Are Libertarians Fascist Apologists?

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That part I definitely agree with, but, populist ANYTHING-ism is terrible. The issue is that there are actually libertarian intellectuals, and many of them are top-notch thinkers in some form or fashion. This isn't to say that libertarianism is the most popular belief of academics by any stretch, it's just that it's hard to consider it brain dead. A good example of a well-respected public intellectual who is a libertarian is Michael Shermer. However, historically, there have been a number of good libertarian leaning minds in the US, and not all of them are sick in the head.

I mean, I've self-identified as libertarian on these forums, but I have also been willing to be critical of ruveyn's political stances.

What the Religious Right and the Libertarian Party fail to realize is when they try to enact their Jim Crow laws so that only property owners have the right to vote they fail to enact the Jubilee land reform laws that state that foreclosed property must be returned to the original owner every 50 years. Failure to enact Jubilee land reform laws amounts to theft of land from poor people and is a crime against humanity. Unfortunately the religious Right have denounced that the biblical Jubilee laws as Communist land reform and have also denounced the Jubilee laws as the Satanic verses.

The thing is it's the populists and their cult of "personal responsibility" (read social darwinism) that actually matter.

The Gingrich generation of GOP congressmen were also grotesquely irresponsible, and willing to damage the country for their own political ends, but the Tea Party has taken it to new heights. Forcing the US to default on its debt would have been catastrophic, and they nearly did that even after getting virtually everything they wanted.


I knew I could count on you to come up with an idiotic straw man. Where have I ever proposed curtailing anyone's political rights, or their right to be morons? I have stated that they are dangerous and should be opposed. I believe that responsible people should want to banish the Tea Party and their ilk to the marginalized fringe. I am not, however, a fascist. I never said their movement should be legally banned.

There was never a danger of default on our debt Orwell. All that would of happened would of been an immediate prioritization of our spending. The "deal" they made was just completely meaningless political theater. Maybe that is what both sides wanted here but it certainly didn't change anything about our debt situation.

Do you realize what effect such a "prioritization of our spending" would have on the economy?

I don't actually think what you are saying is really based in the facts. What has declined in the Senate has been the use of unanimous consent agreements as a result the floor fights have become far more vicious. That trend did not start with the Tea Party but with Harry Reid back in 2006. The statistics speak for themselves, the spike in floor fights, cloture motions, filibusterer and obstructionism actually started within the Republican Party well before the Tea Party even existed. So I cannot buy that this is a new and unprecedented occurrence.



The tactic was chosen by Republicans as a response to being shut outside of negotiation on unanimous consent agreements. While I agree that it is an ill-considered tactic it is an evolution that has evolved within the divided Senate.



Umm...
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf152892-0-15.html

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf152892-0-30.html




I would agree that their ideas certainly are in many cases silly.

Then argue that but there was never a threat of defaulting on our debt. If I had it my way, I would do it over the course of a few years but I can't see congress ever doing that so this would of been a way of forcing their hand in ending these crazy wars overseas, the drug war here at home, and ton of other things we can cut back on. The so called deal was completely meaningless, 2 trillion off the deficit over 10 years is still a massive accumulation of new debt.

Why would you go out of your way to remind me of some of your dumbest posts?

OK, to be clearer: I have no advocated arbitrary denials of political rights to groups I oppose, and that is clearly what you were saying I wanted to do with the Tea Party. And even in that thread, I never proposed stomping on anyone's civil liberties- a political movement could still exist outside a democratic government. You are so f*****g dishonest all the time, I don't know why I even bother responding to you.

The government would have had to stop spending money entirely, Jacoby. That means over a hundred thousand overseas troops would simply be abandoned with no pay or support, the FAA could not operate, NORAD could no longer keep watch for incoming missiles, etc ad nauseam. We also would not have been able to continue making interest payments on our accumulated debt, so yes, we would have been forced to default.

Hatred. You see, stupidity hurts you more than it hurts a stupid person.

Now that I see this, I take the oportunity to ask you Orwell, about the political system you propose, that differ from democracy, I think I asked you this in the past, on another thread but I lost track on it, so I apologyze.

Does an alternative system that you may propose has a constitution similar to democracy, in which those in office don't have absolute power? I think people fear that a nondemocratic system means unlimited power and no constitution which seems is the popular belief, so in which case, the alternative had to have these same concepts and values as democracy does, except for elections, otherwise, democracy will still be better, despite the negative things it may have.

Sorry for the tanget.

Hate? Not in your lifetime. I find Orwell often smug and condescending but its nothing I myself am not guilty of.

Honestly, I'm pretty flexible in the range of governmental systems that I would regard as reasonable.


As far as I know, there has never been any system in which those in office actually wielded absolute power. But no, I do not support an absolutist system anyways; I would prefer some balances of power, limitations on power, etc. And yes, there would probably be a constitution involved. A very large number of non-democratic states in the past thousand years have had constitutions. If we count Athens and other small-scale early democracies, there needn't be a formal constitution for democracy to exist. There is no reason to assume constitutionalism and democracy go together.


If you are referring to the civil liberties we enjoy in most of the modern West, then I agree those are good things. Freedom of speech, assembly, religion, commerce, equal protection under the law, protection against arbitrary abuses of power, etc are hallmarks of liberal governance, and can be implemented in non-democratic states. Some democratic states have failed to properly uphold these values. Again... no necessary link here between democracy and those values.

Now, if the choice is between a liberal democracy and an illiberal autocracy, then of course I have to choose the liberal democracy. Liberalism (that is, the actual policies enacted by government) is far more important than how those policies are decided (democratically or autocratically).


We're on page 6. By now the original point of the thread is dead anyways, so no worries about changing the topic.

I suppose it is true that ignorance is bliss.


The difference, 91, is that you are actually an idiot. I am not. Arrogance is a personal failing, but it is even worse in a person who never has the slightest clue what they are talking about.

The federal government brings in $170 billion a month in revenue and servicing our debt is about $30 billion a month. Just roughly estimating the FAA is about 1.3 billion a month(interestingly enough Canada seems to get by with privatized ATC), NORAD is only 13 million(altho I'm not sure how accurate number is but remember that Canada also contributes to NORAD and I assume it's budget is included in our overall defense budget), and our entire monthly defense budget is something like 60 billion. We apparently spend 20 billion a year just on air-conditioning our troops over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Making it to be some doomsday is just doesn't seem true. I'd prefer there to be a deal to eliminate the deficit over the course of say 5 or so years on the condition of a debt ceiling increase but if the opposition can not agree to that then not raising the ceiling would force their hand.