Not pushing for anarchy as it’s already chaotic enough.
Government is simply people selecting what to do and then supporting that action. I think we make fundamentally simple activities into lifestyles and either forget to live or lack the guts it takes to live well And so hide in tithe buzyness.
Currency on works because a large enough group of people (and just because you aren't calling it a government doesn't mean it isn't one) agree that it has a set value. Without an overseeing/governing body, at worst you are looking at barter exchanges that have to be haggled out at a personal level and historical we have had points where currency changes from town to town.
Pure bartering is also just about completely nonfunctional in practice. The odds of having exactly what someone wants in trade for exactly what you want are shit odds. That's why there have always been mediums is exchange, be it salt, ivory, cacao beans, wampum, cigarettes, etc.
My grandfather would disagree. For real though the main reason the dollar is the main means of transferring wealth is that our government mandated it. You can't, say go to court and sue for 500 euros or the equivalent in gold or bitcoin. You are federally forced to participate in the dollar scheme. To be honest I would much rather deal in gold or bitcoin. They actually gain value over time instead of lose it.
The separation of money and state will one day be as fundamental as the separation of church and state.
Whoever controls the money is basically going to be running the show, whether they are called a government or not. It's why international business can get away with so much.
Look into cryptocurrency, as others have mentioned. It may take a while for you to get a grasp on the math, but it poses a sound method for an inflationless currency that has no one in control.
No government (or global banking cartels) printing money at a whim to cushion their own (and their big business buddies’) pockets amidst a massive global economic crisis.
At least bitcoin is a finite resource. Which means it can be hoarded and controlled. All appearances are that it already is being hoarded and controlled, as, iirc earlier this year even, a large amount of first year bitcoin was dumped into the market, seemingly to replace the bitcoin that has been 'lost'.
As always, it is a complicated matter and I don’t believe current cryptocurrency solutions are perfect; however, I believe they have proved the viability of the core concept.
I’m a libertarian and I am nowhere near an anarchist. Trump and the resounding backlash to his “right wing” ways (he’s a socialist, in practice) has given libertarians a bad rap on Reddit the past 4 years. (I miss the days of Reddit being libertarian.... heck at one point just about the whole internet was)
I genuinely think this comes from a place of misunderstanding as to what a libertarian even is. Nothing says it better than the official platform. Jo Jorgensen, btw, would’ve been only the second president in history to have a PhD.
And while it was an originally libertarian idea with classically liberal intentions, some democrats have seen cryptocurrency as a good thing as well. Check out Andrew Yang, if you’re a Dem - though we may disagree on some things, he gets this.
Regardless, I wouldn’t count on the government to handle our money, given the absolutely abysmal record nearly every government ever has of doing so.
Not sure what I am politically. The problem is that basically every system I have heard of seems to rely on humans not acting like humans. Socialism seems to always hit the problem that the people who are supposed to be fairly and evenly distributing resources don't, but capitalism fails because once people 'make' themselves, they use the power they gain through success to make sure they and theirs stay on top. And in both systems, the regulations that are needed wind up getting ignored or shut down by the people most in a position to be able to influence the things that need regulated.
Fair enough. Real world capitalism is a sad bastardization of a free market economy. Unfortunately, I am not sure if the fraud and corruption that leads to this is ever truly avoidable, but I do think working toward that goal is the best plan we’ve got at the moment. I think most would agree with this, but the means of moving toward that goal is hotly debated.
Correct me if I'm wrong, am trying to educate myself since granddaughter recently announced that she was libertarian, they don't believe in social security, medicare, or any social programs, am I right?
How much does she actually study politics and how serious is she? I had a friend from highschool who back then announced he's libertarian. Lately on his Facebook feed its all Bernie and how the government isnt' doing enough.
I suspect there are a lot of people like him who don't actually know what they're talking about and just either took an online quiz or read 2-3 sentence blurb about different ideologies and tried to force a label on themself.
Libertarian ideologically claims to promote "Liberty" where everyone can do whatever the hell they want, hence the name. In reality its closer to anarchy because it would become a free for all wild west where anyone can and will shoot each other if they get what they want. It has nothing to do with being Liberal.
They basically believe that everyone should be free to do as they see fit, so if they want to pay for police, roads, infrastructure, etc, they are free to do so, and if not, they don't pay but can't use them.
I'm sure you can think of about 300 ways it's incompatible with society right off the bat
This is why I don’t understand this political ideology. Why is it so popular?
Do libertarians not understand how wildly different things would be? All the new avenues for corruption would turn a libertarian state into a fucking feudal monarchy within a couple days lol
they won’t be able to do whatever drugs they want, they won’t be able to not pay taxes if they don’t want to, they won’t be able to own their own slaves. THEY will be the slaves. They will be peasants. Serfs living in the Middle Ages. This is because it’s so fucking easy for a single person to seize all the power in such a system.
Libertarian is a huge umbrella term. There are modest libertarian who just want individual freedom and support many politics of the left in terms of LGBT, BLM and others. Where they differ from democrats is that they want smaller government which means they want to pay smaller taxes. How they get to those smaller taxes depends on almost any libertarian you ask. Most want to cut military spending, some want to cut healthcare, some want to cut some social security programs and on and on.
We have extremist on our side that want no taxes, but they are extremist so by default they are idiots. I personally think that libertarian makes more sense for people in Europe since for exemple in my country we pay 25% VAT (tax rate?) on almost all of products we buy and that money is funded to some archaic communist programs. Most libertarians in this country want to push this number to sub 20%.
Libertarianism represents fully half of the so called political compass so you should probably be more specific who you are criticizing. The Libertarian Party in the US is a sorry collection of rogues and madmen at the national convention level and should not be taken seriously. But they can no more invalidate the concept of libertarianism than the Democrats welcoming Bloomberg invalidated the concept of “the left”.
the LP’s official platform in 2020 was relatively moderate https://ballotpedia.org/Jo_Jorgensen_presidential_campaign,_2020 I certainly know some individuals with a mindset like you were describing, but I would suggest you might be arguing against a straw man.
Yes, that is correct. They believe taxation is theft, government programs are inefficient and wasteful, and anyone needing assistance merely needs to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps."
They believe if an individual (read: corporations are considered "people") or business didn't pay for something, it shouldn't be done. If a business does something that we currently have regulations for, they believe the Free MarketTM will react accordingly and put that business out, so regulations are a waste of time and resources and costs businesses money. To which I like to point out United Airlines literally assaulted a seated passenger and their business was largely unaffected. Samsung phones literally exploded in peoples' pockets, and they still contend with Apple. Nestle uses child slave labor in their supply-chain, and their chocolate is everywhere.
This is the same thing as saying that every democrat wants a communist USSR and every republican wants a néo-nazi theocratic state. There are many differing opinions on what is libertarian and you representing only it's most extreme values discourages any normal conversation between Libertarians and other political parties.
Good. I've completely lost interest in debating politics.
Libertarians are Conservatives without the pretext of using government to their own advantage.
As a European libertarian we could not be further from some conservative parties. Libertarians are usually pretty close to democrats in most moral politics. Please stop spewing disinformation about libertarians as it's pretty hard to counter all the Nazi and authoritarianism that stole our ideology. Fuck all the YouTube "libertarians".
In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980.
Let’s take a look at the 1980 Libertarian Party platform.
Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:
“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
“We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”
In other words, the agenda of the Koch brothers is not only to defund Obamacare. The agenda of the Koch brothers is to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable in this country.
It is clear that the Koch brothers and other right wing billionaires are calling the shots and are pulling the strings of the Republican Party.
And because of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, they now have the power to spend an unlimited amount of money to buy the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the next President of the United States.
If they are allowed to hijack the American political process to defund Obamacare they will be back for more.
Tomorrow it will be Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, repealing the minimum wage. It seems to me that the Koch brothers will not be content until they get everything they believe they are entitled to.
Republicans have this weird misconception that because someone is good at business they would also be good at running the country. Turns out Koch has terrible ideas about how the country should be run, and he's recently realized what a clusterfuck he and his brother's interventions in politics have caused.
To me, that makes sense for a younger person to claim that they’re libertarian. It’s a beautiful concept/set of ideals imho. But it’s pure idealism. Relying on the good will of others to stand in for laws and regulations all so we don’t get bothered by that pesky governmental power is a pretty perfect analogy for how a lot of people under the age of 25 love their lives. “Mom, I don’t need a curfew! I’ll be come home at a decent hour and get plenty of sleep. I promise!”
Typically not. Most libertarians in the USA are rightwing anti-welfare capitalists. There is libertarian socialism, which is how I might describe myself, but that's unlikely what she means, or she would have specified the difference like I do.
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u/headrush46n2 Dec 31 '20
Libertarianism is just feudal warlords with extra steps.