elwoodblues

August, to the best of my recollection, there was no presidential race in 2002.

And if you take the 'dog catcher' positions out of the equation (even though most real governance, IMO, happens on the local level), you still end up with something like 4 or 5 million votes.

Libertarian and Green voting totals tend to be about the same, certainly not an entire order of magnitude apart.

Dr. Retard

But there is a conflict of values here. And any good liberal will recognize it. We want people to be free to do what they want, so long as they don't aggress on other people. This is standard liberalism and it goes back to Mill, Kant, Smith, Locke, and Hobbes. A straightforward consequence of this standard liberal view is that business owners have the right to hire and serve whomever they please.

But, at the same time, we despise racism. We hate it when people are locked out of opportunities because of prevailing narrow bigotry. And we see how the aforementioned right of business owners can be used to perpetuate and reinforce systems of oppression.

There is a problem here, and anyone who doesn't see it is either unreflective or not a liberal. Choosing to describe one value as 'human rights' and the other as 'rights of business owners' doesn't erase the problem. Concluding that "racism is not a problem for [libertarians, or any liberals who see the conflict]" is a non sequitur. Racism obviously is a problem and that's what makes the issue difficult.

Kinross

The libertarians are against slavery and do not see people as property. All men are created equal.

Libertarians are against wastful miltary buildup and were against the cold war for numerous issues.

Watergate was the overstepping of executive powers which is against libertarian principals.

Libertarians are against a war with Iraq. From the Cato Institute

FYI the biggest lobbying arm for libertarians is the Cato Institute . This is were the money is. Instead of making up what libertarians are all about I suggest you you read the Cato Institutes web site. It gives a good overview of where libertarians stand in excrutiating detail.

No not all libertarians hold all these views but this is a good baseline and where most invest there money to get things done.

RED DAVE

Just to get the ball rolling here:

Al Gore - 49,145,883 48%
George W. Bush - 48,940,963 48%
Ralph Nader - 2,655,916 3%
Pat Buchanan - 435,941 0%
Harry Browne - 373,109 0%


Green Party Election Results

This took me about two minutes to find, using Google. More later

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

From Dr. Retard:

Since I'm not a liberal but a socialist, the conflict between the rights of a business owner and the struggle against racism present no conflict for me. What Libertarians do not understand is that racism is not just a pernicious pimple on the ass of capitalism that, stubbornly, just won't go away. It is part and parcel of the system of capitalism, as it evolved and as it still exists.

Capitalism, born with the death of feudalism, corresponds historically to the opening of the international slave trade and modern slavery. Much of the profits that helped to build capitalism came from the slave trade and from agriculture based on slave labor. Racism is the ideology that was built up to justify this system.

After the final defeat of slavery, a sytem of racial discrimination replaced it in exactly the areas where slavery was strongest. Yes, there was racism in, say, the northern United States, but it was nothing in comparisn to the organized, institutionalized, system in the South, maintained by terror and mass murder. This system persisted into the second half of the Twentieth Century. It was defeated by a left wing coalition of African Americans, labor, socialists, Communists, liberal churches, Jews, etc. and ultimately sanctioned by liberals. It was maintained and defended by a coalition of racists and conservatives, Ayn Rand among them.

The Libertarian insistence on the primacy of property rights is, in practice, a reified form of racism. This is shown by its real-world consequences. Capitalists had the free right to maintain or oppose racism for all of capitalist history, into the 1960s. And rather than remove it on an enlightened or self-interest basis, they maintained it and profited from it until they were forced to stop it.

Racism has always been part of capitalism, and it remains so.

RED DAVE

beyelzu

Red Dave,

What defines western civilization and 19th century america is not slavery.

Many civilizations had slaves, in fact most did. Rather it was the voluntary abolition of slavery. The slaves in america did not rise up in revolution. No instead america fought a bloody civil war to end slavery.


Furthermore when you argue that
the system being capitalism, you are not really looking at the big evolutionary picture. Racism as existed since there were races. Various people have always looked down on people outside there tribes.

furthermore, correlation in time does not mean that the two are linked inexorably. Also, Rome conquered a variety of "nations" and sold some of their citizens into slavery. So by some definitions Rome practiced international slavery.

please provide some examples of mass murder in the south between 1865 and 1960 that was used to keep the racial system going.


and this is nothing but an empty assertion.

RED DAVE

Beyelzu writes:

You can't just assert that. You have to prove it. Considering the fact that the most violent war this country ever fought, absolutely or relatively, was in the 19th century over slavery, you have a case to make. In terms of "western civilization," I'm talking about it's current economic manifestation, capitalism, not the Roman Empire, which disappeared 1500 years ago.

Will readers of this thread please observe the contradictions in the above.

So, the most modern, progressive, humane, freedom loving system in history, apitalism, has to sink to the level of comparing itself to tribal cultures? Rots of ruck.

No, it doesn't. but the concrete, historical fact is that the mass, international, slave trade was an integral part of the development of capitalism. You cannot get away from that historical fact.

I don't know what history books you read, but after the Civil War, in the form of the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist organizations, thousands of people were killed, whole towns were burned and an active racist ideology was the norm in the South, where you now live. I can remember the murders during the Civil Rights period when mass condemnation of such practices (and some degree of economic modernization in the South) had made them unpopular but not extinct. Do you want a list of names?

You cannot assert away what you claim is my assertion. IProve me wrong by showing how the consequences of your ideology will lead to the end of racism if, in fact, that's something you are concerned about, which I doubt.

RED DAVE



Report

RED DAVE

My true opinion is that Libertarians have a hard time with love.

Love contains within it a tremendous amount of what they call "altruism." When you love someone you truly want the best for them, not just because they are part of your life (a sneaky form of selfishness) but for themself.

This is one of the reasons why Libertarians have a hard time with children. You love your children. In a non-selfish way. You sacrifice for them. You may even give your life for your child.

This is totally outside the world-view of Objectivists, Egotists, Libertarians, etc.

RED DAVE

beyelzu

so now I am a racist, Red Dave, thats pretty tyical of the left.


I actually hate racism. but you need to back up your assertions as well. The fact that a civil war was fought to free slaves does not negate that the mostly white north decided to fight just such a war. That was my point about voluntary. I went on to prove my opening assertion. But maybe I should have been more clear, what makes western civilization different from ealier civilizations and thus defines it is not slavery but rather the voluntary ending of slavery.

you keep saying that capitalism is racist which is a statement that really confuses me. as a system it isnt concerned with race. I wouldnt say that communism is racist either.

also you said mass murders, I guess I would like to see that defined as a number, then I would like to see some statistics on state sponsored mass murders. The kkk were fruit cakes but they werent government fruitcakes.

RED DAVE

I never called you a racist. I said that Libertarianism, in its refusal to confrant the racist roots and practice that are endemic to capitalism, and putting forward no solution to the problem of racism, is racist, yes. And I stand by that.

The "voluntary" ending of slavery by war was hardly voluntary. The end of slavery was a result of a campaign that lasted over a hundred years. And it finally took a major war to end it, and this war was precipitated by the Left, with the Abolitonist movement. Slavery was supported by the Right throughout its existence. And when the right, in its most virulent manifestation, fascism, came into power in Germany they reistituted slavery in the concentation camps. This slavery happened during my lifetime and was the worst manifestation yet.

The last major manifestation of slavery in "Western Civilization," the slave labor camps of the Nazis,


A "system" is the total manifestation of its economic structure on all levels. This includes its ideology. Racism has been part of the belief system of capitalism from the start. If I substitute "Marxis" and "Communism" maybe it's easier to understand. Racism, incidentally, was a part of Communism. Anti-semitism (a form of racism) was active.

Mass murder involve the murder of large numbers of people. From its found by Nathan Beford Forest (with the acquiescencel of Robert E. Lee) right after the Civil War, the KKK carried on a war on behalf of the Southern ruling class and its racist practices. This involved murdering large numbers of people. The primary method was called lynching, and there were other forms. Please don't be obtuse! The KKK was frequently sanctioned by the government of the Southern states.

RED DAVE