The funny thing about liberaltarianism is that the people who actually want it despair of it ever coming to pass. (Or defend it, very tentatively, as a possibility.) I’ve never heard it described as a looming menace!
Maybe political pessimism is always easiest.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
The funny thing about liberaltarianism is that the people who actually want it despair of it ever coming to pass. (Or defend it, very tentatively, as a possibility.) I’ve never heard it described as a looming menace!
Maybe political pessimism is always easiest.[/quote]
Conservatives should be pessimistic, we’ve most likely lost the argument. Libertarians–as one thinks of them now–are lost, without a doubt. They hold to social liberalism, yet are anti-nanny state. Eventually they’ll realize these incompatible philosophies are a dead end, politically. They’ll be satisfied with minimal regulations, free trade, and other neo-liberal ideas with regards to actual participation in the market. However, they’ll accept higher taxes and a wide and generous entitlement state in return. Freedom directly in the market, while pre-empting possible anti-free market movements through direct redistribution. Liberaltarianism is the next fusion.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
…Maybe political pessimism is always easiest.[/quote]
And that appears to emblematic of Senor Sloth.
He will claim realism and scoff at idealists while effectively reveling in his pessimism.[/quote]
Heh. I hadn’t even seen your post before I publically owning up to my pessimism. Good call!
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
The funny thing about liberaltarianism is that the people who actually want it despair of it ever coming to pass. (Or defend it, very tentatively, as a possibility.) I’ve never heard it described as a looming menace!
Maybe political pessimism is always easiest.[/quote]
I am a pessimist and nothing about pessimism is easy.
What Sloth and others may see is an irony of power. Libertarians, at least as they represent themselves here, hate central planning and social engineering, as do I. But I would argue that there is no political ideology since Lenin alit at Helsinki Station that so threatens radically to re-engineer and re-plan a society.
Good luck, there.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
What Sloth and others may see is an irony of power. Libertarians, at least as they represent themselves here, hate central planning and social engineering, as do I. But I would argue that there is no political ideology since Lenin alit at Helsinki Station that so threatens radically to re-engineer and re-plan a society…[/quote]
I don’t quite see it that way. I see them (libertarians, at least as they represent themselves here - anarchists is the term you intend, I believe) as a magnet pulling the Overton Window to the right. However, the magnet is not, will not ever be powerful enough to “radically re-engineer and re-plan a society.” So I don’t share your fear in that regard and to a certain extent I encourage their enthusiastic idealism.[/quote]
Note the careful choice of words, “…no political ideology since…”
I was not commenting on what the libertarian fringe might actually achieve, but on what they may wish to achieve.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
The funny thing about liberaltarianism is that the people who actually want it despair of it ever coming to pass. (Or defend it, very tentatively, as a possibility.) I’ve never heard it described as a looming menace!
Maybe political pessimism is always easiest.[/quote]
I am a pessimist and nothing about pessimism is easy. [/quote]
…
Nope, you’re no pessimist.[/quote]
Well, maybe you are right.
An optimist sees the glass half-full, and a pessimist sees the glass half-empty.
I don’t even see the glass.
Ba-ding.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
When I read this my initial reaction was surprise but after a bit of pondering I think it is very consistent with your overall bent. You are a moderate (maybe slightly left of moderate), a fence sitter, on the political spectrum and therefore much cozier in my view to the statist left than the libertarian right.[/quote]
What I am is a realist. Capitalism and democracy make for a stormy marriage, at best. Social liberalism is the grounds for divorce. Can any libertarian answer as to what replaces Social security and medicare? Anyone? No, they can’t. Grandma and grandpa don’t have all those children and grandchildren to look after them in their old age these days, do they? Grandma and Grandpa may not even be married (if ever) in the first place, anymore. So, they might not even have each other. A fairly common feature of the west, isn’t it…Lower/lowering fertility rates and a graying population. Then there’s all those children being born without a father. Oh yes, single mothers are going to be sold on the idea of removing social safety nets and the subsidization of their children’s higher education.
Libertarians talk about a freer market and a much smaller entitlement state (if any). Yet, it’s only social conservatism that has any chance of delivering such.
Thanks!
Why not, libertarians and Democrats are both social liberals. And, voting for a libertarian would be throwing away a vote. I’d rather be part of a movement promoting social conservative values in the Democrat party. I’d rather influence social entitlement and taxation towards favoring getting married, and staying married to the mother of one’s child. Perhaps I could even help–by supporting like-minded Democrats–to persuade the party to consider entitlement/social programs through a subsidarian bent. That is, turn over revenue collected for social spending: first to local communities and institutions, then city, followed by state, and finally federal governmental control.
Ron Paul! Lew Rockwell! Ahhhh!!!
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.”
Never thought I’d say this, but right on, Push.
I’ve come to believe that, if you can’t make it happen yourself, by your own effort and persuasion and money, then you have no business asking the government to do it. That’s sort of the spineless way out. If you really want it, it’s your job to make it happen. (i hope I actually live up to this.)
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]John S. wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]John S. wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Sometimes you need a dose of intervention now, to negate the need for much larger intervention later.[/quote]
So your a fascist?[/quote]
Yeah. I’m a fascist for supporting intervention against widespread segregationist society. Have I ever discussed my role model here? Musolini?
[/quote]
You fail to mention that segregation was a direct result of government creating laws to enforece what you are now giving them credit for getting rid of. When you take a step back and look at the whole story what you are trying to give them credit for actually makes no sense.[/quote]
Perhaps you should rethink this.
Like…segregation existed as a tenet of racism; it was institutionalized by a powerful majority, using government and law as instruments to enforce its bigotry. The governments created what the majority of their voters directed or in which they consented or acquiesced.
Sort of changes one’s view of history doesn’t it? Sort of more like reality, rather than the way you imagine reality must be.[/quote]
If the government was chained to the constitution like they where supposed to racism would have died out.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
No, the conclusion I’m coming to is you’re just a good ol’ fashioned “I think I can make gummint, even if it’s big gummint, do what I want it to do” hope and changer. See, I guess you are the optimist.[/quote]
We have big gummint, because we now have a society that NEEDS big gummint. I’m going to keep this simple by posing a question I’ve now asked a few times on this forum. When your libertarian candidate is standing before the American people, talking about casting down SS, medicare, Financial aid, etc., what will he propose to fill the void? Again: [quote]…what replaces Social security and medicare? Grandma and grandpa don’t have all those children and grandchildren to look after them in their old age these days, do they? Grandma and Grandpa may not even be married (if ever) in the first place, anymore. So, they might not even have each other. A fairly common feature of the west, isn’t it…Lower/lowering fertility rates and a graying population. Then there’s all those children being born without a father. Oh yes, single mothers are going to be sold on the idea of removing social safety nets and the subsidization of their children’s higher education.
Libertarians talk about a freer market and a much smaller entitlement state (if any). Yet, it’s only social conservatism that has any chance of delivering such.[/quote]
Absent widespread social conservatism, it would take doing away with representative democracy to annihilate the welfare state, realizing the laissez faire dream. You’d need some kind of authoritarian leader tasked with nothing else but to kill off reemerging democratic sentiment, of course.
Big Gummint is just going to get bigger. Libertarianism (as we know it) will all but die. Perhaps Denmark will become the liberaltarian model? Could be…
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]John S. wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Interest in libertarianism will hit a low ceiling, rebounding to obscurity. It’s a social-economic system that makes zero sense. It doesn’t defend the traditional family, nor the values necessary for the it’s cultivation in society. Social conservatism is the only answer to a growing nanny state. Without it, fertility rates would/will continue to drop. More and more elderly will have 0-1 adult children to care for them in their golden years. Now, the uneducated poor will reliably churn out kiddos, of course. However, with few fathers around, and the socio-economic status of poor single women being what it is, more children will grow up feral in hopeless poverty.
So, demand will continue to be very strong for a tutelary state. Actually, it’s going to get much, much, stronger. The nanny state IS the large extended family of yesteryear. And, you just don’t screw with someone’s family.
Neither Ron or Rand Paul will ever be allowed near entitlement programs. We no longer have the ‘Ultra Christian conservative’ population which makes the free market–minus expansive safety nets–even possible. The death of social conservatism will put the nail in the coffin of fiscal libertarianism. The best libertarians will be able to hope for is neo-liberal economic policies in the market, with a large entitlement state attached to it. Small government is dead (without social conservatism).
In fact, I betcha Libertarians will increasingly align with the Democrats in the next couple of decades. The small government mantra will be cast aside for “Good Government.” Market neo-liberalism resigned to exist alongside a variety of generous entitlements. Liberaltarianism will be the trend to watch.[/quote]
So we are free to do as the christian conservatives say? Sounds like freedom to me.
Actually Libertarianism won’t be a party but more of a movement like the progressives. We will take over the GOP and there is nothing you can do about it, because the only thing you hate worse then a libertarian is a democrat.[/quote]
Nah. I’d vote Democrat before I’d ever vote for a libertarian. I realize now that Democrats at least understand the reality of social liberalism (unlike the the libertarian). In the face of this reality, they deal with the breakdown of the traditional family with security provided by the social programs. Yes, I supsect even those who won’t admit it aloud, know it to be true in their heart of hearts.
[/quote]
So let me get this right, Ron Paul and Obama you would vote Obama? Well if thats the case go back to the democrats. Hell you may just balance out the true nut jobs like Irish.