Elections Libertarians - A growing movement against political control

[Rational Poster]

if he had so much power, he wouldnt have been indicted four times

I mean he's getting indicted for trying to seize that power.

 

[Sinister]

if he had so much power, he wouldnt have been indicted four times

Interesting that that's how you gauge power.

 

[fedorthegoat777]

Are you going to vote for Dave Smith? Do you think that podcaster would make a good president?

I like Dave Smith from what I have heard of him, but I don't follow him closely enough.

 

[fedorthegoat777]

Ok so here's the thing..

What you are talking about "things being mostly the same" with government programs, and I imagine government controlled law enforcement, fire departments, roads, etc. is actually not libertarianism by some definitions.

Some libertarians want to privatize everything- including police departments (it would work like insurance, with competing departments in the same jurisdictions), education, fire departments, and even roads.

Some libertarians want to go so far as to force everyone to do their own homesteading.

There really isn't a united ideology behind the movement, which is why it has never gotten the traction to take off- vastly different interpretations of the idea from people within the party.

Austrian economics has never been proven to work- the idea is that some invisible force would control the market and the market would correct itself when things inevitably go awry. There are plenty of examples in history of this not being the case (stock market crash in the 1920s, Great Recession, etc.) We could have a debate about the government getting TOO involved in the fallout of those events, but ultimately they would have never happened in the first place if the proper protections were in place.

"There really isn't a united ideology behind the movement, which is why it has never gotten the traction to take off-"
I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement.

 

[Sinister]

Ours isn't so much a union issue it's just that rather than hire a handyman who works for the government to service government buildings in a city we outsource to private companies who do it per department, so we get someone coming from 50 miles away to change a fucking light.

Once again privatization f*ckin things up for everyone.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Most people don't even have any say in it. As JVS mentioned, kids, old people, disabled and their caretakers, that's a massive percentage of the "unmarketable".

But, to expand on my own thoughts about it, we rely on low income workers. Companies rely on them, consumers rely on them, and they themselves make up a large bloc of consumers. And if we aren't down with forcing companies to pay a living wage, then we probably have to subsidize them some other way. And that way ain't the ancap utopian's favorite fall back "charity", either.

I think we make a big mistake by trying to engineer labor-market outcomes while pretending that we're not. There are a lot of people who think (wrongly, IMO, but that's irrelevant at this time) that protectionism or immigration restriction would boost incomes without redistribution. But that's just hiding costs and inefficiently trying to interfere with markets to get outcomes that could more easily be attained with direct payouts. Similarly, austerity in a downturn (as many libertarians advocated after the GFC) nominally reduces gov't spending, but at the expense of slower economic growth. Amounts to superstition over reason.

 

[avenue94]

Except that Joe Rogan had to explain to Dave Rubin why Yelp reviews isn't enough to make sure construction companies dont build buildings that will collapse in 5 years because it's cheaper and more profitable for them. Dave was just flabbergasted at the idea that Government regulation prevents that. Lol

It's classic libertarian ignore reality theory crafting. Like...we know what happens without medical licensing or construction regulations and see it all the time in less developed countries or undocumented communities in the case of the former.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Bill Clinton balanced the budget and Reagan also shrunk the government. This is a movement outside of the Democratic and Republican party. A movement designed to free Americans and let them control their own lives.

Clinton was president while the budget balanced, but it's not accurate to say he balanced the budget. The tax hike he advocated for and signed was a small contributor to the balancing, but it was heading that way anyway. I wouldn't say Reagan shrunk the gov't either, though the concept of gov't size is a bit questionable.

 

[avenue94]

You're absolutely right, however, I'm not sure your average Libertarian can make that distinction.

Part of this issue is that most libertarian donors tend to be right leaning for obvious reasons of self interest. So the mainstream American brand of libertarianism is driven biased by that.

 

[Sinister]

It's classic libertarian ignore reality theory crafting. Like...we know what happens without medical licensing or construction regulations and see it all the time in less developed countries or undocumented communities in the case of the former.

Surely OUR noble capitalists would NEVER engage in such practices.

Surely

 

[Jack V Savage]

It's classic libertarian ignore reality theory crafting. Like...we know what happens without medical licensing or construction regulations and see it all the time in less developed countries or undocumented communities in the case of the former.

It's also not just about preventing bad actors. The fact that we regulate that stuff (and more) is key to building the trust needed to make a market-based economy work. Western nations are unusual in the amount of trust people show to strangers.

 

[RoastBeast]

I think most people know that a pure libertarian society would never work.

The issue is that the current control our government has is way beyond what our forefathers planned for this country.

 

[avenue94]

Surely OUR noble capitalists would NEVER engage in such practices.

Surely

That's part of it. It's more just it's a seller's market. A family short on cash will go with someone who claims to be a dentist and isn't over no treatment at all.

 

[avenue94]

It's also not just about preventing bad actors. The fact that we regulate that stuff (and more) is key to building the trust needed to make a market-based economy work. Western nations are unusual in the amount of trust people show to strangers.

They are correct about the AMA is an economic cartel stuff, but yeah they just completely miss the market with stances like that. They tend to ignore market power and how it influences consumers. Same as whenever libertarians argue that mergers improve pricing for consumers because of efficiencies and synergies, when prices post merger usually indicate the opposite (Maytag for example).

For better or worse, I think 2016 was the high water market and kind of breaking point for libertarianism as a mainstream idea. It'll come back eventually, but 2016 was a referendum on not only libertarianism's appeal (can't even beat two historically unpopular candidates) as well as taking off the mask and showing the true nature of many libertarians and what they wanted.

 

[ermac88]

Libertarians believe in limited government. It is not anarchy, which means no government. It just means taking the power and control out of the hands of the government and giving it back to the people. Let the people have more of their own money and control their own life, the government does not control you, you are free. A common expression is "F___ the government" It is an anti establishment movement designed to free the lower to upper class. Man is responsible for his own decisions and can do what he wants, while the government will still provide roads and a basic military.

Bill Clinton balanced the budget and Reagan also shrunk the government. This is a movement outside of the Democratic and Republican party. A movement designed to free Americans and let them control their own lives.

Here is what your favorite sports promoter thinks about it:




Out of every dollar you pay in taxes, how much of the money do you think actually goes to something you support? A dime? A nickel? A few pennies? Private industry beats federal spending in every avenue. Libertarians believe more in letting individuals make their own lifestyle choices and state rights rather than relying on federal authority.

There was a huge resurgence of "libertarianism" during the Obama presidency.

I think a lot of it stemmed from, the fear of being "governed" by someone with brown pigment.

Now many of those people support Trump, which is the anti-thesis of libertarianism. Its fueled mostly by ignorance it seems.

The truth is, most of us are dumb and need to be governed. Covid and the Trump era were and are clear indications of this.

We need a collective of hopefully qualified, smart people to govern society.

Left in the hands of the individual uneducated, dumb, obese masses, we would totally collapse into barbarism.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

When Libertarians respect the commons I have no problem with them. But American libertarians seem to just want the freedom to pollute with impunity, damn the consequences for anyone else. They want to dismantle the government so they can pay workers lower wages and put themselves above the rule of law. They want a two tiered justice system based on wealth.

That is why they try to dismantle the government in favour of undemocratic private business.

They will also run disinformation campaigns about major issues in order to increase their own profit margins and use this philosophy of “freedom” to defend that.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dail...ade-their-fortune-and-the-influence-it-bought

Leonard shows that the Kochs’ political motives are both ideological, as hardcore free-market libertarians, and self-interested, serving their fossil-fuel-enriched bottom line.

Leonard manages to dig up valuable new material, including evidence of the Kochs’ role in perhaps the earliest known organized conference of climate-change deniers, which gathered just as the scientific consensus on the issue was beginning to gel. The meeting, in 1991, was sponsored by the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank, which the Kochs founded and heavily funded for years. As Leonard describes it, Charles Koch and other fossil-fuel magnates sprang into action that year, after President George H. W. Bush announced that he would support a treaty limiting carbon emissions, a move that posed a potentially devastating threat to the profits of Koch Industries. At the time, Bush was not an outlier in the Republican Party. Like the Democrats, the Republicans largely accepted the scientific consensus on climate change, reflected in the findings of expert groups such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which had formed in 1988, under the auspices of the United Nations.

 

[sickc0d3r]

I think we make a big mistake by trying to engineer labor-market outcomes while pretending that we're not. There are a lot of people who think (wrongly, IMO, but that's irrelevant at this time) that protectionism or immigration restriction would boost incomes without redistribution. But that's just hiding costs and inefficiently trying to interfere with markets to get outcomes that could more easily be attained with direct payouts. Similarly, austerity in a downturn (as many libertarians advocated after the GFC) nominally reduces gov't spending, but at the expense of slower economic growth. Amounts to superstition over reason.

Right, protectionism is interfering with markets while claiming we should let markets work. Nonsensical. I think purist libertarians favor open borders (I do not, but I favor open trade, and streamlining immigration to bring in more workers).
Also seems self evident to me that it's better to spend efficiently (e.g. direct payouts) than inefficiently with unneeded bureaucracy and resources dedicated to limiting the labor pool.
Austerity when we need growth is dumb. That's Tea Bagger territory.

I wish we would let an algorithm handle a lot of the economic decisions for us, but instead we have politicians.

 

[sickc0d3r]

It's classic libertarian ignore reality theory crafting. Like...we know what happens without medical licensing or construction regulations and see it all the time in less developed countries or undocumented communities in the case of the former.

Hey now, after 300 people complain that the Bag O' Glass toy killed their children, they'll lose customers. And just like that, the market solves another problem.

 

[tastaylvr]

You would have made a fantastic Republican in the early 1970's.

Why republican? Any party in America is the "Establishment". The establishment is the system itself aka the American Democratic system. Do you hate the constitution??

It's also hilarious that we have idiots who hate the "Establishment" but have no idea what the new system should be. In the 1970s you would be considered a commie.

 

[Sinister]

Why republican? Any party in America is the "Establishment". The establishment is the system itself aka the American Democratic system. Do you hate the constitution??

It's also hilarious that we have idiots who hate the "Establishment" but have no idea what the new system should be. In the 1970s you would be considered a commie.

I always love when elected politicians warn these types to beware of the Gubment...like mofo YOU the Gubment..