The Trouble with Libertarians

originally posted by: SantaClaus
I've not been on this site for quite a while and the facil arguments I've seen displayed don't make me regret it. Small government? This is a talking point for the children on FOXnews. We have no option for small government anymore. We live in the 21st century and our basic groundwork is laid out before us. Work with what you have, not the silly intangibles that you just wish for.

We could return to small government if people went out to vote in droves for small government representatives.

Governments change and evolve all the time, no reason why the US government can't change too.

Would you have thought the Soviet government could change in the 1980's? No one did, until the fall of the USSR due to overly bloated big government that can not work with large populations.

Even China has undergone a lot of changes since the days of Mao when people thought no change could ever occur.

The US is perilously close to the old Soviet and Mao type governments with it's over the top IRS,NSA,TSA etc surveillance of all people and moving toward punishing all who aren't towing the "liberal" line. I hear regularly Democratic party leaders calling for the "punishment" of those who disagree with their policies.

It is only a matter of time that it will happen now that our government is no longer under the rule of law but the rule of party. The Democratic party constantly ignores the law, breaks it (by circumventing congress and having the President rewrite laws - which is against US laws)
and does whatever it wants saying we've got the President and we can do whatever we want to the people and the government.

It might be that pure libertarianism is extreme in the other direction. But that is exactly what the US needs to return to a more sane form of government. One that is not rule of party or a democratic dictatorship that we have now.


If the Soviets and Chinese can change their governments,

if the people of the world could undo the Roman Empire through refusing to obey;

the USA can do it too.



What we need is enough fed up people to actually vote for small government,

return to the constitution,


where the federal government's only role should be protection of the country as a whole; interstate commerce; international commerce; international relations.

The rest needs to be returned to the states where the populations are small enough as to be manageable to govern

without resorting to what the US has become today, a democratic dictatorship

that seeks to destroy everyone that disagrees with them (not physically, yet, but ones ability to work or be accepted in the country)

originally posted by: Dfairlite
Healthcare - People should be free to buy healthcare as they need and choose (no government necessary)
Living wage - People should be free to negotiate a wage suitable to their skills (again, the people have the power, no government necessary)
Gun bans - People should have the right to decide how to defend themselves, government regulations on buying weapons presumes guilt of those buying. (no government intervention necessary)
Student loans - if you can't afford it, save for it. OR if you have the credit, get a loan. (no government guarantee necessary)

hmm.. all you said sounds nice on paper, but it falls flat on its face in reality.

the proof for this is that we have social security, medicare, and medicade.

if your system worked, we wouldn't have had this,
hell; we wouldn't have had all this talk about healthcare reform in the firstplace.

I'm not against market systems in general, I'm against the toxic philosophy of market fundimentalism

a reply to: Dfairlite

a Progressive believes that the role government is to administer power appropriately; in the interests of protecting the positive liberty of the majority of it's citizens. It's recognition of how the market while effective at some things, often dehumanizes many people within it, into being commodities, and that there is a need to prevent abuse as companies seek profits.

a reply to: grandmakdw

a joke in Post-Soviet Russia
"Everything the Communists told us about communism was a complete and utter lie. Unfortunately, everything the Communists told us about capitalism turned out to be true."

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName
Hmmm. "Conservative Hippy." I don't know about that. Here's a little about me, and tell me if I fit that description.
Marine
Married
Working class
Don't smoke or do drugs
Christian
Traditional family values supporter
Pro second amendment but personally apathetic about guns
Healthy lifestyle
Pro life
Anti ACA
Anti Alphabet Soup Agencies
US Isolationist supporter
Light immigration control
Strong military but not spread over the globe; see isolationist
Hate republicans and democrats equally
Basically against the government telling me how to live, what to do, and dictating everything for me
Etc.

originally posted by: NonsensicalUserName

originally posted by: Dfairlite
Healthcare - People should be free to buy healthcare as they need and choose (no government necessary)
Living wage - People should be free to negotiate a wage suitable to their skills (again, the people have the power, no government necessary)
Gun bans - People should have the right to decide how to defend themselves, government regulations on buying weapons presumes guilt of those buying. (no government intervention necessary)
Student loans - if you can't afford it, save for it. OR if you have the credit, get a loan. (no government guarantee necessary)

hmm.. all you said sounds nice on paper, but it falls flat on its face in reality.

the proof for this is that we have social security, medicare, and medicade.

if your system worked, we wouldn't have had this,
hell; we wouldn't have had all this talk about healthcare reform in the firstplace.

I'm not against market systems in general, I'm against the toxic philosophy of market fundimentalism

a reply to: Dfairlite

This system did work; for a time. With humans, corruption and greed inevitably infect any organisation. When people get lazy and don't want to earn their bread, we have this demand for the government to provide everything.

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic."
-Benjamin Franklin

a reply to: JackSparrow17

but the systems didn't work.

you had people who's retirement savings were wiped out by unregulated banking, who didn't even have savings to begin with because they were living paycheck to paycheck, and then suffered a debilitating injury. What about those people??

Unregulated banking is like drunk driving IMO, either it will lead to people storing money in their mattresses again, or some senior citizens waking up one day to find their pensions and retirement savings looted by wall-street.

life is often quite unfair, and therefore we should have a way of helping the unfortunate, private charity lacks to sheer resources, and authority alone to do this, hence why we rely on government.

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName

Ahhh. You must be referring to the fraudulent sham of a system we've had since the democrats instituted the federal reserve in 1913. The last 100 years have been a crock.

a reply to: JackSparrow17


you are aware of the numerous financial/banking collapses.

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: NonsensicalUserName
a reply to: JackSparrow17

you are aware of the numerous financial/banking collapses.

en.wikipedia.org...

You are aware that many of those were caused by central banks not getting their way at times? Also even with the Federal Reserve, we still go through expansions and contractions of the economy. It's no different than before. The idea that "we won't go through crashes anymore" that they sell you as an excuse to keep the Federal Reserve is BULLCRAP. Keep in mind that the Depression in 1929 was caused by banks. The recession a few years back, caused by banks. The recession we will hit in a few years (yes it will happen, the economy can only expand for so long before contracting even if that growth is largely stagnant) will be caused by banks. F# banks, especially the Federal Reserve.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

to some degree;

saying the US had a central bank in the years between 1863 and 1913, is kind of a half-truth.

the US had "National Banks"; privately owned entities existing in a specific regulatory structure;
en.wikipedia.org...
this page goes into some of the specifics of the reasons why the act was passed, and is quite well written. This act effectively created the single federally-issued paper currency of the greenback.

I agree banks are part of the problem.

Frankly I find it essential that we regulate banks and the financial industry in general, as they're private/commercial interests using other people's money for personal gain, and have a great deal of influence over the supply of money in the economy. (while you could argue the government is similar, we elect officials to government positions, who are supposed to use pulbic funds in the interests of the public/people they represent).

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName

So? Banks suck. They always have. The Fed sucks. Sorry these are low level arguments.

a reply to: JackSparrow17

no they're not,

they might-be low level counter-arguements, but you were the one who said:

Ahhh. You must be referring to the fraudulent sham of a system we've had since the democrats instituted the federal reserve in 1913. The last 100 years have been a crock.

and I demonstrated that similar issues arose before the federal reserve was even formed. and thus, likely is something inherent with a financial system that isn't properly regulated.

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName

Perhaps a return to the barter system? In truth, all systems are flawed. We are living in a worse system that the Fed created, however.
The true culprits in the modern economic system are the banks and the power they wield.

a reply to: JackSparrow17

Yes; exactly why the financial industry should be regulated.

and I don't mean the half-assed regulation that has former executives of corporate firms in charge of a "regulating" group.
I mean some honest regulation, by people without conflicts of interest with the financial system.

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName

The only way you get that sort of unbiased type of system is with robots. When you put people in charge of regulating the economic wealth of peoples, inevitably greed will come into play. Therefore, I propose a financial regulatory committee, entirely comprised of factory robots. In this way we know our monies will be safe.After all, the robot in Willy Wonka wouldn't cheat. Not even for chocolate!

a reply to: JackSparrow17
eh; perhaps that's possible.. it would be a pain in the a$$ but it's possible...
I used to think in terms of a society where law ran like a computer-program.
but the challenges are the infrastructure and implementation of such a thing.

but let me put it another way.

There are agencies already in existance that does such a thing(regulate the financial industry), but they're led by those who have major conflicts-of-interest as far as the financial industry is concerned; and furthermore de-regulation has removed their ability to prosecute corporations or people for certain actions.

So you would put people in charge who have no idea how these firms have been doing business? (not saying ignorant to the industry)

That sounds like a less than adequate way to regulate, just as bad or worse than the current situation.

Also, Social Security started out as a 1% tax. I don't think anyone has a problem with that, but 12% is a little much, especially with the negative rate of return. The average person could retire a millionaire before 50 if they took that money and put it in a mutual fund, just sayin...

You can't regulate human nature. The sooner the left realizes that, the better off we will be.

The more you regulate, the more people will try to work around said regulations, and the more catastrophic the resulting failure will be.

originally posted by: poncho1982
You can't regulate human nature. The sooner the left realizes that, the better off we will be.

The more you regulate, the more people will try to work around said regulations, and the more catastrophic the resulting failure will be.

if what you say is true, than no regulation is the answer. we would turn into Afghanistan, where the highest bidder, or the most physically brutal would rule.

a reply to: jimmyx

WHAT ARE WE Ghengis Kahn's hordes or something? BACK AND WHITE THINKING is NOT going to get it at ALL. Americans are FAR TOO complex for simplistic minimalist ideas. The experiment continues...