maybe you're genuinely unaware that they're not one and the same) while you continue to do the very thing you say you're not doing. Maybe you studied under the Bush administration, which has been conflating Iraq and 9-11 for the past 5 years.. while simultaneously protesting that "we never said Iraq had anything to do with 9-11!"


But the absolute best part of your post? (this is classic) "this is -say it with me- democraticunderground". Yeah. And? So, uh, while we're busy not conflating small-l libertarianism with the Libertarian party, I'll excuse you while you continue to do just that. Of course, I could probably say "The corn is ready" and it appears you would hear me say "The Fritzhammit is warb flurg hooop". But back to.. as you put it, "say it with me.." democraticunderground.

(Not, of course, RalphNaderunderground or authoritarianunderground or stalinistunderground or even cindyfuckingsheehanisrunningagainstpelosiwoohoounderground.)

I will say that in your eagerness to stomp in and imply that someone like me doesn't belong here (and lets not kid ourselves, that's exactly what you're implying) you must have somehow missed a thread like this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1174589

Or, even better, a graph like this:



So, please.. find the 92% of that thread, along with the vast majority of the rest of DU who, like myself, identify as "left-libertarian"--- and explain to them in as snotty and snarky a tone as you can muster how they're all about "me, me, me!" because they insist on defending pesky, pain-in-the-ass concepts like personal liberty.

Be sure to inform them that this is democraticunderground, cough cough wink wink nudge nudge, and by all means question their- and my- party credentials and loyalty to the Democratic Party-

--and then you can sign off with your signature image of support for someone who is an independent and running against a Democrat.

If someone is harmed by an industry through dishonesty, negligence, etc. that is for sure "victimization". The people who got Chinese toothpaste with formaldehyde in it, for example. What I'm talking about is other people defining adults as "victims" of industries without those people's agreement. Women who have had abortions aren't generally running around screaming that they were forced to get abortions against their will- it's the religious right who is making that argument. Or, more precisely, that the choice women make to get abortions isn't really a choice because any woman who would choose to get an abortion is by definition incapable of making a rational choice. And same with porn. It's not porn stars who are the ones screaming for censorship, it's other folks who have taken it upon themselves to decide that the act of taking one's clothes off in front of a camera constitutes "victimization" and as such isn't a rational choice. As for your example of the pimp, assault is a crime and the situation you describe clearly implies non-consent. Of course, as I've said before, it is almost impossible for most folks trying to argue against the freedom of consenting adults to do what they choose with their own bodies without bringing non-adults or non-consent into it. I should get a prize, because it fucking happens every time.

As for the rest of your rant... You're a funny guy. You want to hold yourself up as debater champ, while you're spewing this ridiculous garbage about "dirty librul hippies" wanting to take my "beer and guns". Yeah, that and the "you just use the libertarian label because you want to look cool" really proves you have NO clue who you're talking to, Jack. I'm not dirty, but I'm certainly a liberal hippie as surely as I'm a left-libertarian one. I spent years following the Grateful Dead. (A lot of us have seriously libertarian leanings) Wait. What was that? libertarian?



oh nooo! there's that word again!

Yeah, anyway. And I have no interest in guns, and I have been clean- and sober- for years.

Yet somehow I still know prohibition was a waste of time, and the drug war is a fucking joke.

Go figure. Now, proceed to rant and fume and grouse and insult me some more, but two things are certain: One, I'm not going to stop calling myself a "left-libertarian", and two, I'm certainly not going to stop supporting, much less apologize for my unequivocal support for, the right of consenting adults to make their own damn decisions about their own bodies and lives. Maybe you should ask yourself why that simple philosophical concept bothers you so deeply.

Nite!

Here, try this on:
"Well, work on it some more. Start with the realization that libertarianism the philosophy and the big-L Libertarian Party are NOT one and the same. Rinse. Repeat."

I disagree with you on libertarianism. You tell me, in so many words, that this is due to my being an uneducated dumbfuck who thinks the Libertarian party equals libertarianism. You tell me to repeat to myself that they are different until it "sticks" - Did you outright say that I can't possibly understand libertarianism if I don't agree with it? No, not with those exact words. You imply very heavily that if I don't agree with you, then I have a flawed and inaccurate understanding.

However if you took a moment to take a gander at what I've been saying, you can pretty clearly note that I don't conflate the two. if I did, I would be one of the people calling libertarians "pot-smoking Republicans." Yeah I know, again with the "reading" thing. How dare I infringe on your FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOMRRRRGH!!!

(I can Google image search, too. Shall we continue?)

Do you belong on DU? Sure, the more the merrier. My point was that if you're one of those libertarians who sees tyranny and nanny-statism everywhere and pins the blame solely on those damn dirty apes librulz, you would be better off somewhere else. Thanks for clearing that up, but I had to ask, since we usually get the blame for all that. Can't trust a Gore '08 signature at face value, after all. Speaking of sig pictures, about mine - I'm hardly uncritical of Cindy. Her "run for office" makes me want to give her a swift kick in the ass.

Good, you realize that people can in fact be victimized. I stand corrected and am glad to have that cleared up. I'm still not sure why you're barking at me about porn and abortion, as if I'm some sort of tight-buttoned clinic-bomber or some shit like that, but hey, I'll be your demon for the day.

Regarding the pimp - Yes, it's a criminal assault, we agree on this. Where we disagree is whether it's consensual or not. Funny thing is, after ranting about people who say nobody could ever consent to porn or an abortion, you yourself appear to be saying that nobody could ever conceivably consent to violence upon their person. Logically though, a man or woman who decides to become a prostitute knows what they're getting into. Corny Julia Roberts movies aside, I find it hard to believe that many people become sex workers with a wide-eyed sense of naive and innocent wonder and absolutely no idea of what to expect from the occupation. When you sign on to ply the streets, there's the expectation that at some point in your life, a man in a purple suit named "Rufus Maximilian Snuggybear IV" is going to slap you. By taking the job you are agreeing to this, just the same as a stable hand is agreeing to smell like horse shit at the end of every day. By my position, it's still battery and still a crime. But by the argument you are making, these are two consenting adults engaging in a pre-arranged business discussion. Again I understand you see it as a crime as well, but I'm not seeing how your stance on that meshes too well with the "a consenting adult is never a victim" stance.

While on the topic... Can you be considered "consenting" even if you forget the safeword?

You're right, I don't know you. Given that you seem to have it stuck in your dead head that I think the Libertarian Party covers the breadth of libertarianism and that I (I love this part) hate freedom giggle snicker snort, I think we're on pretty even ground in the "You don't fucking know me, step the hell off" arena. Granted you do call yourself a libertarian, and you should know by now that most people's encounter with libertarians involve talking to the asshole scum of the earth you have decided are actually "objectivists" contrary to their own claims of being libertarian.

(Congratulations on being clean and sober, by the way - and I do mean that.)

That philosophical concept bothers me not at all. In fact, if you had been paying attention the first time around, you would note such. I also challenge you to find anywhere where I have given you cause to think I am some authoritarian tyrannical motherfucker out to criminalize passing wind at a picnic, or whatever hellishly evil plots you think I may have. You won't, except perhaps the part where I didn't agree with you wholeheartedly. Authoritarianism is bad, sure as shit. So is libertarianism, for all the same reasons, just with different methods. You need to adulterate the shit to make it reasonable by any stretch. Which you do, from what I can tell. I have even lauded you for it, but I suppose you may have misplaced your reading spectacles ;)

It just seemed to me that the two- libertarianism the philosophical position and the big-L Libertarian Party- were getting conflated in your posts. The post that was in response to was something to the effect of, "I don't understand left-libertarians any more than I understand log cabin Republicans". Now, maybe I'm looking at it like an SAT question, but if "left" is to "log cabin", then "libertarian" is to "Republican"... Get it? I sense an equivalence there- that 'libertarian' means "(L) Libertarian".

But, again. My intent wasn't to call you an uneducated dumbfuck but to stop what I saw as repeated conflation of the two. I may not agree with you on everything, but you're not a dumbfuck. :)

Moving on:

When you sign on to ply the streets, there's the expectation that at some point in your life, a man in a purple suit named "Rufus Maximilian Snuggybear IV"... etc.

Hey, google image search!



Not only is he a pimp, he's a racist, too. Bad dude.

Anyway. I don't disagree with what you say; but like the violence "associated with" the drug trade, I think a large number of those circumstances would be mitigated by legalization and subsequent regulation. (So there's your adulteration of the position, I guess) I don't know if legal prostitutes in Amsterdam or Nevada have to deal with the same issues re: pimps and violence. Also, a livable minimum wage (which, as you know, I support) would probably mitigate the economic factors driving some poor women into prostitution, if non-prostituting jobs paid enough to survive on.

I didn't say a consenting adult could 'never' be a victim. What I said was, we have a situation where people use a blanket, hokey definition of others AS victims as an excuse to advance agendas like, the criminalization of abortion or the criminalization of consenting adult porn. That's a fact. The general baseline for me is, again, what a consenting adult does with his or her own body should be his or her own business- that's the starting point. Since we live in a country where half the folks in prison are in there for non-violent drug offenses and people with painful diseases can't get adequate pain management because their doctors live in terror of the DEA, I think that defining public policy with at least a basic acknowledgment of that point- people should be left the hell alone about their bodies and choices- would be a welcome change of perspective, and then we can move on to the esoteric, exception-to-the-rule thought experiments like, "can a person consent to violence" or "what if they forget a safeword". Really, I don't think that's the majority of what's happening out there, any more than there are folks lined up around the block to marry box turtles the minute gay marriage is legalized.

Dig? Anyway, I hear what you're saying, I think you've heard me.

Peace.

ps. The Gore sticker? I didn't just put it in my sig, I made it. So yeah, it's a genuine sentiment.

between two groups - homosexuals and leftists, respectively - who identify with a group that generally wants to see them extinctified - conservatives and libertarians, respectively again.

And I was more picturing A Pimp Named Slickback... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkt490I0_2I

"Beer, sugar, tobacco, trans-fat... Ingest all you like. Do you think that I should be allowed to sell you what amounts to disease in packaged form without informing you of such?"

No, because that kind of violates the whole principle of not harming others.


"Want to screw until your cock falls off? Go right the hell ahead, I see nobody standing in your way but the party of Sex Offenders and Child Molestation. Should it be allowed for a pimp to beat a woman because it "comes with the job?" Making a law against it would infringe her right to be a prostitute, after all."

Child Molestation. Beating women. Nice. What part of consenting adults do you not understand? I don't think even objectivists support pimps beating women and child molestation. You've constructed quite a straw man, there.

"I see nobody standing in your way but the party of Sex Offenders and Child Molestors"

That's the Republicans, yo. Don't you read the headlines?

And if you honestly think that "objectivists" wouldn't support such actions, then you obviously haven't talked to many. No action too vile, no offense to great, so long as it can be rationalized. I was stuck in a cesspit of libertarians when I lived in Alaska. If there were any "left libertarians" in the area, they werre hiding in caves living off of berries or something.

I do want to state, here and clear, I in no way support or endorse the treatment sex workers receive from both pimps and clients. it should not be that way but it unfortunately is that way, thus the relevance of the argument. 'Course, if prostitution ceased being a criminal enterprise, I would imagine most of the criminal acts endemic to the profession would wither away, as well...

Oh wait, I'm being authoritarian again, I'm sure. I have no idea how, but I must be!

To me a left libertarian keeps the social justice agenda that most right wing libertarians oppose. Right wing libertarians want the freedom to exploit those who work for them, the freedom to make products that might hurt people and cost too much.


1) Do you think marijuana should be against the law? YES

2) Do you think alcohol should be against the law? NO

3) Do you think tobacco should be against the law? YES

4) Do you think that processed sugar should be against the law? NO

5) Do you think it should be against the law for two consenting adults of the same sex to have sex with each other in the privacy of their own home? NO

6) Do you think it should be legal for those two consenting gay adults to make a film of themselves having sex with each other? YES

7) Do you think it should be legal for the two consenting gay adults to give that film to another consenting adult to watch for their enjoyment? YES

8) Do you think it should be legal for the two consenting gay adults to sell that film to another consenting adult to watch for his or her enjoyment? YES

9) Now, repeat questions 5-8, but with consenting adult heterosexuals. NO, YES, YES YES to the repeated questions

10) Do you think people should have the right to use birth control? YES

11) Do you think individual women, and not politicians and tv preachers, should be the ones in charge of their bodies when they're pregnant? WOMEN

12) Do you think that the "right to stay alive" includes the right to use government and laws to tell other people what to do, when you don't like the choices they're making for themselves? I believe suicide appears illegal, but if someone wants no heroic medical care then that appears ok by me.

13) If an individual doesn't own his or her own body, and shouldn't be the final arbiter of all decisions pertaining to his or her own body, who does, and who should? (What other individual, individuals, or institution?) Noone but the person themself owns their own body.

caution with this guy.

I have been completely fighting my few Libertarian friends for weeks since Ron Paul started tricking people..
My best friend is a gay man and an extreme capitalist, he would vote R if not for the fact he were gay.. I think you pretty much summed up every category of Libertarian, and you're dead on that the elimination of social programs would be the first think he would do...

Not much of a Democratic value, thats for sure..

I want out of Iraq too, but I'm not a moran and this one trick pony inst fooling me.

Send him back to his Most Polluted County in America.

http://lungaction.org/reports/sota07_cities.html

2007 Rank1

Metropolitan Statistical Areas

1 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA
2 Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA
3 Fresno-Madera, CA
4 Bakersfield, CA

It looks like the liberals in Cali have work ahead.

3 out of the 4 top polluters.

Go take a trip to Houston, no doubt counties in California are polluted, and I hardly think that has anything to do with Liberals seeing that Southern California is where all the repukes hide.

its almost fishy how little its not on there.

And just to be a punk rock bitch, Sublime actually covered that Bad Religion song ;)

... the "maverick" who provides an entertaining and offbeat "centrist" position, and with McCain's candidacy failing (not that he wasn't actually one of the most conservative Senators we have), someone stood to be this year's H. Ross Perot, and that appears to be
Ron Paul.

The question is, if he runs as an independent, does he siphon of more GOP or Dem votes? In 1992, especially, Perot seemed to be a magnet for disgruntled Repubs. The fear is that the youth vote, often the most accepting of 3rd party bids, could get seduced by this guy, and the media will be content to play him up as an interesting wild card until and unless they decide to paint him as a flake as often does happen with these guys. Whatever happens, he'll surely get a fairer shake from the media than any Democratic candidate will.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

some good examples can be found at the Charley Reese Archives.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese-arch.html

that's PERFECT. Exactly what it is. Love it.

Sometimes I hate Libertarians more than conservatives. They're just professional curmudgeons who like to argue and are convinced of their own brilliance.

and by true, I mean the ones who actually vote Libertarian or Independent, and who try to live as they preach, sort of instead of the ones who defend Bush's insane Big Crony Government and Big Spending yet call themselves Libertarians.

I can totally agree with some of the ideas - that many of the so-called vice laws are a waste of time/money and just create criminals, but I can't agree with their economic non-policy or that Free market BS.

And I know this is shocking, but I know a lot of Libertarians and not one of them has come from or experienced anything remotely like poverty.

Libertarianism as a philosophy seeks to spread and preserve the gap between have and have not. And naturally nobody who is a have-not would support such an idea.

is an extreme idealogy. While I do agree with many social libertarian policies, I disagree with their economic ones. They are very dangerous.

Libertarian party and economic Libertarianism.

See, the word is so dangerous that well-meaning people go into it thinking they support the right of people to make their own decisions about their lives and bodies, and they come out hyp-mo-tized into flat tax supporting Grover Norquist zombies. :eyes:

It's a bullshit smear tactic, and we've seen this identical thread before countless times. It gives some folks here a chance to grind an axe at the many self-identified left-libertarians here on DU under the guise of bitching about the big-L libertarian party.

Sorry, many of us left-libertarians are perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

and he is one of the few to talk about the real problems, but his solutions are not to the satisfaction of everybody...

his speech "Neo – CONNED !" from 2003 for example, who is willing to say this ?


Congressman Ron Paul warns of a contrived incident to provoke war with Iran, a "Gulf of Tonkin" type incident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d8MIENVtKw

The End of Dollar Hegemony
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm






Iran Asks Japan to Pay Yen for Oil, Start Immediately
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&sid=aLaColVYu5LA


US debt could trigger dollar collapse, UN warns
http://pressesc.com/01180629622_dollar_falls
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs//2007/070530_Ocampo.doc.htm

BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/06/25/cncredit125.xml


Putin wants new economic "architecture"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/10/business/forum.php

Ron Paul is no more electable than any of them, while also carrying severe baggage in terms of what is anti-working class policies would do to the already suffering American poor. Why support him over, for example, the Green Party candidate?

Paul chose the Republicans because he said to run on any other platform you have to be a billionaire.

I would prefer a race like Kucinich vs Paul over Hillary vs Giuliani, but it's probably not going to happen.



I think it's great that he is out there exposing the Neocons for what they are.
Injecting real issues into debates etc., I don't expect more.

No matter who wins, we lose.

don't use him as a springboard for yet another round of small-l libertarian bashing on DU, please.

Oh, tttttttttttthhank you for not "dismissing such folks out of hand", :eyes: even though as near as I can tell, that's pretty much the point of your OP. Just so you know, I don't automatically dismiss authoritarian control freak types out of hand, even though I think that people who feel it's their divine entitlement to use the apparatus of government to tell consenting adult individuals what they can do with their own bodies, what they can do in the privacy of their own homes, and what they can say or think are full of shit, as well as themselves.

Here's the deal, jack. I'm perfectly proud to identify as "left-libertarian". Being a complex person with a fully (I hope) functional cerebellum, I am surprisingly able to support civil liberties, the right of consenting adults to do what they damn well please with their own bodies and minds in the privacy of their own homes, etc. etc. while also supporting things like a SPHC system and a livable minimum wage. Gee, whiz... how can that be, when I've so obviously been seduced by a "doctrine of not looking out for the other guy"?

Here's another thread about a pesky "libertarian" minded organization you may have heard of:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1445230

Maybe they should just fold up their tents and go home, because, as you say, in the era of "Reagan/Fox/Bush/Drudge" (when individuals are facing an unprecedented level of attacks on their freedoms and civil liberties, by the way) obviously the small-l libertarian credo of mind your own fucking business is -gasp- daaaaaaaaaaaaaaangerous! :eyes:

You know what? I see the 400 Billion + we've spent in Iraq, and I DO want smaller government. I see the half-trillion we spend a year on the Military-Industrial complex, and I DO want smaller government. I see $40 Billion a year (not including the costs of incarcerating millions of non-violent drug offenders) spent trying to keep Willie Nelson and cancer grannies from smoking pot, and I DO want smaller government.

I want smaller government, and I want smarter government. I think there are things that are often handled better by the collective; health care, infrastructure, cutting edge scientific research and even peaceful space exploration.

Given the fact that the GOP has been taken over wholesale by Theocratic nutjobs, if anything, libertarianism is a gateway drug OUT of the Republican Party; the rub is, we need to give those folks something to migrate to- unfortunately, too many of our candidates are listening to tired old DLC bullshit about how the "values voter" runs the show in this country, and that what they need to do is run, not walk, away from reproductive choice, separation of church and state, and gay rights. That's bullshit. There's a reason libertarian (of any stripe) rhetoric has so much appeal in BOTH parties; because neither party has done a very good job of speaking to those impulses (remember how Terri Schiavo bit the GOP on the ass?)- and as much as you may wrinkle your nose at the "l" word, many of those impulses - like the impulse to let individuals manage their OWN personal business- ARE legitimate.

So please don't take Ron Paul as an excuse to lash out at the many, many of us on DU who identify proudly as "left-libertarian", and if you think that these screeds are somehow going to make us stop with our pesky insistence on the rights of individuals to be left alone in their private business- not just from corporations but from an increasingly theocratic government as well- you're sadly mistaken.

http://politicalcompass.org

The Dalai Lama also qualifies as "left-libertarian". Would you like to use him as an excuse to wave the "l" word around like it's a piece of dog doo on a stick?

... my opening point that "libertarian" describes a wide variety of different positions, the first of which sounds pretty admirable on the face of it, go ahead and decide that I'm being a jerk.

Sounds like it concerns you as much as it does me that a Ron Paul gets a free pass from some folks because he plays the libertarian card, even while he's a card-carrying (-R).

My point is that, like "person of faith," "libertarian" is a term that can cover a multitude of sins as well as virtues, and that -- at least in my experience -- more often than not, so-called libertarians are conservatives looking for a sexier brand. Also, libertarian "small government" imagery has been a cudgel used by Repubs with stunning success to appear to be cost-cutters when they're merely deficit-spenders and wealth-redistributors.

Left-libertarian seems a much more admirable position than right-libertarian, because it suggests (feel free to correct me) modifying pure survival-of-the-fittest thinking with social remediation where it makes sense. Right-libertarian is essentially what we have now -- freedom only for the fittest (or at least richest, most amoral, and most well-connected), and welfare for them, too.


___

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for folks to grind axes against anyone who dares self-identify with the "l" word. Upthread someone makes the point that they hate "libertarians" MORE than conservatives. Given that the GOP has adopted pretty much every tenet of the big-L Libertarian Party's economic agenda except cutting military spending, and combined it with a crazy, 6000 year-old-flat-Earth Theocratic agenda, I have to wonder - how can that be? Libertarians are worse?

Paul is a Republican, first and foremost. Like I said, he thinks government should force women to remain pregnant against their will. He doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. That's a funny brand of any kind of "libertarianism", if you ask me.

As for the word itself, like you say, it covers a broad spectrum. I do think there is a libertarian wing of the GOP that is genuinely alienated by the God goons who have taken it over. Perhaps the thing for our party to do is figure out issues where we could appeal to them (ending the drug war, guaranteeing the right of people to control their own bodies, equal rights for gays, a broad stand for civil liberties, against censorship, etc.) as well as articulating a cogent argument for things like Single Payer and liveable min. wage, not just from a social justice perspective but also from a logical economic one... (in the process, by standing up strong for those things, we would bring Greens and Naderites on board)

...anyway, that's just my thinking. Sorry. Didn't mean to overreact to your OP. I've just seen a bunch of these threads that turned into excuses for people to grouse about the "l" (small l) word.

I appreciate your follow-up comments!

I do think there is a fundamental issue that will continue to haunt the alliance between libertarians and liberals, and that is the GOP's ongoing embrace of key libertarian language, especially the magic "no/low taxes." I think a lot of those who are more-or-less alienated from the Repubs can't get their mind around siding with the party that has so regularly been tarred "tax-and-spend," while the GOP's "borrow-and-spend" ways haven't gotten them much of the bad rep they deserve, thanks in no small part to their cozy relationship with the so-called liberal media.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

Go figure.

I'd like to see a wholesale discussion about, and re-evaluation of, ALL our fiscal priorities. (I'd like a pony, too!)

I happen to believe that money on infrastructure, money on education, money on research, and certainly money on a single payer health care system would be money well spent. Nobody likes paying taxes, but the reality is the burden should be distributed equitably; as it stands, the system is gamed to give the billionaires and the corporations a break. Headway could be made with the "low/no taxes" crowd if it could be demonstrated, simply and elegantly, that the savings in wasteful government boondoggles -like needless wars, a bloated military, an apparatus to fight some drugs, etc. could make up the difference.

Only the hard-core on either side really think that, one, government is going away, or two, that it should and can pay for everything, no questions asked. The issue is what should we all pay for, how and who should pay, and is it worth it in terms of lives bettered and problems solved?

I cannot stand economic libertarians like Koch and Gravel, but I appreciate some social libertarianism (drug legalization and safety laws).

Except the cerebellum part. The cerebellum maintains your balance and coordination....the cerebrum is the thinking part.

Otherwise, top notch.

My balance and coordination are pretty bad, and I mix up words. Hey, maybe I don't have either.

There is a currently unrealized political re-alignment that gathers together right and left libertarians along common goals. Instead we have the War Party controlling the apparatus of both de-facto Official Parties and the Bullshit Media System.

is that he is honest about what he believes, and he talks sense about the real causes of the terror threat--our insane foreign policy. People are sick of bullshit, and whether you agree with Paul's ideas or not--I don't--he doesn't seem to be bullshitting us about what he thinks.

Doesn't it also matter what it is that he believes in?

That includes killing Medicare, a woman's right to choose, etc., etc.


___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

People are sick of being bullshitted, aren't you? Paul seems like he'd actually do what he says he would. It's the same quality that gave Ross Perot and Ralph Nader the votes they got. For Republicans, credibility is an extremely rare commodity.

the guy is a loon, if people seriously think this guy "talks sense," the country is in worse trouble than i thought

When asked if 9/11 changed the American foreign policy model to "interventionalism," Ron Paul answered that it was our pre-9/11 interventionalism — and the "blowback" that ensued — that was to blame for terrorism and the 9/11 attacks. This prompted Rudy Giuliani, who maintains like George Bush that they "hate us for our freedoms," to jump in and demand Paul retract his "absurd" statement.

Who do you think is talking sense here?

Ron Paul agrees with me :)

I would not vote for Ron Paul.

invariably when a person i know says they are libertarian, it means that they do not want any pesky gov't referee stopping them from poisoning the commons whether thru unfair labor practices (cheating the worker of his rightful pay and benefits) or being able to bring untested/unproven/unsafe/polluting products to market

"let the market decide" shows a piss poor understanding of how market forces work -- for the market to decide, it had to have full knowledge, for it to have full knowledge that say a drug is a bad one that kills instead of cures, people have to die

libertarians don't care if i die or if your grandma dies, all they care about is the $$$$ bill

i heard the term here on DU first but "dope smoking republican" describes them best, altho the ones i know don't actually smoke dope, they are merely in favor of other people doing it so that they can't be strong competitors against them in school or business


all these people who want drugs and sex sold freely and without regulation, i say, let them be sold freely in your communities FIRST because i am damn sick and tired of the impact being had on having them sold in MINE

let pot be legal, yes, but let it be regulated, same for sex, same for anything really -- if the game has no referee, the big boys will cheat and the little guy stands no chance -- people who don't understand that libertarianism gives the big boys all the edge are fools and should play sports or cards or ANY game so that they can figure out how the world works, they need to push away the internet and the ayn rand/robert heinlein junk propaganda

their proposed solutions, however, are frequently off-the-wall . . .

The right has renounced liberty and constitutional protections in everthing but their rhetoric. The stereotype of a libertarian as part of the late 20th century conservative alliance is obsolete.

Your mention "left leaning libertarians" as if they are rare.

But the alliance of libertarians with the Republican Party and with Big Brother conservatism has been shattered.

Some insight into current thought:

Alliance of the Libertarian Left has many links.

The writing of Anthony Gregory may be of interest.

I still think he's the only Republican candidate who has a sane mind. Yes, he behave kinda O'Reilly-like when he wrote there was a 'War against Christmas' and later: 'War against Christianity'... Yes, he scared the crap out of me when he said there's no separation of church and state.

But STILL...

He voted against the Iraq War.
He won't support a war with Iran.
He's against the US meddling in the Middle East.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against the Military Commissions Act (you know, the one that suspended Habeas Corpus).

We can't say Hillary did any of that.

When it comes to the definition of 'libertarian', I think you're right. I've known libertarians who supported the war in Iraq, who support privatizing everything, who support big companies using slavery and child labor in Third World countries just to keep prices low for us (yes, they actually said they supported that!).

But then there's Bill Maher who says he's a libertarian and I agree with him 99% of the time. (The only thing I don't agree on with him that I can think of is capital punishment-- he supports that, I reject it.) Or is Bill just a liberal in disguise?

All we need is a top tier Democratic presidential candidate willing to repudiate American Imperialism and loudly defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Easy as that. In such a case, Paul becomes a non-factor. No gullible Dems need get fooled by Paul's "one-issue" appeal. They could stay comfortably at home.

ron paul isn't our problem, he's THEIR problem, it's the GOP who wants gov't drowned in a bathtub and no regulation of business ala china's "let's poison the pets and the panamanians" model

the appeal of libertarianism is to extremely stupid, naive, and simple minded people w. no experience of the world

since most of the stupid vote the other way anyway i say let mr paul continue to spew his nonsense

Because it doesn’t fit with the current party-line Paul bashing talking points?

Many Dems are not aware of what Paul stands for outside of his anti-war and pro-civil liberties views. And many are considering supporting him. Call them stupid if you like. In fact insult them up one side and down the other - it changes nothing. We are going to need the votes of an AWFUL LOT of stupid people if we plan to win back the presidency. Maybe you just don't want to win - if it would mean a change in Corporate Imperial course?

let's worry about real issues and real strategies

i see "ron paul" revolution signs in scottsdale, arizona, and covington, louisiana, republican strongholds

he is their ralph nader, not ours

"everybody" is in favor of the constitution, loudly saying how much you like the constitution is empty cant and the GOP sez it as loudly as anyone

... is that electoral support for the two parties is at near parity.

Every vote counts (which isn't to say every vote will be counted).

That said, you may well be right, and this will be a Perot effect rather than a George Wallace effect.


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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

Dorkistan? :)
It's precisely because they aren't the cool kids, that those poor befuddled dweebs turn to and swallow Rand's poorly written screeds.

I do like your analysis of the buffet line approach of many self-described libertarians

:rofl: