I find that amidst the rest of the bullshit this election cycle
I cannot be a libertarian. Oh, the idea of libertarianism is clear and straightfrward enough, but the simple fact is, it’s a club I can’t get into. Two points:
I’m all for letting people live however they want. Libertarians are all for letting me live however they want too.
No matter how much I’d like to go on with my life and be left alone, pretty nearly every libertarian I know is anxious to tell me how wrong I’m doing it.
So I have arrived at the point where I cannot find a “Conservative” who is conservative, I cannot find a “Liberal” who wants anything to do with freedom, and I cannot join a party who has an indistinct definition of how it’s done (And when you bitch at me that I’m wrong about that, you prove my point)
We have allowed the political class in this country to become a reality tv show. We won’t tolerate anyone of any integrity and capability. We have lost the urge to get it right. So, let the monkey fly the airplane. if Trump gets elected it will be a circus. If Shrillary gets elected, it will be a circus. If ___ gets elected, it will be a circus.
I am and will always be a law unto myself. Let the circus begin, and let it be entertaining.
23 comments Og | Uncategorized
A friend and I are contemplating our own party. The “Leave me out of it party”.
The problem being: Its hard to be politically active when your entire party code is wanting to be left out of it. We are however open to new members if your interested.
I am not a libertarian but you’ve got real libertarians wrong. Check the Libertarian Party platform.
There are a bunch of charlatans on talk radio and elsewhere claiming they are libertarians when the crux of their libertarianism is around legalizing drugs and not permitting cops to sit outside bars at closing. The m-i complex does not disturb them, in fact most have supported the wars.Many are evangelical conservative moralists. Real libertarians like the LP want very small government across the board, including a military only big enough to protect our borders.
I find most of the people who think I am doing something wrong all expect some “other” to the fix the problem.
If I find a problem I wade in and fix it.
Could be part of the problem I guess.
If your going to elect a clown, choose a professional:
Bozo for President.
I really don’t want another set of ‘interesting times’, but it looks like we’re going to get them anyway… sigh
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. Menken
50 years of dumbed down public school education has finally had its effect.
I guess the powers that be who we don’t get to see never counted on the miseducated unwashed masses to 1) become cauterized against shame for not buying groupthink and 2) say pluck yew to both parties in the same election at the same time and choose to nominate two spite candidate wrecking balls.
The ruling class has been told by the ruled class the jig is up. I can only imagine the lengths the government will try to coerce the consent of the governed, only to make things worse with each effort.
Note to the Establishment: as bad as Sanders and Trump are, if you don’t like them, and keep doing what you’ve always been doing, you sure as sunshine will not like who follows them. I won’t either. But yousems brought this on.
“I am and will always be a law unto myself. Let the circus begin, and let it be entertaining”
*sigh*…yeah…about sums it up.
I’ve seldom had a Libertarian try to tell me how I should live. I’ve met a few people who think Libertarianism means freedom to smoke dope, but let’s ban those icky guns.
For me the point where Libertarianism falls apart is the idea that if we need carrier battle groups today, some group of people would’ve banded together 20 years ago and built them of their own free will, which history shows ain’t the case. Hence, as far as I can tell, the need for a government of some sort to handle issues like national defense (exactly as spelled out in the Constitution).
I’d be THRILLED if we could just scale back the government to the functions laid out in the Constitution.
As a native New Yorker and resident of the Tri-state area, Trump has been on my radar far longer than most people. He’s always been a blowhard, and he’s always been strictly out for number-one. Plus he has the brains to actually make things happen as he wants them, which should scare the crap out of anyone.
Patr, exactly as I said.
” …. including a military only big enough to protect our borders.”
Two problems with that.
1) I would prefer to protect our countries interest.
2) By the time trouble gets to your border, your in big trouble.
I too find it troubling to be lectured by folks with 1/3 the education or life experience I have.
Indeed, Gerry, indeed.
Libertarianism has the exact same flaw that Marxism/Leninism has, just on the opposite side of the coin.
The commies posit that you can create the “New Man”, by “perfecting” his environment…. essentially to burn out the bad parts of human nature by providing (imposing, really) a “perfect” environment, where lust, greed, avarice and all those other icky things don’t or won’t develop.
Libertarians presume that the same process will spontaneously occur, just so long as we don’t impose our icky will on them by the evil magic they call “government”.
Both ignore the basic nature of fallen man, and the fact that change…real, internal and eternal change must needs occur on the inside of man…a change of heart, of spirit, of the very nature of his being.
We once knew these things, and such times for centuries were loosely termed “The Enlightenment”.
Billy Beck, for all his flaws, coined the exact right phrase for the opposite. “The Endarkenment”.
No man, even an atheist, can say that he’s truly educated, unless and until he has learned these truths well enough to at least argue his opposite stance, on a knowledgeable and accurate basis. He can then rail against them to his heart’s content, of course.
But what we have now, are untold millions, jamming their fingers in their ears in the “can’t hear you!” mode.
So, pointing out similarities to certain mass-rallies of the early 1930s, falls on deaf ears.
Most people demand be led. The Isrealites cried “Give us a King!”, and, well….we know what happened after that.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Jim: Very well said.
“Liberalism,” of the American variety, isn’t about liberty. FDR co-opted the term, in one of his mid-30s campaigns, to distance himself from the craziness of Progressivism. The word stuck, I guess because the left likes the connotation of openness.
Libertarianism, especially with the capital “L”, seems to be shot through with single-issue pot-heads and junk-hoarding prepper cranks. Those of us who believe in individual liberty AND a realistic approach to national security have tried calling it “libertarianism” or “classical liberalism” or even “constitutionalism” but the point is almost always lost in translation. Especially the “constitutionalism” one, given how that word is misused by some real cranking lulus.
In any case, limited, constitutional government has always included defense against such as the Barbary Pirates as far away as the shores of Tripoli. And we saw what became of our reticence to get involved in the world wars. It’s a small world after all.
For letting people live their lives how they want?
A law unto yourself?
Congratulations, you’re already a libertarian.
Just not an orthodox party or faction one, as one oughn’t be.
Um, no.
Mike:
“In any case, limited, constitutional government has always included defense against such as the Barbary Pirates as far away as the shores of Tripoli. And we saw what became of our reticence to get involved in the world wars. It’s a small world after all.”
Yup, while the Founding Fathers looked askance at a standing Army, they had no particular problem with a standing NAVY (along with the associated Marines) which could project force outward to protect/enforce our interests at a distance.
Another vote for what Jim said.
“Both ignore the basic nature of fallen man, and the fact that change…real, internal and eternal change must needs occur on the inside of man…a change of heart, of spirit, of the very nature of his being.”
And it was revealed to me during Church this past Sunday that the necessary change isn’t even brought about by man. This wasn’t a point the pastor made but it screamed at me from 1 Kings 18:37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.â€
I’ve been praying wrong all along. I’ve been asking for hearts to change. I should have been asking for them to BE changed.
Many moons ago I read an interesting article regarding Libertarianism by Charley Reese.
Why I’m Not a Libertarian:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2001-04-15/news/0104140035_1_union-member-community-capitalism
I miss ole Charley.
Og – My point, poorly expressed, was that “libertarian” is far a bigger tent than “Internet Libertarians” and their pre-internet ilk make it out to be.
I think you basically qualify if you want; of course nobody should have a label forced on them if they don’t like it.
(I mean, if the Rothbardian anarcho-capitalists “ran the show” I’d probably try to find another label myself…)
Libertarianism is a coward’s ideology. It’s an attempt by white males to argue in their own interest by ideological means instead of arguing plainly for what’s in the interest of their own blood and culture like every other ethnic group does. Every libertarian ideal has been turned against them by their ideological opponents. To be a libertarian you have to believe in open borders and free trade (or make some Rube Goldberg argument about why it’s more libertarian to believe otherwise) despite the fact that this is dispossessing and impoverishing white males who make up 99.9999% of all the libertarians that ever were or ever will be. To be a libertarian means to choose liberty over survival because how can you be a libertarian if you let sanity trump laissez-faire? In the future, when the last libertarian is bludgeoned to death with the last copy of Atlas Shrugs by some black panther militia man, he’ll be bitching with his dying breath about violations of his property rights and voluntary agreements.
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/freelance-comment-of-the-week-priorities-white-people/
An interesting take.
Wtf?