RED DAVE

To bring this thread down to earth for a moment, I would like to throw out the following challenge to libertarians:

1. During the Civil Rights struggles, would you have supported the fight against segregation, even though it directly conflicted with the rights of property owners?

2. During the struggle against the war in Vietnam, would you have supported that struggle knowing that:

(a) the popular concept of the nature of "Communism" (a constantly expanding monolith) was wrong;

(b) the rationalization for US intervention (The Gulf of Tonkin incident) was a lie;

(c) millions of people were being killed;

(d) the civil liberties of Americans were being eroded by the government prosecution of the war.

3. During Watergate, would you have called for the ouster of Richard Nixon, knowing that he subverted the government by leading a massive cover-up of political crimes?

4. At the present time, do you support US war against Iraq, knowing that:

(a) the rationalization for the war (weapons of mass destruction) is slim to nonexistent;

(b) the US plans to intervene directly to change the government of another country;

(c) the US plans to seize the assets of the people of Iraq to pay for the war against them;

(d) US corporate involvement in the oil industry makes this war suspect, to say the least.

In other words, libertarians, what do you do during the crises that this country encounters-creates in the real world?

RED DAVE

Dr. Retard

I think this is the only one that should concern libertarians. With all the others, I think libertarians would have to be on the good side, the anti-Vietnam, anti-Nixon, anti-war side.

Regarding Civil Rights, the only problem concerns private business owners, their hiring practices, and which customers they choose to serve. (The public school problem, for example, would be beyond the scope of libertarianism to decide.) The problem is whether to grant the government authority over the practices of private businesses, in the name of racial integration. I believe Barry Goldwater, a relatively consistent libertarian-leaning politician, opposed the Civil Rights Act for just this reason. (If it helps you to doubt Goldwater's bigotry, he later supported homosexuals in the military.) Richard Epstein, a pretty libertarian law professor, has said that he probably would have supported the Civil Rights Act at the time anyway, despite his opposition to its principles and its real-world effects. As for me, I don't know enough about it to make a judgment call. I'd suggest reading Epstein in any case.

RED DAVE

Dr. Retard writes:

Actually, the libertarians I knew personally were on the wwrong side. They were pro-Vietnam, anti-Watergate and, on this bulletin board, seem to favor war in Iraq. (Please, please, please, correct me if i'm wrong.) Ayn Rand was certainly pro-Vietnam.

So, here we have it. We have a clear conflict of values. Libertarians value the rights of business owners over human rights. Plain and simple. Racism is not a major problem for you. This is one of the many reasons why the vast majority dispise your philosophy

Libertarian Party votes in the 2002 election were 383,000.

Green Party votes were 2,656,000.

That says a lot.

RED DAVE

fando

What would a libertarian think of the emotion called pity? I remember what Rand said about it, which is yet another reason she is never going to get much respect.

RED DAVE

And let's not forget compassion, love and the rest of the good stuff.

I did a search for "Ayn Rand and Love" and came up with the following gems.

As to to this, my response is, well, okay. But it sort of misses the point. As a resonably experienced lover, I would have to say that part of the experience of loving is a certain loss of boundary of the self with the beloved. I cannot conceive of a Randian experiencing this according to their creed.

No, love is not just a response to values. Love is a response to another person as a whole. It may or may not involve values. There is also, character (which is not identical to values), physicality (let's not forget that), beliefs (again, not identical to values). I'm not splitting hairs here. My response to the above quote is one of horror. I'm looking to fall in love (and I did, with my wife). I'm not looking for a political leader.

No wonder Rand fell apart when Nathaniel Brandon jilted her.


RED DAVE

99Percent

Rand was not a libertarian. In fact she abhorred Libertarianism.Racism is really an expression of an idea, a wrong one, but an idea nevertheless. You cannot censor ideas without infringement of liberty. And you cannot force people to think what you want them to think. As simple as that.Sources please.

August Spies

Rand was not a libertarian. In fact she abhorred Libertarianism.

could you expand on this please?

elwoodblues

I've been staying out of this thread, but this caught my eye:

Even if this were true, it's disguistingly blatant appeal to the majority. Hell, at least 90% of my countrymen believe in god. That has no bearing on my stance, nor should it.

But it's a gross misrepresentation in the first place. There were more votes cast in Colorado alone in 2002 for Libertarian candidates than the figure you quoted above. In fact, the lp.org website gives us a nice breakdown, state by state.

link

That's 11.6 million votes for libertarian candidates. That doesn't mean 11.6 million Libertarians, obviously. It's out of 370 million total votes cast in the 2002 elections, between local, state, and federal races. 3% isn't very big, but it's better than the 383,000 number you gave above. I couldn't find numbers for the Green Party to save my life. I'm serious. It took me a minute to find a great, simple, information-laden chart about Libertarian results, and I can't find similar information about the Greens. At all. If anyone else can, that'd be great.

In any case, Red Dave, you're pathetically off-base with your original assertion, which was a bald appeal to the majority in the first place. I would be interested to know where those numbers came from, though.

August Spies

Elwood, I would assume he was saying that many people voted for Libertarian in teh presidential race.... not every dog catcher positions votes combined together.

elwoodblues

August, the way I understand it, Rand felt the Libertarian Party was a cop-out. She wasn't very down with compromise. She bitched about the LP taking her end conclusions about economics and social policy (ie, laissez-faire in both areas) while abandoning the philosophical underpinnings.

I think it's silly, myself. Politics is all about pragmatics, and compromise is integral.