People are free to make their own choices and live how they wish, as long as that isn’t creating a victim in another person.
People deserve a government that will protect their rights, such as life, liberty, property so on and so forth.
Everyone’s rights are the same, individual & equal. (Obviously if someone commits a crime, and is found guilty after due process, I have no issue with them being punished.)
The only justified violence is in defense.
You know… Normal stuff. Which is basically the opposite of a Contemporary Liberal actually stands for in practice on a lot of issues.
(Would have just posted “what DD said” but letter limits and all that.
OK, we’ve now officially reached the ‘agree to disagree’ point.
All I can go by is what you write. So when you make a cut-and-dried statement such as “I would never, ever consider not dating someone, hanging out with someone or otherwise entertaining anyone based on their political beliefs,” I wanted to see if you meant it. Apparently you didn’t. So I take it then you share my intolerance for such folks? Good to know (seriously).
No. That’s really where the whole “government is a necessary evil” idea comes into play.
I’m not an AnCap. I don’t have enough faith in humans to think it could work outside of a very small and isolated population.
And there is nothing to say that individualists can’t come together and work as a group, it’s just they should (assuming the whole mob mentality thing doesn’t happen and they aren’t lead by an evil person) continue to respect the notion that no one is really a representation of another, unless that person purports themselves to be.
Depends on what you mean by small really. You can have a “small” government in the sense of control over the people, but still very large in a literal sense. In that way, we are relatively small compared to other countries on some issues.
There has always been, and always be evil and broken people. Part of survival is protecting yourself, always has been, always will be. No government will ever be able to solve that need.
Then you are, without question, an individualist.
We don’t deny reality. We just deny the narrative force fed us by those who’s entire lively hood depends on breaking people into groups and getting those group excited to vote for them.
100% in the current dictionary definition of the word. You mean not in the sense of the contemporary political movement that uses that word as its’ name. Liberal the word, and liberal the name of the political ideology aren’t the same thing.
If I started a “freedom” political movement and the platform of that movement included enslaving everyone, you actually don’t believe in freedom if you believe in the “freedom” movement and if you agree with freedom you disagree with the “freedom” movement. Same thing. The current platform of the movement doesn’t define or redefine the actual word.
I am very liberal.
And while I agree with the goals of the libertarians I largely disagree with their methods.
Spending all day arguing who is more libertarian than the other and who is more statist that the other isn’t your bag?
lol
Honestly tho, I don’t know why a bunch of people who are freedom first, “don’t tell me how to live my life” and “boy the government really sucks” are surprised they can’t organize and get anything done. That would require them to do what other people want once in awhile and compromise.
You are of course correct. However, it’s like the word gay. It still can mean ‘carefree,’ but in common usage, that meaning has been totally overwhelmed by its alternative meaning of ‘homosexual.’ In light of this lexical reality, and to avoid confusion, most people eschew using gay to mean carefree. Likewise, when someone today says ‘I’m a liberal,’ I think for the vast majority of listeners it conjures images of left-leaning Dem policies–not Lockean ideals.
BTW, I’m going on about this subject only because there might be young people following this discussion who are unfamiliar with the terms we’re bandying about.
I was going under the assumption that people were a little more well read on the subject here. It’s also a bit of a pet peeve to have someone tell me I’m not liberal because I disagree with heavy handed, highly regulatory, pro-coercion political movement. Especially when that someone is very much anti-liberal. “You’re anti-freedom because you disagree with slavery.”
I’m not the one being confusing, the people who named themselves the opposite of what they believe is.
For example, I think the world should be 100% free trade, but if most other countries aren’t going to freely allow imports you can’t just completely freely open your country up to all imports. It’s a 2 way street.
In a perfect world I could park my million dollar car on the streets of Harlem at night and not worry about it. But if you do it you’re dumb and only hurting yourself.
You have to work politically to fix things first, then you can roll in more “perfect world” type policy.
Johnson and Weld are far from perfect Libertairians but a whole hell of a lot better than the other options. “But isn’t that just voting for the lessor of three and four evils rather than two?”
Sure, but it’s still hella better than Clinton or Trump.
Thanks for clarifying, Beans and DD. But how you defined “liberal” wasn’t at all how the term was being used in the posts preceding the ones where you both claimed to be “very liberal.” And hence why I was confused and asked for your definition of the word.
So you think that a government that doesn’t tolerate and doesn’t coddle criminals and shows the public that they don’t–oh, perhaps with the examples of publicly hanging violent criminals at the town square and having their offenses written on placards placed on their bodies, one of the ways in which we did things in the bad old days–won’t have offenders thinking twice about their violent ideas?
If I remember correctly we did have some independent retribution in this country back in the days, and if it was justified and understandable, law enforcers would side with victims and their families’ and friends’ actions.
Do we have any empirical evidence it works? I get the logic etc, but my first worry is:
Who decides what crime is punishable in these ways, and at what point have we gone too far?
To use an extreme for example: should we cut off the hands of those that steal? Nah I don’t think so. But it may prevent people from stealing. My default is NOT a heavy handed government, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s inappropriate in all cases.
If we don’t have a system in place for punishing people, then who gives the punishment? I mean, the victim can, but then that leads things open ended, as the victim can indeed do as they please with someone who steals a pack of potato chips.
I assume that a group of qualified and wise people would agree upon what punishment suites what crime. Isn’t that what we have (albeit a bunch of idiots in charge these days).
I have zero issue with the system in place. I have significant issue with the system not having checks and balances put into place. And I’ll likely always default to being critical of the system, because it is by definition authoritarian. But being critical of it doesn’t mean I want it to go away.
I can explain with an example if you’d like.
I mean, you put my hesitation into words for me with the parenthetical at the end there.
End of the day, it’s all still just people in charge. People can be dangerous, particularly in groups.
Yeah. It was kind of a joke meant as a bit of a jab at “liberals” who believe in the opposite of the word liberal. Their name is essentially newspeak. I was just pointing out the nonsense and irony. I basically was told I don’t believe in freedom because I don’t support slavery like the “freedom” movement. It’s a pet peeve.
