[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]John S. wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Can any libertarian answer as to what replaces Social security and medicare? Anyone? No, they can’t.
[/quote]
Why can’t a private company do it? Listen here is the best part about social security, its going do die out and everyone that has been on the dole is going to find themselves screwed.
Medicare is one of the main reasons health care is so expensive, get rid of that program.
Now you don’t get rid of these programs over night, but we should start idk a 20-30 year phasing out process.
Or hell, why can’t the state not the Federal government be in charge of social security if that is what the residents of a particular state want?
[/quote]
Bingo.
Sloth is so wrapped up, so brainwashed, so mired in the concept that ONLY the federal government can once again rescue us. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Same ol’ broken record.[/quote]
Some of you really aren’t thinking through my posts. I AM for a much smaller/decentralized welfare state. But the requisite socially conservative populace has become socially liberal. You will not be able to pull the tablecloth out from under the entitlement state in one swift motion. And, without supporting and shoring up a widespread return to traditional moral and cultural values. You will not be allowed. You will not be allowed because all those socially conservative things Dustin talked about, have eroded far too much. The people want their SS and Medicare. They want their WIC and financial aid. Soon, they’ll resign themselves to single-payer healthcare.
Eventually libertarianism, as a movement, will understand this. The libertarian movement will largely drop the mantra of ‘small government’ for ‘good government.’ They will argue for social and inter-market liberalization, while maintaining higher taxes and a robust entitlement state. The government is now the large, extended, church going family of yester-year. Period. Tocqueville nailed it. It isn’t collectivism that will solidify the existence of a large and wide-reaching tutelary state, but hyper-individualism (think, libertarian).
Since…no one is obliged to lend his force to those like him and no one has the right to expect great support from those like him, each is at once independent and weak. These two states–which must neither be viewed separately nor confused–give the citizen of democracies very contrary instincts. His independence fills him with confidence and pride among his equals, and his debility makes him feel, from time to time, the need of the outside help that he cannot expect from any of them, since they are all impotent and cold. In this extremity, he naturally turns his regard to the immense being [the tutelary, bureaucratic, centralized State] that rises alone in the midst of universal debasement. His needs and above all his desires constantly lead him back toward it, and in the end he views it as the unique and necessary support for his individual weakness.