Libertarians know. Do you?

[LoneLaugher]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

 

[gipper]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They don't.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They don't.

But they do. You don't wish to admit it for obvious reasons.

 

[FA_Q2]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They don't.

But they do. You don't wish to admit it for obvious reasons.

Define what you mean by 'get along so well.'

I tend to think that most people get along in general regardless of political leanings.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Apparently you have no idea what libertarianism is or what libertarians believe and should thus refrain from attempting to speak for us until you have done some homework on the subject.

The foundation of libertarianism is the non-aggression principle (NAP) and there are a plethora of interpretations as to how that affects the framework and operative mechanics of the state and that includes anarcho-<fill in the blank> libertarians.

The fact of the matter is, most people conduct there day to day lives in accordance with the NAP in that they recognize aggression against others is immoral (or at least ill-advised) many however operate under the cognitive dissonance that aggression by the state is somehow morally justified.

We'd all be speaking german or japanese right now if that was the standard in 1940.

We wouldn't have gotten involved in WWII if we were working under the NAP?

Am I living in an alternative timeline where Pearl Harbor never happened?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Where libertarians disagree is when you start to define protecting people as giving them other peoples' money.

Yes, you are definitely the party of "I've got mine, fuck you!" The real world doesn't work like that. The real world, you don't let people starve because hungry people get angry and desperate and do irrational things.

No one is starving in the US in fact our so called poor are the fattest richest "poor" people in the world

 

[Imissbush]

If you are not dedicated to the destruction of empire and the dismantling of American militarism, then you cannot count yourself as a member of the left. It is not a side issue. It is the issue. Militarists and war profiteers are our greatest enemy. They use fear, bolstered by racism, as a tool in their efforts to abolish civil liberties, crush dissent and ultimately extinguish democracy. To produce weapons and finance military expansion, they ruin the domestic economy by diverting resources, scientific and technical expertise and a disproportionate share of government funds. They use the military to carry out futile, decades-long wars to enrich corporations such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. War is a business. And when the generals retire, guess where they go to work? Profits swell. War never stops. Whole sections of the earth live in terror. And our nation is disemboweled and left to live under what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.” Libertarians seem to get this. It is time the left woke up.

Written by Chris Hedges and well done I say. The real enemy is indeed within. When will the American people wake up?


The Real Enemy Is Within

It's almost as bad f Putin wants us to go Libertarian. No US military would be fine with him

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They don't.

But they do. You don't wish to admit it for obvious reasons.

These days, most libertarian types I know would be considered right leaning, and probably a bit more likely to vote republican than democrat, and I include myself in these distinctions. The reason for that is that we've come to a point where the democrats and the mainstream left tend to be more authoritarian than the right, at least in rhetoric.

Republicans tend to run campaigns based on lowering taxes and cutting government spending. Libertarians tend to like this idea because those of us that lean libertarian don't tend to be big fans of society working on the assumption that all property belong first to the government and then to the individual that acquired it, so long as the government doesn't decide that they "need" it. Being able to decide what you do with your own shit and what you do on your own property are pretty big deals for those who champion individual liberty. Now, mind you, once they get into office they tend to roll over and capitulate to the large items in the democrat agenda, while quietly initiating their own spending increases to benefit their donor buddies, just like the democrats do, and libertarians do notice this. That's why, even when we're standing alongside the right wing in opposition to certain (most) democrat agenda items, we still don't tend to like it when you label us conservatives or (especially) republicans.

At one point, the left had the right beat on the social issues, from a libertarian standpoint. Way back when, lefties in this country were about free speech, free love, and equality in the eyes of the law. Libertarians are all about free speech and free love, as these are basic individual freedoms, and you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would identify themselves as a libertarian who doesn't believe that Lady Justice should never be caught dead without her blindfold tied tight. But, on the left, all that's changed. Now it's about shutting down hate speech and "misleading news", and using the force of government to create protected classes of citizens. In terms of hate speech and "misleading" political articles, these ideals involve giving people in power the authority to declare speech true or false, or declare it safe or dangerous, and then criminalize people for violating these declarations. Most libertarians consider this sort of control over speech as the ultimate threat to individual freedom in the long term. As far as using the weight of law to create protected classes, I'll grant you that we're not as bad here as in the rest of the English speaking countries of the west. Thus far, only The People's Republic of California has passed any laws that criminalize misgendering trans people in similar fashion to what they've done in Canada, and even then the California version supposedly applies only to the care home setting. Also, to my knowledge US citizens, unlike UK citizens, can't get arrested for say, criticizing the wrong religion. That said, the people still rockin the "Hate Speech isn't Free Speech" signs even after the unanimous SCOTUS opinion to the contrary in that recent case with The Slants, tend to be the same people telling us that only (and all) white people can be (and are) racist, and that it's okay to call for their genocide because it's unlikely that a genocide will succeed because they have "all the institutional power", but when they disagree with the social justice take on a racial or gender issue, they're denying that race or that gender's right to exist. Many libertarian types that I know and speak to are under the impression (and for good reason) that the impetus is certainly there within the democrat party ranks to install some of these standards that legally enshrine specific groups of people and make it criminal to question certain ideologies.

Here's a thought. It could be that all the people who claim to champion personal liberty are just shameful, closet republicans.

Or, it could be that, when all of the people who champion individual freedom start jumping off of your ship, it's because you've become the moral authoritarian.​

 

[gipper]

If you are not dedicated to the destruction of empire and the dismantling of American militarism, then you cannot count yourself as a member of the left. It is not a side issue. It is the issue. Militarists and war profiteers are our greatest enemy. They use fear, bolstered by racism, as a tool in their efforts to abolish civil liberties, crush dissent and ultimately extinguish democracy. To produce weapons and finance military expansion, they ruin the domestic economy by diverting resources, scientific and technical expertise and a disproportionate share of government funds. They use the military to carry out futile, decades-long wars to enrich corporations such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. War is a business. And when the generals retire, guess where they go to work? Profits swell. War never stops. Whole sections of the earth live in terror. And our nation is disemboweled and left to live under what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.” Libertarians seem to get this. It is time the left woke up.

Written by Chris Hedges and well done I say. The real enemy is indeed within. When will the American people wake up?


The Real Enemy Is Within

It's almost as bad f Putin wants us to go Libertarian. No US military would be fine with him

What is it with people who only think in black or white?

No one is suggesting the US government eliminate it's military.

To minimize the heinous nature of the US gov's military today, is to admit one is uninformed.

 

[gipper]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They don't.

But they do. You don't wish to admit it for obvious reasons.

These days, most libertarian types I know would be considered right leaning, and probably a bit more likely to vote republican than democrat, and I include myself in these distinctions. The reason for that is that we've come to a point where the democrats and the mainstream left tend to be more authoritarian than the right, at least in rhetoric.

Republicans tend to run campaigns based on lowering taxes and cutting government spending. Libertarians tend to like this idea because those of us that lean libertarian don't tend to be big fans of society working on the assumption that all property belong first to the government and then to the individual that acquired it, so long as the government doesn't decide that they "need" it. Being able to decide what you do with your own shit and what you do on your own property are pretty big deals for those who champion individual liberty. Now, mind you, once they get into office they tend to roll over and capitulate to the large items in the democrat agenda, while quietly initiating their own spending increases to benefit their donor buddies, just like the democrats do, and libertarians do notice this. That's why, even when we're standing alongside the right wing in opposition to certain (most) democrat agenda items, we still don't tend to like it when you label us conservatives or (especially) republicans.

At one point, the left had the right beat on the social issues, from a libertarian standpoint. Way back when, lefties in this country were about free speech, free love, and equality in the eyes of the law. Libertarians are all about free speech and free love, as these are basic individual freedoms, and you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would identify themselves as a libertarian who doesn't believe that Lady Justice should never be caught dead without her blindfold tied tight. But, on the left, all that's changed. Now it's about shutting down hate speech and "misleading news", and using the force of government to create protected classes of citizens. In terms of hate speech and "misleading" political articles, these ideals involve giving people in power the authority to declare speech true or false, or declare it safe or dangerous, and then criminalize people for violating these declarations. Most libertarians consider this sort of control over speech as the ultimate threat to individual freedom in the long term. As far as using the weight of law to create protected classes, I'll grant you that we're not as bad here as in the rest of the English speaking countries of the west. Thus far, only The People's Republic of California has passed any laws that criminalize misgendering trans people in similar fashion to what they've done in Canada, and even then the California version supposedly applies only to the care home setting. Also, to my knowledge US citizens, unlike UK citizens, can't get arrested for say, criticizing the wrong religion. That said, the people still rockin the "Hate Speech isn't Free Speech" signs even after the unanimous SCOTUS opinion to the contrary in that recent case with The Slants, tend to be the same people telling us that only (and all) white people can be (and are) racist, and that it's okay to call for their genocide because it's unlikely that a genocide will succeed because they have "all the institutional power", but when they disagree with the social justice take on a racial or gender issue, they're denying that race or that gender's right to exist. Many libertarian types that I know and speak to are under the impression (and for good reason) that the impetus is certainly there within the democrat party ranks to install some of these standards that legally enshrine specific groups of people and make it criminal to question certain ideologies.

Here's a thought. It could be that all the people who claim to champion personal liberty are just shameful, closet republicans.

Or, it could be that, when all of the people who champion individual freedom start jumping off of your ship, it's because you've become the moral authoritarian.​

Well stated.

The Left use to stand for many of the ideals libertarians believed. Today the Left has abandoned those ideals. In the age of Obama and Hillary, the left stands for corporatism, unlimited government, military interventions, and political correctness. No libertarian finds these ideals acceptable.

As I outlined in the OP, Hedges recognizes where the left has gone. He is of the left and an admitted socialist, but he knows the left has become tyrannical.

 

[Tehon]

"If Barack Obama does not end the flagrant theft of taxpayer funds by corporate slugs and the disgraceful abandonment of our working class, especially as foreclosures and unemployment mount, many in the country will turn in desperation to the far right embodied by groups such as Christian radicals. The failure by the left to offer a democratic socialist alternative will mean there will be, in the eyes of many embittered and struggling working- and middle-class Americans, no alternative but a perverted Christian fascism. The inability to articulate a viable socialism has been our gravest mistake. It will ensure, if this does not soon change, a ruthless totalitarian capitalism."

Why I Am a Socialist

 

[gipper]

"If Barack Obama does not end the flagrant theft of taxpayer funds by corporate slugs and the disgraceful abandonment of our working class, especially as foreclosures and unemployment mount, many in the country will turn in desperation to the far right embodied by groups such as Christian radicals. The failure by the left to offer a democratic socialist alternative will mean there will be, in the eyes of many embittered and struggling working- and middle-class Americans, no alternative but a perverted Christian fascism. The inability to articulate a viable socialism has been our gravest mistake. It will ensure, if this does not soon change, a ruthless totalitarian capitalism."

Why I Am a Socialist

Yes...Obama was a fraud. We know that...well some of us do. We have Trump because Obama was such a lying failure. He like his pal Hilary, was just another corporatist warmonger elitist.



Likewise, while Obama’s election was supposed to heal America’s racial divides, it turned out that having Obama as president wasn’t making blacks earn more money or commit fewer crimes. Because the dominant ideology said that this racial inequality could only be due to subliminal systemic white racism being even more pervasive and powerful than progressives had imagined, Obama’s second term collapsed under black bad behavior, leading to the election of Trump. The Establishment’s response has largely been not to reconsider its thinking, but to double down on its most extremist theories, such as opening borders and prisons.

Mao and Again

 

[Tehon]

"If Barack Obama does not end the flagrant theft of taxpayer funds by corporate slugs and the disgraceful abandonment of our working class, especially as foreclosures and unemployment mount, many in the country will turn in desperation to the far right embodied by groups such as Christian radicals. The failure by the left to offer a democratic socialist alternative will mean there will be, in the eyes of many embittered and struggling working- and middle-class Americans, no alternative but a perverted Christian fascism. The inability to articulate a viable socialism has been our gravest mistake. It will ensure, if this does not soon change, a ruthless totalitarian capitalism."

Why I Am a Socialist

Yes...Obama was a fraud. We know that...well some of us do. We have Trump because Obama was such a lying failure. He like his pal Hilary, was just another corporatist warmonger elitist.



Likewise, while Obama’s election was supposed to heal America’s racial divides, it turned out that having Obama as president wasn’t making blacks earn more money or commit fewer crimes. Because the dominant ideology said that this racial inequality could only be due to subliminal systemic white racism being even more pervasive and powerful than progressives had imagined, Obama’s second term collapsed under black bad behavior, leading to the election of Trump. The Establishment’s response has largely been not to reconsider its thinking, but to double down on its most extremist theories, such as opening borders and prisons.

Mao and Again

The political system is organized in such a way that it would be foolish to think we would elect anything other than a corporatist warmonger elitist. In that sense I find it difficult to view Obama as a fraud. He played the game the way it was set up to be played. It is incumbent on the people to upset the game board. This is where it is regrettable that there isn't an organized leftist movement in this country that can hold the democrats accountable and move this country back to the left.

 

[Tehon]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They share economic beliefs.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They share economic beliefs.

Yeah? Is that all?

 

[gipper]

"If Barack Obama does not end the flagrant theft of taxpayer funds by corporate slugs and the disgraceful abandonment of our working class, especially as foreclosures and unemployment mount, many in the country will turn in desperation to the far right embodied by groups such as Christian radicals. The failure by the left to offer a democratic socialist alternative will mean there will be, in the eyes of many embittered and struggling working- and middle-class Americans, no alternative but a perverted Christian fascism. The inability to articulate a viable socialism has been our gravest mistake. It will ensure, if this does not soon change, a ruthless totalitarian capitalism."

Why I Am a Socialist

Yes...Obama was a fraud. We know that...well some of us do. We have Trump because Obama was such a lying failure. He like his pal Hilary, was just another corporatist warmonger elitist.



Likewise, while Obama’s election was supposed to heal America’s racial divides, it turned out that having Obama as president wasn’t making blacks earn more money or commit fewer crimes. Because the dominant ideology said that this racial inequality could only be due to subliminal systemic white racism being even more pervasive and powerful than progressives had imagined, Obama’s second term collapsed under black bad behavior, leading to the election of Trump. The Establishment’s response has largely been not to reconsider its thinking, but to double down on its most extremist theories, such as opening borders and prisons.

Mao and Again

The political system is organized in such a way that it would be foolish to think we would elect anything other than a corporatist warmonger elitist. In that sense I find it difficult to view Obama as a fraud. He played the game the way it was set up to be played. It is incumbent on the people to upset the game board. This is where it is regrettable that there isn't an organized leftist movement in this country that can hold the democrats accountable and move this country back to the left.

I agree with a lot of that, but I can't believe the American people will upset the game board. Too many are have no interest in politics and have no idea what is going on. They know what the corporate media snippets have told them, which of course promotes the criminal State.

 

[Tehon]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They share economic beliefs.

Yeah? Is that all?

Probably not.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They share economic beliefs.

Yeah? Is that all?

Probably not.

I didn't think so. Of course, I'm not so sure they share economic beliefs, TBH.

 

[Tehon]

"If Barack Obama does not end the flagrant theft of taxpayer funds by corporate slugs and the disgraceful abandonment of our working class, especially as foreclosures and unemployment mount, many in the country will turn in desperation to the far right embodied by groups such as Christian radicals. The failure by the left to offer a democratic socialist alternative will mean there will be, in the eyes of many embittered and struggling working- and middle-class Americans, no alternative but a perverted Christian fascism. The inability to articulate a viable socialism has been our gravest mistake. It will ensure, if this does not soon change, a ruthless totalitarian capitalism."

Why I Am a Socialist

Yes...Obama was a fraud. We know that...well some of us do. We have Trump because Obama was such a lying failure. He like his pal Hilary, was just another corporatist warmonger elitist.



Likewise, while Obama’s election was supposed to heal America’s racial divides, it turned out that having Obama as president wasn’t making blacks earn more money or commit fewer crimes. Because the dominant ideology said that this racial inequality could only be due to subliminal systemic white racism being even more pervasive and powerful than progressives had imagined, Obama’s second term collapsed under black bad behavior, leading to the election of Trump. The Establishment’s response has largely been not to reconsider its thinking, but to double down on its most extremist theories, such as opening borders and prisons.

Mao and Again

The political system is organized in such a way that it would be foolish to think we would elect anything other than a corporatist warmonger elitist. In that sense I find it difficult to view Obama as a fraud. He played the game the way it was set up to be played. It is incumbent on the people to upset the game board. This is where it is regrettable that there isn't an organized leftist movement in this country that can hold the democrats accountable and move this country back to the left.

I agree with a lot of that, but I can't believe the American people will upset the game board. Too many are have no interest in politics and have no idea what is going on. They know what the corporate media snippets have told them, which of course promotes the criminal State.

It won't happen without an organized leftist movement. I applaud Bernie Sanders' efforts in that regard, however inadequate it might be.

 

[gipper]

Why is it that libertarians and Republicans get along so well?

They share economic beliefs.

Yeah? Is that all?

Probably not.

I didn't think so. Of course, I'm not so sure they share economic beliefs, TBH.

What does the Left and the D party believe? Certainly not limited government, individual liberty, or anything to do with helping poor, working class, or middle class Americans.