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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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 Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:46 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| And how does Timothy McVeigh fit into all this? |
Timothy McVeigh was rootless but looking for a political home. McVeigh was very antigovernment, but not libertarian. The party he could have joined, where he fit ideologically, was the Populist Party. It, however, was destroyed by the election laws made by the Democrats (mostly, with minor assistance from the Republicans).
McVeigh followed the only path to change he could see open: violent revolution. He expected to start a series of attacks and gather a violent following, then overthrow the government.
If the government had allowed free elections in the US, the Oklahoma City bombing would never had happened. You can call it "blowback" due to the evil acts of the Federal Government and the lack of free elections allowing alternative candidates a chance to campaign and change things. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 6:00 am Post subject: |
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| Were he alive today which candidate would Timothy McVeigh support? |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 6:35 am Post subject: |
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| Libertines can be annoying as hell sometimes, but that doesn't necessarily make them the antichrist. |
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twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Were he alive today which candidate would Timothy McVeigh support? |
The one that creates the most fertilizer. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:55 am Post subject: |
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Libertarian = fiscally conservative, socially liberal
Its nothing too radical.
RP is not really a libertarian, although libertarians have nowhere else to go. Bill Richardson, I think, was as close to RP on libertarian credentials. But Bill believed gov't had a place in ensuring education and health care. I think many libertarians would not dispute that. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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Kepler
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:40 am Post subject: |
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"This is no surprise, as libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function.....
"Libertarians need to be asked some hard questions. What if a free society needed to draft its citizens in order to remain free? What if it needed to limit oil imports to protect the economic freedom of its citizens from unfriendly foreigners? What if it needed to force its citizens to become sufficiently educated to sustain a free society? What if it needed to deprive landowners of the freedom to refuse to sell their property as a precondition for giving everyone freedom of movement on highways? What if it needed to deprive citizens of the freedom to import cheap foreign labor in order to keep out poor foreigners who would vote for socialistic wealth redistribution?
"In each of these cases, less freedom today is the price of more tomorrow."
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_03_14/article1.html |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Libertarian = fiscally conservative, socially liberal
Its nothing too radical.
RP is not really a libertarian |
This is part of what puzzles me. Kuros left out the foaming at the mouth antigovernment stance. Most of the self-proclaimed libertarians I know do foam at the mouth any time they hear Social Security mentioned.
How can RP not be a libertarian? He ran a campaign as the Libertarian candidate in '88. (But I don't want this thread to descend into yet another RP thread.)
So where does 'antigovernmentism' fit into the equation? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
Libertarian = fiscally conservative, socially liberal
Its nothing too radical.
RP is not really a libertarian |
This is part of what puzzles me. Kuros left out the foaming at the mouth antigovernment stance. Most of the self-proclaimed libertarians I know do foam at the mouth any time they hear Social Security mentioned.
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SS is pretty statist. The state takes your money from you while you are alive and distributes it to the old. The promise is that it will take care of you while you are old.
This process is not only wrong, it is inefficient.
First, it is inefficient. Taking a dollar from me to give to an old person entails transactional costs. So about 84 cents goes to the old person. At which point, the old person has to pay taxes on his SS payments. So at that point, the old person only has about 60-70 cents of the dollar I have surrendered. Hrmmmm.
Moreover, SS is thinning, and there is only a 2-3 trillion dollar pot being invested right now. That is about ten thousand dollars per American. Not bad, but its hardly enough for retirement. Gradual private accrual of funds through private investment should end up with more. I am 26 years old, and I have about $5,000 in IRAs, which is pretty substantial given that I could not contribute for the three years I was abroad. That money will accrue far above what the proportional amount (about $10,000 now) is cooking in the SS plan. It would be more efficient of me to opt out of SS and save for my own. Hell, it would be more efficient of me to pay reduced SS and opt out of benefits during my retirement.
Remember that Clinton introduced a new policy of savings that basically gave employees default 401ks. Now, there are massive problems with 401ks (all based on Congressional lack of foresight, which I won't get into here), but essentially Clinton tried to empower people to save for themselves, even though these people hadn't the sense to look out for themselves. I consider this an acceptable necessary evil, an alternative to SS that would nevertheless aid those too uninformed and negligent to save for their own retirement.
Lastly, as a practical matter, reliance on the government is really no different from relying on a corporation. In each case, you are relying on an entity that could fail. Government can take away your pension just as corporations can, although government is more likely to simply bankrupt itself first (look at State governments in this decade). My generation has witnessed 6-8 years of massive government failure, and we simply do not trust the government to be capable of looking out for us, nevermind questions of dishonesty and bad faith. Does that make me an anarchist?
I won't even address why SS is wrong, because I know I'm not going to convince you on that. The above arguments on why it is a bad policy should be enough. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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You're right that you won't convince me that SS is wrong. 
I see Social Security as the price we pay for changing the traditional extended family suited for a farming lifestyle into a nuclear family suitable for an industrial lifestyle (and whatever it is kind of economy we have now). We fragmented the family to make it mobile and shattered the generational ties. It seems only fair to substitute the entire population and arrange things for it to play the role larger families used to play. I'm open to ideas for improvements to the system, but not anything aimed at dismantling it.
But I don't want to get sidetracked. This thread is about anarchists and AWOGs.
mistermasan entered the fray with the statement that all big government fans are commies and everyone else are the good guys. If he's right that the defining characteristic is size of government, then am I not right to lump AWOGs and anarchists together? |
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Czarjorge
Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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anarchist-no government at all
libertarian-limited government with specific role
It's odd that 'sort of' libertarians, like Ron Paul or LaRouche, always end up in the Republican party rather than the libertarian party. Interesting fact, did you know that in the late 70's and 80's Lyndon LaRouche had the largest private intelligence agency in the world. Let us never forget that the nuts are on both sides of the aisle. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
Anarchist: Governments are evil. Abolish government and people's natural goodness will be freed.
Libertarian: Governments are evil. Minimize government and people's natural goodness will be freed.
Libertarian + Courage of conviction = Anarchist
Or to put it another way, AWOG. An Anarchist without Guts. |
Rubbish. The dictionary definitions I gave show that advocating similarity between libertarianism and anarchism is as unreasonable as it is indecent. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Rubbish. The dictionary definitions I gave show that advocating similarity between libertarianism and anarchism is as unreasonable as it is indecent. |
I say nonsense to that. There are plenty of people on this board who lump everything outside their little sphere of thinking as communists or fascists (they seem fuzzy on the differences). Their only criteria is attitude toward size of the government.
If that is an acceptable position to take, fine. If all antigovernment types fit together then I choose to call them anarchists. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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| There are plenty of people on this board |
So, you take the scattered and weird bunch of opinions on this board as the gospel to describe political ideologies. There are prolly about a thousand books on this topic, and you are going to use Dave's ESL Cafe? Ya-ta, are you unhinged? Noam Chomsky, Bill Maher, Penn & Teller, Drew Cary, Murray Rothbard, Milton & David Friedman and many, many others all describe themselves as libertarian. Obviously, there is quite a large diversity in what it is.
| Quote: |
| Most of the self-proclaimed libertarians I know do foam at the mouth any time they hear Social Security mentioned. |
If I were to do the same, and take Dave's as the best measure for what an ideology is, then anybody who disagrees with the platform of the American Democratic Party's stance on social security is a libertarian and therefore an anarchist. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities.html
Some libertarians. All kooks, I'm sure. Anarchists ta'boot.
Nobel Prize Winners
* James Buchanan (Economics)
* Milton Friedman (1912-2006)(Economics)
* Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) (Economics)
* Kary Mullis (Chemistry)
* Vernon Smith (Economics)
* James D. Watson (Physiology/Medicine)
Journalists / Editors
* Barbara Amiel
* Alan Bock
* James Bovard
* R.W. Bradford (1947-2005)
* David Brudnoy (1940-2004)
* Matt Drudge
* Glenn Garvin
* Nick Gillespie
* James Glassman
* Alan Goldstein
* Carl Oglesby
* Virginia Postrel
* Glenn Reynolds NEW!
* Jeff Riggenbach
* Jay Severin
* Jacob Sullum
* John Tierney
* Dimitri Vassilaros
* Richard Winger
Financial Writers
* Doug Casey
* Richard Maybury
* Robert Prechter
* Robert Ringer
* Daniel Rosenthal
* Mark Skousen
Business Leaders
* Robert E. (Bob) Bidwell
* Richard Branson
* Mark Cuban NEW!
* Sky Dayton
* Dan Fylstra
* David Koch
* John Mackey
* Lachlan Murdoch
* T.J. Rodgers
* Jim Rogers
* Peter Thiel |
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