I have found that I support libertarian ideas as opposed to those of the left or right. I like the best of both worlds, but in a complementary balance that allows a society where people will succeed and fail on their own merits. Where people's bodies and property belong to themselves, not the government or some idiotic special interest group who thinks they know whats best for everyone else.

I support legalization and regulation of all illegal drugs. The war on drugs has proven to be nothing but a multi billion dollar scam, and has been a dismal failure. I honestly don't care if my neighbor wants to poison his body with drugs. I see it as social darwinism. The drug addicts will weed themselves out of the population. If my neighbor is becoming a threat to others with his behavior, arrest him and throw him in the klink. End of story. But don't waste my illegally collected tax dollars on a pointless "war" thats an insult to common sense and human dignity. Prohibition did not work. Niether will the War on Drugs.

I have the same view of prostitution and gambling. Prostitution is the worlds oldest profession. Making it illegal is a joke. As long as men want meaningless sex and specific pleasures and have the cash to pay for them, there will be women willing to oblige. Its not for the moral minority of 16th century puritans to decide whether or not its right for a man to pay a woman 100 bucks an hour to dress him in diapers and make him drink pee. Its his money and his fetish, and its none of your business! Besides, marriage is pretty much legally sanctioned protitution. Same with gambling. Let the idiots blow their money on silly games and spinning wheels. I have always thought gambling and the lottery were a good way to tax people with poor math skills.

I also believe the government should not be able to claim emminent domain and seize peoples property so easily. And certainly, private real estate devlopers should NEVER be able to force people to sell their houses so they can build condos or another mall. We arent living in feudal europe. Its the twenty first century. Leave peoples possesions alone!

I also think that the states should have more rights to govern as they see fit within a basic Constitutional framework. I believe power must be reduced by the federal government to create federal laws. What the hell do a bunch of idiots in Washington know about life in a far western state? The feds need to stick to external affairs such as foreign relations and the military.

I am also very isolationist. I do not like our military being stationed all over the world. Screw these tin pot dictators and idiots in some countries who seem to be content killing each other. Let them worry about it. Our soldiers should be on American soil, where they are wanted, respected, appreciated, and needed. If war breaks out elsewhere, so what. Unless they are directly threatening or attacking us, I honestly dont care. Let the world f*** itself up as it pleases. Our military has plenty of need here at home.

Thats just a few reasons off the top of my head why I support Liberatirans. Not all libertarian polices I agree with, but in my opinion, they have the best overall plan for creating a saner, better America.

Greatness isnt measured in money or power, but how unsual and free a country is. I dont want America to be a superpower. I want it to be my beloved country.

Aww, come on. I was eating.

I am Libertarian for much the same reasons. It's why I get angry when a bunch of conservatives want to Amend the Constitution to ban a practice that is seriously rare. Flag Burning.

Or how about the Funeral Protest ban because of one church of about 100 people.

About the funerals, Freedom Riders started with a few hundred riders 8 months ago, and have grown to 38,000.

This is a social solution that, since it's grown so fast and been a very popular movement, needs no government bumbling.

Hmm I first took notice of Libertarians when I started to read Amuks posts. I have mixed feelings towards the ideoglogly on the one hand I support some of the stances that Libertarians have and on the other hand I think they are just another group of people who are looking for there version of society that never exsited.

On the contrary, Libertarians advocate the type of government originally envisioned by our forefathers and one that existed from the beginning until people realized they could manipulate the government to increase their own power.

I am now a full-fledged libertarian. I absolutely love the ideology, simply because it is an anti-ideology. Its simply perfect, "Live and Let Live."

Unfortunately, I see libertarianism in almost the same light as communism/socialism at times, because people have totalitarian tendencies as much as they have individualist tendencies (not that the two go hand-in-hand).

Another Libertarian speaking up.

Unlike many Libertarians I always thought of myself as a liberal (Note: I said liberal, not Liberal) rather than a conservative. For example, I always thought gun ownership is a liberal idea.

If you wish to do something stupid like abuse your body/mind with drugs fine have at it, but don't expect me to pay for your hospitalization if you OD. and don't expect me to condone robbery, or let you off easy if you can't pay for your habit.

For me my Libertarian leanings also come about from my Religion. (or maybe my Religion came about from my Libertarian leanings?)



Source: Liber Oz by Aleister Crowley

But if you dig deeper "True Liberty" is not so much about being able to do as you please.. it's more about allowing others to do as they please even it you find it distasteful, stupid, annoying, immoral, etc... as long as they don't interfear with any other persons rights.

It is so nice to read that there are people that have the same views of life as I do, I believe that we each have our own rights and as long as we don't interfer with the rights of others; you are free to blow your brains out, get stoned out of your mind, eat meat, eat veggies, grow trees, cut down trees etc.

-I believe however, that there are some rules the government should maintain like the right to defend a child from a molester - sorry I don't buy the Man -boy or Man-girl love theory.
-I don't believe in beating your significant other(s) -(unless you're both in the S-M scene) without reprocussions or beating your children - Discipline yes - beating no and yes, I do believe that there is a difference.
-I don't believe the government is responsible to feed you or your children if you don't work. Sorry - I know that is cruel but I believe that once we mandated welfare and social services we created a monster.
-I believe that if you are ingenious and make more money than your neighbor - you have more money and it belongs to you not your neighbor or the extra money to the government.
-I believe we are each responsible for our own actions - that we are not all victims.

For some reason, we have lost many values that Thomas Jefferson, and Henry David Thoreau wrote about.


Albert Einstein - "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

You have voted Skadi_the_Evil_Elf for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.



Me, too, Skadi.

I will add this, too, I believe in the right to keep and bear arms. In a responsible manner.

I've been a lifelong Republican, but what I've seen in the last 5 years has made me sicker than I've ever been. The GOP has gone to the dark side and I will not be a part of it. I am now a proud progressive/Independent. I vote for common sense. I dont care what side of the aisle its on.

If I had a Harley, I would be there. I love what those folks are doing. Shielding funeral participants from seeing and hearing a bunch of freakin lunatics.

OK, Skadi, I'll dive in here, but the truth is for the most part you cherry-picked those portions of the Libertarian political agenda I agree with, you sneaky elf, you.



I am going to pick a nit here, though. Not that I think people's bodies should belong to the government or to special interest groups, but I have a problem with saying that anybody's body "belongs" -- and I don't care who it's to. Even if we say that someone's body "belongs" to him/her self, that still reduces a person to property, and the real problem with that is that one of the rights one has in property is to sell it. This idea has been used to justify all kinds of oppression and violation of workers' basic human rights.

A person is not property, period. My body doesn't belong to you or to the government. But that doesn't mean it belongs to me. It means it doesn't belong to anyone or anything. I do not own myself. I AM myself -- and I am not for sale.



Me, too. Totally.



Agreed once more.



Can't argue with that, either.



Got to be somewhat careful with that, but we could move somewhat in that direction I agree. Reason I say we have to be careful, is that too much power in the hands of the states, and too little in the hands of the federal government, once upon a time resulted in 600,000 American casualties. But if the federal government keeps its monopoly on maintaining military forces, if we don't try to go back to the militia system, a replay of that could be avoided.



Complete agreement here, too, but I do feel I should point out one necessary corrolary. One reason why we have our military stationed all over the world, is that we are dependent on imports of oil. We cannot produce enough oil any more to meet our needs, and so we use military force (along with other things) to ensure that we keep getting it from abroad. If we're going to break that habit, we also need to stop being oil junkies. Our current energy efficiency is about 10%. It could, without straining too hard, be increased to 40%. If we did that, it would be as if we had quadrupled our energy production, and that would in turn allow us to switch to other sources of power.



And I feel exactly the same.

Where I do run into problems with the Libertarians, however, is in their advocacy of laissez-faire capitalism. There is a difference between the state cracking down on individuals trying to live their lives, and the state keeping a rein on those who want to oppress others. The former is tyranny. The latter is its opposite.

Libertarians, at least those who join the LP, believe in the ability of commerce to police itself. I do not. I look at the history of capitalism, and I see hideous evils perpetrated in pursuit of wealth whenever the government permits, and, far too often, with the government's actual help.

I have no disagreement with Libertarians as to ends. Freedom -- gotta love it. But in some respects, I do disagree as to means. Because being under the thumb of an employer unrestrained by reasonable law is not, to my way of thinking, freedom.

I agree partly with your unease about unrestricted capitalism. I believe certain sensible regulations should be put in place.

Like cooperations should not be allowed to poison the environment or people. They should also not be able to violate the rights of individual citizens. They should also not be allowed lobbies or representitves in the government. High penalties should be enforced for such behavior.

However, commerce can police itself. The bottom line in business is the customer. Supply and demand. Basically, if your product or service sucks, or its useless, it wont sell. But if your product or service is great, and it sells, why get in the way of that?

I think increased competition is the answer, and lesser regs on indivudals starting their own businesses and such would help stir up the pot a bit.

I like snesible free market capitalism as a financial system, until a better one can be formed. Ive seen here in Europe the unpleasant effects of government over-regulation/protectionism in business, and it really hurts it.

But one can help regulate bi=usiness without actually regulating it. Cooperations are humans, and humans are part of the animal kingdom. Humans can be taught anything by a successful system of punishments and rewards, like chimps.

Apply the right subtle punishments for over the top practices by companies, while subtle rewards for companies who perform well and engage in fair play.

To me, the biggest realization that cemented me as a libertarian is that we humans are not as unique as we once thought we were. Religion aside, the evolutionary viewpoint suggests that intelligence of the type seen in most animals is actually an incredibly rare phenomenon. That might sound unique, but its not the case if you realize that intelligence is more of a cancerous growth and retardation-like handicap rather than a true blessing. For all the rationalizing and high thought that we are capable of, we are insanely vulnerable to pain, whereas animals with smaller, less-capable brains, can withstand pain.

Once you realize that, you also realize that humans are not entitled to things like a good education and health care. Animals don't recieve health care, nor do they have any right to it. If you start looking at humans for what they are, you see that libertarianism is the only way to go.

This in and of itself is an ideal of libertarian philosophy. The only right individuals should lack is the right to deprive others of their rights. Specifically speaking, it would not be legal for corporations to use unwilling human patients on test drugs, cause a fire that would burn another's home, or polute a fresh water lake that would poison those individual that may drink from it etc. In a libertarian society with a limited government, laws would be established against such practices.

Even without a limited government (i.e. no government), such activities can be avoided for the same reasons you discussed in the latter half of your dialogue. The point of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders. If your product kills or harms individuals, then chances are it will not make much money.

In terms of corporate lobbies, why be hypocritical and remove the right of a legal entity (a corporation) to contact its legislator? Besides, with a government that made little to no regulations in the economy, how much could they really influence the government? It is not the case where they are going to get some sort of tax incentive (especially when libertarians are for little to no taxes).

I think this is a point many people miss when thinking/talking about liberty.

Liberty is not all about an individuals rights. Liberty is actually a prohibition on interfearing with others rights.

So in the case of corporations, liberty is more about restricting how they operate. Coca Cola for example could not tell Wal-Mart that if they wish to sell Coke they can't carry Pepsi (a typical action of the robber barons of the past) as that would restrict Wal-Mart's right to sell what they wish.

They could of course refuse to sell to Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart is free to buy from a middle man. (and then the price of Coke will rise, sales would drop, and the Pespi stockholders would start to smile)

Very good points. I never thought of it like that.

If there was less government with minimal laws, then there certainly would be less for cooperations and rich people to lobby and control. Thus, as long as they dont kill or poison others, they can do as they please.

I've been a Libertarian for years, I just didn't know it. No wonder I never knew who to vote for... I always felt limited to republicans or democrats. I imagine there are many others like me. I vote Libertarian even though I know it won't make a difference... but some day maybe it will.

Someday, it will. This two party rigged farce cant go on forever.

I read or skimmed through all of this thread, and your attachment to libertarianism makes me sick. I used to be a staunch libertarian; however, I then realized that statism is the way to go. Although libertarianism seems good in the short term, with everybody happy due to lack of restrictions, after a few decades or centuries, I would predict that a libertarian society will likely suffer from many environmental problems, and will also be expending too many resources on things detrimental to society. While I, too, once believed that a focus on the individual would be good, I now realize that focusing on the society as a whole is much better. For example, strictly regulating the extraction of natural resources(logging, fishing, etc.), prohibiting activities that damage the society, and other such actions are good, despite being against libertarian views.

I'm tired and can't really say more except for this: focusing on the individual will wind up with a society of pot-smoking hippies, crackheads, and homosexuals, while focusing on the state will wind up with a sustainable society.

Want a bucket?



Why is it against Libertarian views? If it damages society it is by default infringing on others rights. For example a factory won't be able to start pumping toxins into the water supply, as that would cause harm to others.



So what you are saying if you were given your liberty you would become a hippy crackhead homosexual?

Ok, I see how if EVEYONE was high all the time how that woulde be bad,
but homosexuality has no negative effects on society, and is'nt a bad thing.
I'm actually a bit offended by that part.


Oh, and I do have an opinion on the original topic, but I'm very tired and
it's very late, so I'll post it tomorrow, or later today, whichever it is.

[edit on 9/3/2006 by iori_komei]