[godfather dust]

I am a libertarian in regards to marijuana, if it is legal it will reduce costs of policing by hundreds of millions of dollars. It may make it harder to get for kids as well, when I was a kid alcohol was way harder to get then weed because it is generally sold in reputable establishments to people with ID, not amoral drug dealers.

Anyway that's not what this thread is about.

Libertarianism is a foolish idea. If mans nature was to be good and nice etc it would work. So would communism.

Human nature is mostly evil, everyone is a sinner. Libertarianism taken all the way, into anarchy, would last a week before the most ruthless psychopath made a claim to the throne.

The libertarian borders thing is incredibly foolish also, and being the only libertarian country would be also. This is how (((someone))) would make a country the world's bitch.

[Rob Banks]

(01-18-2017 10:29 AM)bushcraft9 Wrote:  

Often the biggest supporters of libertarianism are those who have never really experienced it. To live in a country where the state is very small is tough going and life is hard. In such a society there are losers and winners, and fair enough if you are a winner then your life isn't going to be difficult but if you are at the bottom and you lose then your life is going to be hard. I fully understand that a libertarian society is simply a law of nature and is simply natural, as a society where no one loses isn't what nature intends, however I am not ashamed to admit that life in a non full libertarian society is much easier.

Small government doesn't mean weak government or lawlessness. "Small government" simply means that the government doesn't meddle in private matters, impose high taxes, and engage in stupid wars. "Small government" does not mean that government is weak or ineffective.

The U.S. Founding Fathers were some of the most libertarian, "small government" men in history, and they believed in (and built) a very strong, powerful government.

There will always be "winners and losers" in society. If a country is poor, it is not caused by people having too much freedom.

There are winners and losers even in the most socialist countries. Look at Venezuela. The rich "elite" are fine while the rest of the population is starving.

If you believe that "life in a non-full libertarian society is a lot easier," name one thing that government does to make your life (or the lives of working class people) better. Do you really think welfare makes the poor better off?

[Leonard D Neubache]

There is no such thing as a generically correct size of government.

Take two nations next to each other with similar populations. If the one to the west is nominally peaceful then the one to the east can have minimal government.

If the one to the west is hostile then the one to the east will find out the hard way that small government is not always the best option.

There is no optimal system. Times change. Circumstances change. We have been given brains to use. All that matters is to find what is worth protecting and protect it by whatever means are necessary.

[Rob Banks]

↑ When I say "small" government, I mean a government that doesn't meddle in private and/or family matters, and focuses on solving problems that cannot be solved by the private sector. Even with the smallest of small governments, military/war issues fall within the scope of government.

Like I said in my previous post, you can be a libertarian and small government advocate and still be in favor of having a strong military.

I agree with you that times change, and every situation is different. Some libertarians (especially the ones who call themselves "libertarians" or "anarcho-capitalists") are way too ideological.

[Leonard D Neubache]

(01-18-2017 10:29 PM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

↑ When I say "small" government, I mean a government that doesn't meddle in private and/or family matters, and focuses on solving problems that cannot be solved by the private sector. Even with the smallest of small governments, military/war issues fall within the scope of government.

Like I said in my previous post, you can be a libertarian and small government advocate and still be in favor of having a strong military.

I agree with you that times change, and every situation is different. Some libertarians (especially the ones who call themselves "libertarians" or "anarcho-capitalists") are way too ideological.

You're assuming that "hostile" means "military aggression". This ignores cultural undermining efforts which are every bit as effective over time. This is something that should be abundantly clear to all of us by now.

If the hostile nation funds cultural marxist organisations in your libertarian nation to the point where your education systems are left wing propaganda camps undermining your entire country then they don't even need to invade you militarily.

Can't stop them them, though, because that would be oppressive, right?

This is a perfect example of why libertarianism is an entirely academic ideal that fails utterly when exposed to sunlight and oxygen.

[Rob Banks]

(01-18-2017 11:36 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

You're assuming that "hostile" means "military aggression". This ignores cultural undermining efforts which are every bit as effective over time. This is something that should be abundantly clear to all of us by now.

If the hostile nation funds cultural marxist organisations in your libertarian nation to the point where your education systems are left wing propaganda camps undermining your entire country then they don't even need to invade you militarily.

Can't stop them them, though, because that would be oppressive, right?

This is a perfect example of why libertarianism is an entirely academic ideal that fails utterly when exposed to sunlight and oxygen.

This is why I believe libertarianism should only apply to citizens of the country.

If there are outside forces funding cultural Marxist organizations in my nation, then the nation has every right to stop them. It would most certainly not be "oppressive" to stop them.

For the record, I don't believe in universal voting rights. If only land-owning men could vote (like it was when the U.S. was founded), then it wouldn't matter what kind of cultural Marxist propaganda was out there, as long as the men who were eligible to vote were smart enough to ignore it.

[Leonard D Neubache]

(01-19-2017 02:57 AM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

...

This is why I believe libertarianism should only apply to citizens of the country.

If there are outside forces funding cultural Marxist organizations in my nation, then the nation has every right to stop them. It would most certainly not be "oppressive" to stop them.

For the record, I don't believe in universal voting rights. If only land-owning men could vote (like it was when the U.S. was founded), then it wouldn't matter what kind of cultural Marxist propaganda was out there, as long as the men who were eligible to vote were smart enough to ignore it.

So a police officer arrives at the house of a cultural marxist agitator and says "you've been receiving funding from a foreign nation and we're here to stop you."

And this reconciles with the idea of a libertarian society?

What happens when that same agitator sells 100,000 books to that hostile nation next door (who uses them as doorstops) for ten bucks a pop and gets their "funding" that way?

So far you seem to have a libertarian society with an all-knowing police force and a "strong" military. Where does the money come from for all this?

[Lexington Patrick]

Libertarians live in the land of contradiction. They want a utopia of small government yet everything they stand for leads to the exact opposite of that. Immigration is a great example. They believe in open borders yet that will inevitably bring in an influx of third world immigrants who will only vote for a socialist welfare state. It's like being against death but deciding to ingest a gallon of bleach daily

[Ghost Tiger]

(01-19-2017 05:18 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(01-19-2017 02:57 AM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

...

This is why I believe libertarianism should only apply to citizens of the country.

If there are outside forces funding cultural Marxist organizations in my nation, then the nation has every right to stop them. It would most certainly not be "oppressive" to stop them.

For the record, I don't believe in universal voting rights. If only land-owning men could vote (like it was when the U.S. was founded), then it wouldn't matter what kind of cultural Marxist propaganda was out there, as long as the men who were eligible to vote were smart enough to ignore it.

So a police officer arrives at the house of a cultural marxist agitator and says "you've been receiving funding from a foreign nation and we're here to stop you."

And this reconciles with the idea of a libertarian society?

What happens when that same agitator sells 100,000 books to that hostile nation next door (who uses them as doorstops) for ten bucks a pop and gets their "funding" that way?

So far you seem to have a libertarian society with an all-knowing police force and a "strong" military. Where does the money come from for all this?

Doesn't the very existence of cops and soldiers violate the Non-Aggression Principle?

And who gets to decide who is a citizen and who is not? And aren't such decisions (to deny citizenship) so terribly aggressive?

[Leonard D Neubache]

"Land owning males" apparently get to decide.

So you get "Constitution 2: The do-over!"

Then you get the spin-off: "Crushing the whiskey rebellion 2: How Washington trolled an entire nation."

Dejavu anyone?

Notably Rob Banks has dropped the voting requirement of being white. Evidently he thinks the founders were smart, but he's smarter.

[Rob Banks]

(01-19-2017 05:18 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(01-19-2017 02:57 AM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

...

This is why I believe libertarianism should only apply to citizens of the country.

If there are outside forces funding cultural Marxist organizations in my nation, then the nation has every right to stop them. It would most certainly not be "oppressive" to stop them.

For the record, I don't believe in universal voting rights. If only land-owning men could vote (like it was when the U.S. was founded), then it wouldn't matter what kind of cultural Marxist propaganda was out there, as long as the men who were eligible to vote were smart enough to ignore it.

So a police officer arrives at the house of a cultural marxist agitator and says "you've been receiving funding from a foreign nation and we're here to stop you."

And this reconciles with the idea of a libertarian society?

What happens when that same agitator sells 100,000 books to that hostile nation next door (who uses them as doorstops) for ten bucks a pop and gets their "funding" that way?

So far you seem to have a libertarian society with an all-knowing police force and a "strong" military. Where does the money come from for all this?

The money comes from taxes, obviously. I am not opposed to all forms of taxation.

The U.S. government would be able to competently run the military, police force, and other vital institutions for a fraction of the revenue they are currently receiving.

The federal government in the U.S. only spends 16% of its revenue on the military (and remember that the U.S. military is one of the largest, most expensive military forces in the world). Here is a chart of U.S. federal government spending.

And yes, I believe a nation should have mechanisms in place to be able to stop cultural Marxist agitators, even if that violates "libertarian principles" or whatever.

The "libertarian principles" are going to be violated a whole lot more when the cultural Marxists vote in leftist politicians.

As I said earlier, universal voting rights are a big problem. Cultural Marxists know that all they need to do is get a majority (i.e. over 51%) of the population to agree with them, and it won't matter what the other 49% of the population thinks, even if that 49% contains the vast majority of hard-working, contributing members of society. In fact, this is precisely what happened in the U.S. presidential election. The vast majority of the hard-working, contributing members of society voted for Trump, but Hillary Clinton was able to get enough welfare bums, college SJWs, and self-righteous upper-middle-class city dwellers (not to mention illegal immigrants) to vote for her that she managed to win the popular vote.

Thank God for the Electoral College and thank God Trump won. And yes, it is likely that if the winner were decided by the popular vote, Trump would have campaigned differently and still won. My point is that the election was far too close when you consider how vastly superior one candidate (Trump) was to the other (Clinton).

[Rob Banks]

(01-19-2017 06:21 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

"Land owning males" apparently get to decide.

So you get "Constitution 2: The do-over!"

What?

Did the original U.S. constitution not specify that only land-owning males could vote?

Are you actually objecting to the idea that only land-owning males should vote?

(01-19-2017 06:21 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Then you get the spin-off: "Crushing the whiskey rebellion 2: How Washington trolled an entire nation."

Dejavu anyone?

Notably Rob Banks has dropped the voting requirement of being white. Evidently he thinks the founders were smart, but he's smarter.

I didn't specify "white" because I didn't want to make this into a racial thing. I would have no problem with only white land-owning males voting, though.

At this point, it seems like you're going to object to anything I say. I could say "feminism is bad" and your response would be something about how feminism is good because it makes it easier for men to get laid, and ridiculing me for being so "repressive" and "puritanical."

[RoastBeefCurtains4Me]

(01-10-2017 09:10 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

Perhaps you are projecting a bit.

At any rate, to be clear on what you are saying, is it that:

A. your new direction is not guided by any new principles?
and
B. patriarchy is only enforceable/effective via state fiat?

So we can find a common point of understanding, let's start with the Wikipedia definition of libertarianism -- "Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing the value of political freedom, voluntary association, and the importance of individual judgment."

It sounds like you define it more as non-participation in politics with a soupcon of libertinism (the rejection of any restraints on morals or social behavior).

Username checks out

[Rob Banks]

(01-19-2017 11:06 AM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

At this point, it seems like you're going to object to anything I say. I could say "feminism is bad" and your response would be something about how feminism is good because it makes it easier for men to get laid, and ridiculing me for being so "repressive" and "puritanical."

Leonard D. Neubache, I take this part of what i said back. I shouldn't put words in your mouth. You've actuslly given me good responses and advice before.

[BrewDog]

There are a flood of Straw Man arguments in this thread to ridicule libertarianism, yet your examples don't even represent libertarian beliefs.

You should perhaps change the topic to "How ANARCHISTS are Effeminate" to continue the discussion.

[Leonard D Neubache]

(01-19-2017 07:01 PM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

(01-19-2017 11:06 AM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

At this point, it seems like you're going to object to anything I say. I could say "feminism is bad" and your response would be something about how feminism is good because it makes it easier for men to get laid, and ridiculing me for being so "repressive" and "puritanical."

Leonard D. Neubache, I take this part of what i said back. I shouldn't put words in your mouth. You've actuslly given me good responses and advice before.

You are merely in the "repentant" stage of your passive aggressiveness, where whether you realise it or not you are trying to rebuild good-will in order retain some sort of an audience for a later ego-driven performance.

And you probably wont like my advice I've given over in a certain other thread.

If you get the impression that I'm not inviting you to a long-winded discussion of precisely why libertarianism is foolish then you're correct.

You seem to have a nasty habit of jumping into threads and attempting to turn them into "the rambling manifesto of Rob Banks (v2.14)"

I get no sense whatsoever that you have even the faintest foundation beneath the patchwork system of politics and morality that drive you, and I've no interest in engaging in the thankless and impossible task of ordering your fractured world view.

[Leonard D Neubache]

(01-19-2017 11:33 PM)BrewDog Wrote:  

There are a flood of Straw Man arguments in this thread to ridicule libertarianism, yet your examples don't even represent libertarian beliefs.

You should perhaps change the topic to "How ANARCHISTS are Effeminate" to continue the discussion.

If I made a thread called "How resurgent anarchism sprung from a lack of masculinity" everyone would think I was out of my tree, because there are no registered voters turning up in greater numbers for the "anarchy" party.

The world turns. Political parties change. Words shift from their meanings in certain contexts. If your problem is that the Libertarian party for libertarians is not really libertarian then you should take the up with them.

And anarchists are decidedly less feminine than libertarians. At least they're honest in their mind's eye that survival of the fittest is what they'll end up with, with all its implications.

Libertarians think they can have their cake and eat it too, which they can't.

[Different T]

Quote:

Libertarians think they can have their cake and eat it too, which they can't.

This forum is bananas. You can recognize this in Libertarians but cannot see it even when it's explicitly demonstrated at least twice regarding your own perspective.

In the drugs thread, you claim that because drugs "harm the community," any means necessary are justified to combat the issue. Then you have another poster claim that (1) his community is not harmed by pot, (2) your statement is a "declaration of war" against his community. Thus, we see that your claims to superiority based on "outcomes" result exactly in a tension that threatens to cause chaos and destruction (both of you literally start threatening each other with implied violence for not accepting the other view).

In the same thread, you have another poster stating that he perceives promiscuity and adultery as responsible for much "harm to the community" and (while you do not even disagree with this premise, rather you state it's an absurd thing to say on RvF) start calling him a Muslim sympathizer and literally ask him to "come to Jesus." Thus we see your claims to superiority based on "outcomes" result exactly in tension when other community members perceive the sources of primary threats differently than you.

edit: In other words, your own view is nothing more than your particular Liberal preferences masquerading as some appeal to "the community" or "patriarchy." You claim that your view is cohesive based on "outcomes over principles" even when your thought is met with hostility in a community that is almost assuredly more similar to yourself than the general population. Which is extremely funny considering you are supposedly against the outcome of Libertarianism which you see as the anarchy of a bunch "big man" power trippers battling each other.

All of this is to say:

Quote:

Then guys like me waste inordinate amounts of time trying to untangle the twisted mental premises that lead to these kind of contradictions

and

Quote:

I get no sense whatsoever that you have even the faintest foundation beneath the patchwork system of politics and morality that drive you, and I've no interest in engaging in the thankless and impossible task of ordering your fractured world view.

and

Quote:

And anarchists are decidedly less feminine than libertarians. At least they're honest in their mind's eye that survival of the fittest is what they'll end up with, with all its implications.

and

Quote:

Libertarians think they can have their cake and eat it too, which they can't.

are projections of the highest order. You haven't "untangled" anything. You clearly aren't capable of that. You've actually just further obscured the sources of the disorder and made things more subterranean and difficult for yourself.

Do you consider yourself a "reactionary" trying to "restore/redeem" the West. If so, your condition largely stems from something approaching, if not outright appearing to be a Messianic complex.

The alternative perspective being:

[BrewDog]

(01-20-2017 12:22 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Libertarians think they can have their cake and eat it too, which they can't.

You mean we can't have a military for defense without having 800 bases in 70 countries?

We can't trade and be friends with other nations without sending them $100 billion a year that was stolen from U.S. taxpayers?

We can't have regulations unless we have 47 separate federal agencies to enforce them?

We can't have businesses unless they're taxed at 35% and regulated to extreme pettiness?

We can't have an education system without No Child Left Behind and a bloated Department of Education which serves no purpose except to give lazy bureaucrats a job and pension?

We can't have clean water, firehouses, schools, roads, bridges, museums, universities, dams, electricity, internet, cell phone, courts, railroads, police protection, or a banking system unless we have a federal government with 2.2 million employees to tell us how to run all of these things?

I can see your point that surely libertarians are out of our fucking minds for wanting a small government that will provide a basic national defense, infrastructure, and stop people from stealing and killing without deciding whether or not I can play partypoker.com or order contact lenses online without a prescription. And we know for a fact that unless the government takes half my paycheck and sends it to wealthy despots in Africa and the Middle East then our entire society will surely implode.

I suppose you're right. We can't have our cake and eat it too.

[nomadbrah]

Most the real life libertarians I know moved to Switzerland, got in early in Bitcoin and are now millionaires, true story.

Then there are all the liberal-tarians, who spend their time telling me how I am not a libertarian because I don't like violent migrants.

[Leonard D Neubache]

(01-20-2017 10:19 AM)Different T Wrote:  

...
Do you consider yourself a "reactionary" trying to "restore/redeem" the West. If so, your condition largely stems from something approaching, if not outright appearing to be a Messianic complex.
...

Well there's the fundamental difference between me and guys like you.

I can reference a recent system of governance that provided good outcomes for families of my cultural heritage.

And you can play fantasy land "what if" scenarios that assume what worked for pre-industrial pioneer America 200 years ago will fare just as well today.

Who is the more deluded?

[Leonard D Neubache]

(01-25-2017 03:40 PM)BrewDog Wrote:  

(01-20-2017 12:22 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Libertarians think they can have their cake and eat it too, which they can't.

You mean we can't have a military for defense without having 800 bases in 70 countries?

We can't trade and be friends with other nations without sending them $100 billion a year that was stolen from U.S. taxpayers?

We can't have regulations unless we have 47 separate federal agencies to enforce them?

We can't have businesses unless they're taxed at 35% and regulated to extreme pettiness?

We can't have an education system without No Child Left Behind and a bloated Department of Education which serves no purpose except to give lazy bureaucrats a job and pension?

We can't have clean water, firehouses, schools, roads, bridges, museums, universities, dams, electricity, internet, cell phone, courts, railroads, police protection, or a banking system unless we have a federal government with 2.2 million employees to tell us how to run all of these things?

I can see your point that surely libertarians are out of our fucking minds for wanting a small government that will provide a basic national defense, infrastructure, and stop people from stealing and killing without deciding whether or not I can play partypoker.com or order contact lenses online without a prescription. And we know for a fact that unless the government takes half my paycheck and sends it to wealthy despots in Africa and the Middle East then our entire society will surely implode.

I suppose you're right. We can't have our cake and eat it too.

What you obviously are entitled to are as many strawmen as you like.

Scale of government is always merely a shade of grey, and I have no illusions about the fact that most western governments need to be scaled back, but libertarians with rare exceptions are not politically educated in the slightest. For all of them I've ever talked to I got the sense that politics was all a bit complicated and since learning about it would be difficult they needed an ism that required no mental effort whatsoever.

Libertarianism.

The answer to everything. "Market forces. Free trade. Do whatever your want. It'll all work out."

Does it merit mention that every one of them was a fat, lazy unemployed dope addict?

And, yeah, obviously that's not all of them but it's a whole LOT of them. Ask them anything. "Who will build the nuclear weapons necessary to defend the state against other nuclear armed nations?"
*shrug*
"If they can build nuclear weapons for the state, can they build them and sell them on the free market too?"
*shrug*
Ask any one of a million questions of the average libertarian and that's what you'll get.
*shrug*

But let's take all your strawmen for example.

Get rid of those 800 bases in 70 countries.
Stop sending that $100 billion a year that was stolen from U.S. taxpayers.
Get rid of those 47 separate federal agencies.
Abolish being taxed at 35% and regulated to extreme pettiness.
Get rid of federal education funding.
Entrust clean water, firehouses, schools, roads, bridges, museums, universities, dams, electricity, internet, cell phone, courts, railroads, police protection, and the banking system to the states.

You think the average libertarian is happy yet?

Of course not.

Keep going. Tell us all your demands.

[BrewDog]

(01-26-2017 08:53 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Libertarianism.

The answer to everything. "Market forces. Free trade. Do whatever your want. It'll all work out."

Does it merit mention that every one of them was a fat, lazy unemployed dope addict?

It sounds like you know a lot of lazy people that smoke a lot of weed. That's not a libertarian issue, that's a you issue.

But being lazy and worthless is common among people that rely on big government to babysit them from cradle to grave. Republicans and Democrats need government to take care of them. I don't.

"The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren't infringing on their rights…" --Ron Paul

[Leonard D Neubache]

Can you ask Ron if my death metal band is allowed to practice on the front lawn of my house from 1am to 5am?

Or maybe you can answer my simple questions about your list of libertarian demands so we can get a sense of how far your particular rabbit hole goes, beyond "muh freedems."

[TigerMandingo]

Whatever system we have in the West now works and I like it. There's no need to replace it with this abstract libertarian nonsense.

Sure, it's not perfect and a lot of people get left behind for one reason or another but overall it's pretty good and effective. I'm also pro-welfare and social benefits because I don't want poor/old/disabled people to struggle. Our system may need a bit of fine-tuning which is what we brought in Trump for