RareBird

You're doing a excellent job. :Cheeky:

Loren Pechtel

And what about the middle ground?

Libertarian economics but with a safety net.

ZeusTKP

Doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, it's not libertarianism, or at the very least Libertarianism.

ZeusTKP

OK, I disagree with all of them to some exent - enough that they are all straw men, forming one giant straw man like a giant Japanese robot. I call it, strawbotto.

Metaphor

ALL of these positions I have seen argued and defended on this board and others, and in the past few weeks. Read some of the threads. They aren't hard to find.

It might seem like each of these would be ludicrous, but not because I've misrepresented them. Maybe it is just the case that the lunatic libertarian fringe is over-represented, then?

ZeusTKP

Again, who's your audience? What's the point of collecting the most extreme of ideas from so many people some of whom are more anarchist than libertarian?

Bonniedundee

How is this an old left position? It seems social democrat to me, barely left.

The old left are the old class struggle, revolutionary Marxists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Left

The Old Left is a term used to describe classic 1930s-era Western Leninists, Trotskyists and Stalinists to differentiate them from the Marxists of the New Left who emerged between the 1960s and the 1970s.

You could also place traditional libertarian socialists and anarchists, like Emma Goldman, in there.

Left wing libertarians are just as much into this.

You presume gov't is neutral and aiding the young, we presume it is the organised organ of the capitalist classes and is attempting to shape and brainwash young minds into corporate thinking and obedience.
Again you miss the point of this iontervention, gov't is no neutral servant of the people, it is to quote Marx, the executive committee of the ruling classes, you cannot rely on the state to help us against capitalism.

There is a reason why big business fuelled progressive era reforms and the New deal, it is because regulations like these actively strangle competition from smaller firms.
The point of this stuff is that workers pay to keep themselves docile and boost consumption, they actually retard qualitative change in capitalism. Although using a dialetical or thick approach to removing the state they wouldn't be the first thing to go, all the welfare to the rich that far exceeds that to the poor should go first. The welfare to the poor wouldn't be needed.
Libertarian socialists and anarchists are just as much into this, if not more so, than American style libertarians.

Metaphor

I agree that hard-left (actual hard left and not Bill O'Reilly 'hard left') would be untenable. (However, it might not be untenable in the distant future, with sufficient technology).

Press a libertarian on what should happen if charitable resources are clearly inadequate? "Tough titties". In other words, you might think it would be nice that private charity would pick up the tab, but you are recklessly indifferent to whether it actually happens. That is, if it were proven that private charity could only service a fraction of those in need, that wouldn't change a libertarian's policies.

And, call me a bleeding heart liberal, but even if someone is lazy, I don't think they should be left to starve, or turn to crime. I also don't think the children of the starving also deserve to starve. I also don't think working full time for a wage low enough that would still allow you to qualify for unemployment benefits is a self-affirming position that is good for the person or for society.

But leaving aside the lazy, libertarians have argued that charities can take care of quadriplegics, or they can work in call centres. Again, this is in line with no government organ to administer welfare. If it doesn't exist, you can't get it.

I'd say then you're views are more moderate, but on this very board there was a long debate over the tenability of competing, private security forces and no government force.

In Australia a 14-15 year old can work a part-time job. In fact, I think 14-15 year olds are of course capable of making many good decisions for themselves. But a line needs to be drawn somewhere, no?

Let me put it this way: if rightwingers and libertarians think vouchers will solve the problem, they are deluded beyond belief. I can't even begin to express all that is wrong with vouchers and rewarding schools for the academic performance of their students. It is untenable in sooooo many ways.


When the quality of your education depends on the financial resources of your parents (as it already does to an unacceptable extent and would be made worse under libertarian ideals), then you don't have a meritocracy. You have a new aristocracy.


Part of FDA approval involves controlled clinical trials on humans, and you might be eligible to be part of that.

But in general, the idea that FDA approval is holding back life-saving drugs from entering the market is utter fantasy, spun by big pharma supporters who are not aware that 90% of new drugs on the market treat conditions with existing (sometimes many different) pharmaceutical options. For example, beta-blockers and diuretics are the older, incredibly cheap, hypertension lowering pills. They are effective for most people and have minimal side effects. That didn't stop big pharma's push to get out calcium-channel blockers, which of course were way more expensive and no more effective.

To read the webpages of big pharma, you would think they were charities dedicated to the eradication of disease and misery. What they are, in fact, is the most profitable industry in the US who would take the world, bend it down, and fuck it with barbed wire if they had the chance. Don't get me wrong: pharmaceutical treatments are extremely beneficial to humanity. But the megacorps who own those pharmaceuticals - I find it laughable that people trust them more than they trust the government.

And rushing drugs to market is one of the things I don't trust big pharma on. Because without oversight, they can just put anything on the market. Who is to say restless leg syndrome isn't as in need of an immediate solution?

99Percent

What you seem to miss is that there is nothing in libertopia from preventing you and your friends to form a comune, even a city if you will and enact all the things you like (welfare, police, public schools, "free" universal craddle to grave health care etc) in that comune or city as long as you don't force anyone into it.

Oh but noooo, your little collectivists ideals must be pushed and shoved into those they don't want any part of it by force. This is why you want government (and the higher the level better, specially federal level) to expand and do more than it is supposed to do and infringe on everyone's liberty.

Gamera

Essentially you're saying that progressives should form a new nation, with its own polity, laws, infrastructure, etc., and exclude the libertarian loons. I think that would be a good idea.

Would the libertarians oppose the jurisdiction of that new political system or leave?