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Dox47
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22 Aug 2011, 5:34 am

marshall wrote:
I would like libertarians to explain how the financial sector overexuberance which lead to the most recent crisis was a victimless activity. It seems when private entities grow to a certain size, our society as a whole can become dependent on them. Do we just ignore this dependency that develops?


I have several thoughts on that.

The first is that the real breakdown occurred with the ratings agencies that continued to give AAA ratings to mortgage backed securities when they knew or should have known they were shaky. Fraud is fraud, and I have no problem with prosecuting it when it occurs.
The second thought is that this was a lot like a 419 scam in that it relied in large part on the greed of the "victims" in order to work. People took out all sorts of shady loans knowing they couldn't afford them, on the assumption that real estate would only go up. People really thought they could get something for nothing, and got bit in the ass for it. I don't put much stock in protecting people from themselves, I don't see this as being all that different from the tech bubble when people poured millions into vaporware companies on the assumption that anything "tech" could only go up. We all know how that worked out.


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Dox47
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22 Aug 2011, 5:39 am

blauSamstag wrote:
I used to consider myself a left-libertarian until i figured out that the libtertarian party disagrees with my ideals. Now I just consider myself a malcontent.


I don't think the Libertarian Party really represents most libertarians, they usually just seem to be GOP-lite. I'll say it again, it's more of a philosophy than a specific party or group.

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I don't buy the (right?) libertarian argument that if we were taxed less, more money could be given to charities and people would take more time out to help the poor in person.


I'm not sure I'd call that a libertarian idea, it's more of a Reagan conservative one. Libertarians want a smaller government period, which would require less taxation to support. We don't tend to be against social programs in general, we just want ones that work and don't waste so much money on bureaucracy.


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Dox47
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22 Aug 2011, 5:53 am

NeantHumain wrote:
Libertarian is a complex phenomenon. Unlike liberalism and conservatism, which in the United States, we equate to the Left and the Democratic Party and the Right and the Republican Party respectively, libertarianism makes a claim to be neither left nor right. However, self-proclaimed libertarian politicians and major campaign donors tend to ally themselves with Republicans and conservatives. Yes, some libertarians emphasize things like freedom of speech, sexual freedom, and other personal/social freedoms, but the main thrust of the movement supports ending business regulations.


I think of that as a tactical move, it's much easier to initiate change from a position of prosperity and having resources. It's an alliance of convenience, and one that many libertarians are now coming to question.
I know that there have been efforts from various libertarian organizations to reach out to liberals, but for whatever reason it seems to be easier to get conservatives (at least the secular ones) to see the value of civil liberties than it does to get liberals to come around on the free market. There have been a number of articles on the failures of "liberaltariansim" to take off, though some people do identify as such.


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22 Aug 2011, 8:54 am

NeantHumain wrote:
Libertarian is a complex phenomenon. Unlike liberalism and conservatism, which in the United States, we equate to the Left and the Democratic Party and the Right and the Republican Party respectively, libertarianism makes a claim to be neither left nor right. However, self-proclaimed libertarian politicians and major campaign donors tend to ally themselves with Republicans and conservatives. Yes, some libertarians emphasize things like freedom of speech, sexual freedom, and other personal/social freedoms, but the main thrust of the movement supports ending business regulations.

An interesting issue is that there was an effort, at least for a short period of time, for libertarianism to try to ally itself with the Democratic party and liberalism. In fact, there are melded beliefs such as "liberaltarianism" and "bleeding heart libertarianism", that are usually defined by having some left-wing sympathies.



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