Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: roo_ster on December 10, 2012, 10:31:25 AM
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http://washingtonexaminer.com/jim-demint-was-the-libertarian-hero-of-the-senate/article/2515445?custom_click=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#.UMX5YXf0-tp
For libertarians, Christian conservative pro-lifer Jim DeMint was the best thing to come through the Senate in decades. DeMint, quitting early to run the conservative Heritage Foundation, embodied an underappreciated fact of life in Washington: The politicians who most consistently defend economic liberty are the cultural conservatives.
DeMint and others could make deeper philosophical arguments about family, church and community as counterweights to state power, but there are also the basic facts on the ground: The best fiscal conservatives in politics are all social conservatives. Look at the Club for Growth scorecard again. All the most fiscally conservative senators are pro-life. You have to go down to No. 27 in the Club's rankings -- Mark Kirk -- to find a pro-choicer.
Self-described "fiscal conservatives and social moderates(1)" almost never end up being both. Most end up embracing taxes, regulation and spending like Mark Kirk, with a Club for Growth lifetime score of 52 percent. The rest become pro-lifers like Pat Toomey.
Do read the whole thing and appreciate that it was a social conservative that was instrumental in getting the most classically conservative folks elected to the Senate.
Reading it, I was reminded of a scene from Chasing Amy (NSFW, audio, you've been warned):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTKTh2MRm-w
[FTR, "male-affectionate, easy to get along with, non-political lesbian" = socially liberal, fiscally conservative policritter]
Also, my favorite scene from Chasing Amy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0VZj-85E5o
Gentrification!
I just about fell outta my chair at that.
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False assumptions.
Passing balanced spending bills and keeping Leviathan in check has nothing to do, for or against, abhorshins.
Just because there ARE NO LIBERTARIANS (except Ron Paul, who has a 100% libertarian voting record in direct contrast to your bolded assertion in your second quote) in Congress, does not mean that social conservatives are the champions of libertarianism.
I fail to grasp how social conservatives have any bearing on libertarianism.
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To further expand, Libertarians are mostly concerned with DESTROYING THE RING OF POWER, using a Lord of the Rings analogy.
Conservatives think they are Saruman or Gandalf, wanting to take the ring themselves and use it to undo wrongs they perceive (abhorshins, flag burning, etc). But, we see through the Bush II presidency with a GOP majority everywhere, that all we get is authoritarianism.
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False assumptions.
Passing balanced spending bills and keeping Leviathan in check has nothing to do, for or against, abhorshins.
Just because there ARE NO LIBERTARIANS (except Ron Paul, who has a 100% libertarian voting record in direct contrast to your bolded assertion in your second quote) in Congress, does not mean that social conservatives are the champions of libertarianism.
I fail to grasp how social conservatives have any bearing on libertarianism.
Rand Paul is pro-life and against gay marriage. Also, for both misconstruing the argument and not seeing any correlation what it has been demonstrated, I think you just earned a bunny with a pancake on its head:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F25.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_mav1lpqcIQ1rgo2mio1_500.jpg&hash=7dded5d050a0c226d65ded5a7f1ff38668a13f66)
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He isn't saying social conservatives = libertarians
He is saying elected libertarians = libertarians who are social conservatives.
The rest of the libertarian crowd is too busy maintaining philosophical purity or getting stoned. :laugh:
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Rand Paul is pro-life and against gay marriage. Also, for both misconstruing the argument and not seeing any correlation what it has been demonstrated, I think you just earned a bunny with a pancake on its head:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F25.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_mav1lpqcIQ1rgo2mio1_500.jpg&hash=7dded5d050a0c226d65ded5a7f1ff38668a13f66)
Rand Paul is NOT his father.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsubversiveinfluence.com%2Fimages%2Fblogposts%2Fpancake_turtle.jpg&hash=a6f463d32e2b30c40fd0a0753e5a8716bc1dbce0)
Rand Paul is NOT a libertarian.
Again, you miss the point. Dems/Repubs all want to control. Libertarians want to un-control. I don't think you understand what libertarianism actually is.
Just because 1 Republican actually tended to vote to reduce taxes, doesn't mean he's a Libertarian or a stepfather figure for us poor underrepresented Libertarians out there. DeMint voted Yea for NDAA last year. DeMint voted for the Patriot Act, and its expansion later. That is BUILDING the ring of power, not destroying it.
I don't care how many taxes social conservatives end up cutting. If they pass ONE MORE LAW in this country full of trillions of words of law already, they have lost the point.
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He isn't saying social conservatives = libertarians
He is saying elected libertarians = libertarians who are social conservatives.
The rest of the libertarian crowd is too busy maintaining philosophical purity or getting stoned. :laugh:
DeMint is NOT a libertarian. He may be Tea Party GOP... But he ain't a libertarian.
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The cited article even lies about DeMint's NDAA vote, trying to re-write history.
When DeMint departs from Republican orthodoxy, it's in the libertarian direction. He broke with his party just after Thanksgiving, when he voted to bar indefinite detention of Americans suspected of terrorism. Then he voted against the National Defense Authorization Act, a bugbear of civil libertarians.
It minces words, obfuscating the 2012 NDAA which is the big detention bugaboo with libertarians, and 2013, which is just another annual NDAA which happens every year for defense appropriations.
Actually, DeMint voted FOR NDAA in 2012:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2011/s218
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Ron Paul is also quite socially conservative, what with eh pro-life view & all. Heck, check out the following:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/bruno-fools-ron-paul-by-t_n_187187.html
PAUL: We were in a studio situation. I wasn't invited to a hotel room. A studio situation where they had a lot of lights burn and blaze and all kinds of commotion. They said -- better get in this back room here. And all of a sudden, I was in this room, which they had it all fixed up as a bedroom. So, getting me there was sort of dishonesty. Getting me into the interview.
I was expecting an interview on Austrian economics. So, that didn't turn out that way. But, by the time he started pulling his pants down, I, What is going on here? I ran out of the room. This interview has ended.
When this all gets out, I'm probably going to have to apologize to my supporters because I think most of them are going to figure out why in the world didn't I sock this guy in the nose?
SLIWA: You ran out. But, did you actually see the original Borat film where he pulls these kinds of stunts?
PAUL: No, no. Movies I used to see are 'Sound of Music.' Tonight, I was sitting here watching 'Gone with the Wind.' So, I don't watch that kind of stuff. And I understand he makes a lot of money. But, if he makes a lot of money, I have to permit the market to do this.
I don't like the idea that he lies his way into an interview. That to me is fraud. But, the fact that he has raunchy material and people buy into it, it's sort of sad that that is a reflection of our culture. To me, it's a real shame that people are going to reward him with millions and millions of dollars for being so crass.
SLIWA: And you know he might actually end up using that piece to promote this upcoming film.
DR. RON PAUL: That means I'm helping him make money!
1. Sees it appropriate to respond with violence to an homosexual advance.
2. Doesn't watch contemporary movies because they are too crass.
3. Thinks it is a shame the culture is such that folks who make such crass movies and make homosexual advances make lots of money.
"Just because there ARE NO LIBERTARIANS (except Ron Paul..."
The cited article even lies about DeMint's NDAA vote, trying to re-write history.
It minces words, obfuscating the 2012 NDAA which is the big detention bugaboo with libertarians, and 2013, which is just another annual NDAA which happens every year for defense appropriations.
Actually, DeMint voted FOR NDAA in 2012:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2011/s218
When social conservatives get something wrong, it is a LIE. When AZ44 is hilariously wrong, repeatedly, it is an honest mistake I am sure.
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He isn't saying social conservatives = libertarians
He is saying elected libertarians = libertarians who are social conservatives.
The rest of the libertarian crowd is too busy maintaining philosophical purity or getting stoned. :laugh:
Pretty much.
Also, you'd think folks might take a hint from the quoted text and particularly what the OP put in bold face. But, that doesn't let folks go off frothing regarding their own hangups about so-cons.
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Ron Paul is also quite socially conservative, what with eh pro-life view & all. Heck, check out the following:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/bruno-fools-ron-paul-by-t_n_187187.html
1. Sees it appropriate to respond with violence to an homosexual advance.
2. Doesn't watch contemporary movies because they are too crass.
3. Thinks it is a shame the culture is such that folks who make such crass movies and make homosexual advances make lots of money.
"Just because there ARE NO LIBERTARIANS (except Ron Paul..."
When social conservatives get something wrong, it is a LIE. When AZ44 is hilariously wrong, repeatedly, it is an honest mistake I am sure.
Yes, Ron Paul is socially conservative.
But he would not pass a Federal level ban on abhorshins, because when you boil it down to its essence, it is MURDER. There are no Federal murder statutes, so there should be no Federal abhorshins statutes. It is a State issue.
Which is how Paul is drastically different from DeMint, and what social conservatives just don't get. And why Paul would probably vote AGAINST a federal abhorshins bill.
I would sock Borat in the nose, as well, if he flashed his junk in my face. And I'm a libertarian.
You can be libertarian and socially conservative. But you can't be libertarian and socially conservative and wield the Ring of Power. You lose the libertarian creds once you do that.
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AZR,
Your prime example of a libertarian is a social conservative. Are you roo_ster's plant?
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Am I the only one going "WTF" and scratching my head, trying to figure out what is being said when reading this thread?
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And all this time I thought I was "socially conservative."
Clearly, I have no idea what that means.
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Social liberal and fiscal conservative are two incompatible positions.
Eventually, the social liberal side will want someone else to pay for one of their brilliant ideas.
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who has a 100% libertarian voting record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bHv3410g-g
http://news.yahoo.com/ron-pauls-hypocrisy-earmarks-pork-barrel-spending-012000440.html
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who has a 100% libertarian voting record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bHv3410g-g
http://news.yahoo.com/ron-pauls-hypocrisy-earmarks-pork-barrel-spending-012000440.html
Ouch.
I would say in RP's defense, that improving a port's navigation is a legitimate role of gov't. So, trying to get the fed.gov't to remove a sunken ship that is a hazard to navigation is OK by me. Especially when it is likely that the fed.gov has placed restrictions on such activity via EPA, Corps of Engineers, etc.
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AZR,
Your prime example of a libertarian is a social conservative. Are you roo_ster's plant?
It's a venn diagram of sorts.
Libertarian is a circle. Social conservative is a circle. They intersect and overlap. You "can" be both. But you can also be one or the other.
DeMint voted for Patriot Act and NDAA-Detention. That clearly excludes him from the Libertarian camp, and puts him squarely in the Statist camp.
The article's title:
Tim Carney: Jim DeMint was the libertarian hero of the Senate
The first paragraph:
For libertarians, Christian conservative pro-lifer Jim DeMint was the best thing to come through the Senate in decades. DeMint, quitting early to run the conservative Heritage Foundation, embodied an underappreciated fact of life in Washington: The politicians who most consistently defend economic liberty are the cultural conservatives.
Note that it says "economic liberty." Not just plain old "liberty." That may make him financially conservative, but it doesn't make him a libertarian.
Now, take a look at this gem from the article:
DeMint opposes gay marriage, but again, the U.S. Senate hasn't had much to say on the issue.
That ain't a libertarian stance.
Libertarians don't care about private contracts between consenting and capable adults. Marriage is a private contract. Having the government sanction ANY private contract is a violation of libertarian doctrine. Private means private, not government supervised.
Am I the only one going "WTF" and scratching my head, trying to figure out what is being said when reading this thread?
The article is trying to lay groundwork that DeMint is some sort of authoritah on libertarianism.
I expect to see the GOP, by proxy of DeMint's involvement at The Heritage Foundation, try to take some of the thunder away from the growing libertarian movement. This is the opening of that play. Just like they tried (and succeeded!) with the Tea Party movement in 2008, co-opting it and rendering it impotent inside of 2 years. The first step is the GOP attempting to assimilate those viewpoints. Then it attempts to redefine what those viewpoints mean, by using GOP "experts" on those topics. Palin did this for the Tea Party, DeMint is being planted to try this with libertarians. The final step is to de-escalate those watered down perspectives and say they are less important than "rallying behind the party for this next critical election." The election cycle begins again, and the topics raised by the grass roots movement are abandoned.
I strongly object to roo_ster's assertion that this article has anything to do at all with libertarians. The first quote he raised,
For libertarians, Christian conservative pro-lifer Jim DeMint was the best thing to come through the Senate in decades. DeMint, quitting early to run the conservative Heritage Foundation, embodied an underappreciated fact of life in Washington: The politicians who most consistently defend economic liberty are the cultural conservatives.
Could just as easily say:
For surinamese toads, Christian conservative pro-lifer Jim DeMint was the best thing to come through the Senate in decades. DeMint, quitting early to run the conservative Heritage Foundation, embodied an underappreciated fact of life in Washington: The politicians who most consistently defend economic liberty are the cultural conservatives.
Or:
For plate tectonics aficionados, Christian conservative pro-lifer Jim DeMint was the best thing to come through the Senate in decades. DeMint, quitting early to run the conservative Heritage Foundation, embodied an underappreciated fact of life in Washington: The politicians who most consistently defend economic liberty are the cultural conservatives.
DeMint has as much in common with plate tectonics as he does with surinamese toads or libertarians.
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who has a 100% libertarian voting record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bHv3410g-g
http://news.yahoo.com/ron-pauls-hypocrisy-earmarks-pork-barrel-spending-012000440.html
http://libertarianviewpoint.com/blog/?p=3697
An earmark is a legislative provision that directs monies to be spent on specific projects or gives specific exemptions from taxes and mandated fees. Earmarks are usually referred to “pork barrel” legislation but, in fact, they are two different things. While I agree there is a lot of overlap, there is a critical difference and should NOT be confused as the same. You see, earmarks are “objective” in determination, while “pork” is subjective.
I guess the easiest way to define an earmark is to say it is a guarantee of federal monies to recipients in appropriations-related type documents. They are funds provided by Congress for programs where the congressional direction circumvents the Executive Branch merit based allocations and processes.
Example: A bill is a massive omnibus $500 billion spending bill. $100 billion for DOT, $100 billion for HUD, $100 billion for DOEd, $100 billion for DOEn, $100 billion for DHS.
Sent to the Executive branch this way, the directors of these departments all spend the money however they want, under the guidance of the President and his executive oversight.
However, if Ron Paul says "In that $100 billion for the DOT, $10 million must be spent to dredge out the Corpus Christi harbor" then the money has been earmarked.
It's congressional micromanagement.
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As I understand it, libertarians prioritize individual liberty, conservatives prioritize cultural stability, often based on Judeo-Christian principles. The overlap exists where cultural stability forms the foundation of liberty but begins to diverge thereafter.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/ron-paul-big-government-libertarian/2012/01/03/gIQAVj1QYP_blog.html
The Texas Republican defends his record, telling Fox News’s Neil Cavuto in a 2009 interview that “earmarks is the responsibility of the Congress. We should earmark even more.” And besides, he explained, he votes “no” on all his own earmarks anyway. “I think you’re missing the point,” he told Cavuto, "I’ve never voted for an earmark, I’ve never voted for an appropriations bill.”
But that is exactly the point. His strategy is to stuff legislation with earmarks that benefit his constituents and thus his reelection, and then vote against the overall bill — knowing full well it will pass over his objections — so he can claim to have opposed all the spending in the first place.
Consider Paul’s record. The libertarian Reason magazine points out that in 2009 Paul voted against a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that passed over his objections. But the magazine notes (quoting the Houston Chronicle) that “Paul played a role in obtaining 22 earmarks worth $96.1 million, which led the Houston congressional delegation, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of more than 8,500 congressionally mandated projects inserted into the bill.”
Thus Paul got to have it both ways: He could claim to have voted against a $410 billion taxpayer boondoggle, while simultaneously vacuuming up tens of millions in taxpayer dollars for his congressional district.
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An observation, with a bit of rambling diversion . . .
While I believe I grasp the point of this, I would caution that there is much to be lost by insisting on absolute purity.
I have met any number of purists who will happily either vote against, or abstain from voting for, anyone falling below an arbitrary percentage of purity as they see it.
They will cheerfully throw an 80-percenter to the wolves.
I was a slow student when it came to understanding Libertarianism. My friend the dentist spent hundreds of hours over a matter of years "explaining" the concepts to me, and most of that time I simply thought he was ranting. And he was, actually, because he had arrived at that level of understanding where he could no longer see things from the viewpoint of the ignorant and misled (that, of course, would be me). Everything was obvious to him, while I was still lost in that fog of misinformation with which we've all so generously been blessed.
If you're going to move the needle of American politics, purity and ranting simply isn't going to get it done.
Allow me a little digression by way of illustration . . .
I subscribe to a system of rehab, education, and counseling which has among its rules a provision added (back in the sixties) that no one who has a history of certain drugs may be taken on for service. At all. Ever. And that became a problem over time, as increasing numbers of people were subjected to "treatments" involving those some of drugs, and some of the others became "socially acceptable" in casual use. The problem is that no matter how "accepted" those chemicals became, they still interfered with one's progress in that system, and some kind of solution was needed to overcome this before the population in general was broadly rendered ineligible.
So, beginning in the mid-seventies, and continuing into the mid-eighties, a research project was undertaken to discover how to remove the chemical residuals from people, and that project was a success. A path was now available to people who had been blocked an excluded previously because of an assortment of toxins. It takes more time to do the additional step, but at least the step is there.
We have a not-entirely-dissimilar situation with our political situation.
We have people who honestly believe they're pro-liberty, but for whom their education has been a significant pollutant. Without some kind of step prior to learning the fundamentals of actual liberty -- some way of neutralizing the misinformation and disinformation with which they've been so thoroughly inculcated -- you're going to have (within the general population) an overwhelming number of people who are "on your side" but whose thinking is still doped up with the "conventional wisdom" of so-called conservative or libertarian politics.
And the process needs to be gentle enough that it doesn't cause excess bleeding.
For example, gently telling someone he's a moron or that his ideas are stupid (as in my own case) will tend to produce results much more slowly than what is required for turning things around.
I don't know what that process should be. All I know is that it's needed. It needs to include the education system -- or perhaps exclude the education system -- as the continuing I.V. drip feed of mis/dis-information and philosophical pollutants will render all other efforts pointless. "Entertainment" (or is that now "infotainment?") would also need to be addressed.
What we really can't survive is a learning process that took as long as mine did.
And, meanwhile, we need an inclusive enough threshold that the 80-percenters aren't routinely tossed.
Some of them -- some of us -- are willing to learn, even as we stumble along trying to pull our own weight.
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We have people who honestly believe they're pro-liberty, but for whom their education has been a significant pollutant. Without some kind of step prior to learning the fundamentals of actual liberty -- some way of neutralizing the misinformation and disinformation with which they've been so thoroughly inculcated -- you're going to have (within the general population) an overwhelming number of people who are "on your side" but whose thinking is still doped up with the "conventional wisdom" of so-called conservative or libertarian politics.
And the process needs to be gentle enough that it doesn't cause excess bleeding.
The problem isn't the people, necessarily, its the leaches, crooks, and sleazes that make it to candidacy.
Right now, The House of Representatives is controlled by the party that should stand for or at least claims to stand for good fiscal stewardship of our country, but the best they can give us is raise taxes. They should pounding the podium with their shoes over the 1.3 (or is it now 1.4) trillion dollar budget deficit that the country is running. Nope, the best they can do is push for a tax increase that won't even cover 10% of this deficit.
If this is the kind of leadership we have, America is done, through, finished... There isn't enough time to elect enough 80,90,100%ers to fix what has been done. Its far more difficult to turn the tide when we have national elections between two candidates that could have been running for the same office in France.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sONfxPCTU0
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If this is the kind of leadership we have, America is done, through, finished... There isn't enough time to elect enough 80,90,100%ers to fix what has been done. Its far more difficult to turn the tide when we have national elections between two candidates that could have been running for the same office in France.
Then I imagine the process of subverting their tyranny will take somewhat longer than it took them to subvert what we had in the forties and fifties -- which, while it may not have been a liberated society, was a hell of a lot better than what we embark upon today.
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Off topic post!
The Texas Republican defends his record, telling Fox News’s Neil Cavuto in a 2009 interview that “earmarks is the responsibility of the Congress. We should earmark even more.” And besides, he explained, he votes “no” on all his own earmarks anyway. “I think you’re missing the point,” he told Cavuto, "I’ve never voted for an earmark, I’ve never voted for an appropriations bill.”
But that is exactly the point. His strategy is to stuff legislation with earmarks that benefit his constituents and thus his reelection, and then vote against the overall bill — knowing full well it will pass over his objections — so he can claim to have opposed all the spending in the first place.
Consider Paul’s record. The libertarian Reason magazine points out that in 2009 Paul voted against a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that passed over his objections. But the magazine notes (quoting the Houston Chronicle) that “Paul played a role in obtaining 22 earmarks worth $96.1 million, which led the Houston congressional delegation, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of more than 8,500 congressionally mandated projects inserted into the bill.”
Thus Paul got to have it both ways: He could claim to have voted against a $410 billion taxpayer boondoggle, while simultaneously vacuuming up tens of millions in taxpayer dollars for his congressional district.
Hmmm, capitalization, paragraphs................ All right, what did you do with the real CS&D!!!!!!!!!! :lol:
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For too many "liberty" means Another Program. Means government as the agent of liberty. The ultimate profanation of libertarianism.
Far too many.
Face the facts: Liberty will mean saying a dramatic no to the entire system. Temporize at your peril.
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As I understand it, libertarians prioritize individual liberty, conservatives prioritize cultural stability, often based on Judeo-Christian principles. The overlap exists where cultural stability forms the foundation of liberty but begins to diverge thereafter.
Well, it all depends on who is defining the terms. I think you defined a more classical conservative rather than a Reagan conservative, but it all depends on the definition. I've met plenty of fiscal conservative Republicans who were pretty indifferent about social issues. "conservative" seems to mean a lot of different things to a lot of people on the Republican side.
On the abortion mentioned above, one of the key issues the last 20 years has been government funding of abortions. That is a fiscal responsibility issue as much as a social conservative issue.
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http://libertarianviewpoint.com/blog/?p=3697
Example: A bill is a massive omnibus $500 billion spending bill. $100 billion for DOT, $100 billion for HUD, $100 billion for DOEd, $100 billion for DOEn, $100 billion for DHS.
Sent to the Executive branch this way, the directors of these departments all spend the money however they want, under the guidance of the President and his executive oversight.
However, if Ron Paul says "In that $100 billion for the DOT, $10 million must be spent to dredge out the Corpus Christi harbor" then the money has been earmarked.
It's congressional micromanagement.
If the Federal Budget wasn't so big, it wouldn't be "micro"-managemnet. Federal agencies should have fairly narrow restrictions on what their funding is spent on.
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Federal agencies should have fairly narrow restrictions on what their funding is spent on.
Most Federal agencies shouldn't exist to start with.
I don't have that much of a problem with spending being targeted. Its much better to have infrastructure funds being spent on actual infrastructure instead of having it disappear into Solyndra.
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Azred: so by your definition no one (including former Libertarian Potus candidate Ron Paul) is a "true" LIBERTARIAN and thus are all just hated statists unworthy of holding aloft the banner you stand beneath? No wonder libertarians are so massively ineffectual. Relish that ideological purity as you fail to accomplish anything. Too bad our enemies are more focused on moving the ball in the direction they want instead of pillorying those who fail a purity test so strict no one who's ever been elected passes it.
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The article is trying to lay groundwork that DeMint is some sort of authoritah on libertarianism.
Not in the least. You should try reading the article. It points out that social conservatives are the natural allies of the libertarian; nothing more.
It's a point I've made here many times. If both sides could quit being so suspicious of each other, we could accomplish quite a bit.
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If social conservativism is the only way to win, why didn't Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman or Tim Pawlenty make the Nov ballot?
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I'm willing to work with libertarians, as long as they accept mah authoritah.
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If social conservativism is the only way to win, why didn't Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman or Tim Pawlenty make the Nov ballot?
TeeVee.
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Balog, can you explain for all of us here, why someone who voted for 2012 NDAA and patriot act should be considered a libertarian ally?
And no, i never threw out ron paul. I threw out rand paul.
Fisty, the article ignores the basic tenets of libertarianism. Laws that create victimless crimes are abhorrent to us. Such as teh gheyzors getting married, peeing on jeebus, federal abhorshins laws, flag burning, drug laws, prostitution, etc. DeMint is at odds with the majority of this because he represents a constituency that believes that control of others is the answer. Libertarians do not stand for controlling people in the case of victimless so called crimes.
Yay, we agree on money.
But we don't agree on liberty.
Which is why the gop cannot count on libertarian support until they actually support sound fiscal policy as well as true federalism and a destructuring of federal power.
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Social conservatives are trying to stop people from "peeing on jeebus"? This I hadn't heard.
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>Social conservatives are trying to stop people from "peeing on jeebus"? This I hadn't heard. <
It's something that comes from the fringe, every so often. Doesn't often make the news, outside of local (if even that)
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So anyone who has ever made a single vote you disagree with is the enemy?
No matter how much lolcat spelling you employ in an attempt to mock the things that you personally find unimportant, that attitude perfectly demonstrates why LIBERTARIANS are so politically useless. Pat yourself on the back as you watch the freedoms you could have helped preserve slip away in the name of your ideological purity. The Left has demonstrated how incredibly effective incrementalism is as a tactic, why are you so bitterly opposed to it?
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Balog, you have NO idea just how right you are.
I can't count all the times I've seen the Right shoot themselves in the foot over ideological purity...
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1. Nobody is a perfect libertarian. Not even me. However, some people are more libertarian than others.
2. It is not possible to deny the basic fact that the most libertarian people currently in Congress are amost without exclusion social traditionalists - the only exception being, possibly, Justin Amash [I say this because I do not know his record, not because I have conclusive evidence].
3. That said, this does not prove that this is an inherent feature, and that there is some historical law tying the two together.
4. Arguably, as I have been saying on this forum since 2008, the leadership of the 'liberals' are also cultural conservatives, although they do not wave that flag quite that often. While they subscribe to some token issues like 'reproductive freedom' and 'gay rights', they in fact are quite as intolerant as their friends across the aisle , including on 'social' issues.
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Question 1: Since most people who are against abortion believe that abortion = murder, how does being anti-abortion automatically bar you from being Libertarian? I don't know of any Libertarian who believes that laws against murder or attempted murder should be repealed.
Question 2: And how does opposing the use of gov't funds to pay for abortions go against the Libertarian agenda? Isn't the point of the Libertarian Party to get gov't out of as much as possible?
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Because some people think they own libertarianism in the same way I own my shirt.
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Because some people think they own libertarianism in the same way I own my shirt.
QFT.
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Question 1: Since most people who are against abortion believe that abortion = murder, how does being anti-abortion automatically bar you from being Libertarian? I don't know of any Libertarian who believes that laws against murder or attempted murder should be repealed.
If you want to create a Federal level mandate for this particular type of murder, why aren't you creating one for every other type of murder? Handle it at the State level. Like jaywalking. We don't have federal jaywalking laws. Why have federal murder laws?
The reason social conservatives (who are not libertarian) want a Federal solution to abhorshins is because they want to IMPOSE their will on those they disagree with, where they cannot win on the battlefield of ideas. They want to impose a ban on California abhorshins and New York abhorshins, though they live in Virginia or South Carolina.
Question 2: And how does opposing the use of gov't funds to pay for abortions go against the Libertarian agenda? Isn't the point of the Libertarian Party to get gov't out of as much as possible?
Nope, that's A-OK.
So anyone who has ever made a single vote you disagree with is the enemy?
No matter how much lolcat spelling you employ in an attempt to mock the things that you personally find unimportant, that attitude perfectly demonstrates why LIBERTARIANS are so politically useless. Pat yourself on the back as you watch the freedoms you could have helped preserve slip away in the name of your ideological purity. The Left has demonstrated how incredibly effective incrementalism is as a tactic, why are you so bitterly opposed to it?
You should be opposed to incrementalism as well.
You will NEVER get your gun rights back. Ever.
You will NEVER get your free speech rights back. Ever.
You will NEVER get your 4th/5th amendment protections back. Ever.
You will NEVER get your health privacy rights and medical consumer rights back. Ever.
Incrementalism creates a midden heap of spaghetti legal code that can never be untangled. Then you get the "savior" incrementalist compromise candidates like Romney who want to supposedly un-do less than 1% of the spaghetti code, and replace it with something else, while leaving the rest.
Once you compromise to get 1% and leave the 99%, you can't come back to that issue again. Unless you're a democrat. ;/ Republicans can't and/or won't do that. For better or worse.
So there's no point in backing incrementalist candidates.
The only valid defense left is to hurt the GOP enough that it grows a backbone again and puts up proper candidates rather than an incrementalist compromising NDAA supporting Patriot Act passing thieves in the night.
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1. IIRC, Reagan said something to the effect of, "Someone who agrees with me 75% of the time on policy is my ally." IMO, that is some timeless political wisdom.
2. The correlation between socially conservative views and libertarian views is strong/obvious in elected officials. The correlation between so-con views and fiscal conservatism is even more apparent. It is pretty apparent how that train starts, too. How many folks started off libertarian and moved so-con, relative to those who started off so-con and could be categorized as some flavor of libertarian [assuming a libertarian big tent that stretched from anarcho-capitalist to classical conservative (18th century liberalism)]?
3. Regardless of the causation, the reality is that those elected policritters with the largest number of libertarian check-boxes checked are also socially conservative. Dropping trou and screeching "Kiss it, Cotton Mathers!" to so-cons is likely counter-productive to libertarian issues. Heck, the "intolerant" so-cons seem much less nasty in internecine squabbles than the libertarians, these days...libertarians who seem desperate to disassociate themselves from the icky Christianists they will sacrifice concrete goals to their need for screed.
The reason social conservatives (who are not libertarian) want a Federal solution to abhorshins is because they want to IMPOSE their will on those they disagree with, where they cannot win on the battlefield of ideas. They want to impose a ban on California abhorshins and New York abhorshins, though they live in Virginia or South Carolina.
Yeah, hilariously wrong on the facts. Again. How many times in this thread alone?
Check out polls on abortion. At best, they are close. They can be shaded pro-choice is set up for that. Even Gallup shades it pro-choice by the order in which they ask respondents...and yet it still trends pro-life. This is not a loss on the "battlefield of ideas" by any measure.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsas-origin.onstreammedia.com%2Forigin%2Fgallupinc%2FGallupSpaces%2FProduction%2FCms%2FPOLL%2Fsoyvhypgyeertznnfmbeqa.gif&hash=254b4e7b1f6dc35b1156293715b9b44a5abf919e)
The reason a federal solution is called for is because it is problem created by the federales, who usurped state authority. This is reality, not AZ44 wish-it-were-so.
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Compromise is the vehicle which has brought us to this place.
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsas-origin.onstreammedia.com%2Forigin%2Fgallupinc%2FGallupSpaces%2FProduction%2FCms%2FPOLL%2Fsoyvhypgyeertznnfmbeqa.gif&hash=254b4e7b1f6dc35b1156293715b9b44a5abf919e)
That's a national poll.
Now run the poll in CA and NY.
Federalism protects regional preferences. Do you like having CA and NY shove their "marry teh gheyzors" down your throat?
They don't like having your "no abhorshins" either.
The reason a federal solution is called for is because it is problem created by the federales, who usurped state authority. This is reality, not AZ44 wish-it-were-so.
Please defend this assertion. How did the feds create the problem? SCOTUS hearing what should have been a State issue and decided by the State Supreme Court? That confirms my assertion that federal involvement is unnecessary and we don't need any federal laws on the matter and only need State laws that address this form of murder.
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Federalism protects regional preferences. Do you like having CA and NY shove their "marry teh gheyzors" down your throat?
Actually, for the record, CA passed Prop 8 against gay marriage. It was overturned by a Federal judge.
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Actually, for the record, CA passed Prop 8 against gay marriage. It was overturned by a Federal judge.
ironic that
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Thou hast insulted the Infallible Ronpaul !!! Heretic!!! Unbeliever!!! Blasphemer!!!
;/
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Azred: so you're in favor of 1. absolutist federalism, even to the point of allowing genocide if that's what that state wants and 2. you've totally given up on the system. Gotcha.
So if you don't vote, and you have no hope of any change, why the hell are you arguing politics?
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Azred: so you're in favor of 1. absolutist federalism, even to the point of allowing genocide if that's what that state wants and 2. you've totally given up on the system. Gotcha.
So if you don't vote, and you have no hope of any change, why the hell are you arguing politics?
Heck, Saudi Arabia doesn't let women vote or go out in public without their faces covered. I guess we should nuke them into submission to be like Iowa, huh? ;/ After all, if Federal mandate is good, then global mandate is moar gooder.
Compulsory laws implemented over people that don't believe in those laws require violence to enforce them.
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Yes. So do laws against murder. What's your point?
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Heck, Saudi Arabia doesn't let women vote or go out in public without their faces covered. I guess we should nuke them into submission to be like Iowa, huh? ;/ After all, if Federal mandate is good, then global mandate is moar gooder.
Compulsory laws implemented over people that don't believe in those laws require violence to enforce them.
I think you've moved beyond LIBERTARIANISM to straight up anarchism. Good for you. Might want to stop pretending you would support any form of .gov though.
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If you want to create a Federal level mandate for this particular type of murder, why aren't you creating one for every other type of murder? Handle it at the State level. Like jaywalking. We don't have federal jaywalking laws. Why have federal murder laws?
The reason social conservatives (who are not libertarian) want a Federal solution to abhorshins is because they want to IMPOSE their will on those they disagree with, where they cannot win on the battlefield of ideas. They want to impose a ban on California abhorshins and New York abhorshins, though they live in Virginia or South Carolina.
I figured I head to respond this is gem since is flat out wrong IMO.
Most conservatives would be fine with state level laws on abortion with no federal oversight. We can't do that because the Supreme Court made it a federal issue with Roe vs Wade. I think it would be a great idea to get rid of that decision and go right back to each state regulating it as they wish. If anti-abortion advocates then want to ban it in all 50 states, they can try. At least then it is a little closer to a local issue rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. I am not even pro-life and I can see that position easily enough. I don't see why you can't.
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The reason a federal solution is called for is because it is problem created by the federales, who usurped state authority.
Please defend this assertion. How did the feds create the problem? SCOTUS hearing what should have been a State issue and decided by the State Supreme Court? That confirms my assertion that federal involvement is unnecessary and we don't need any federal laws on the matter and only need State laws that address this form of murder.
You defended the assertion obvious fact yourself, and then exposed your own absurd (and ill-informed) caricature of social conservatives.
If you want to create a Federal level mandate for this particular type of murder, why aren't you creating one for every other type of murder? Handle it at the State level. Like jaywalking. We don't have federal jaywalking laws. Why have federal murder laws?
The reason social conservatives (who are not libertarian) want a Federal solution to abhorshins is because they want to IMPOSE their will on those they disagree with, where they cannot win on the battlefield of ideas. They want to impose a ban on California abhorshins and New York abhorshins, though they live in Virginia or South Carolina.
You keep digging yourself a deeper hole, here. =|
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To respond to Micro's point from earlier, it is indeed true there is no theoretical necessity linking big tent small L libertarianism and social conservatism. But the current reality is that all the L leaning poli-critters we have now are part of the so-con movement that internet LIBERTARIANS are so eager to jettison. In reality as opposed to theory, so-cons are the most effective libertarians. Which is kinda the point of the whole article.
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But the current reality is that all the L leaning poli-critters we have now are part of the so-con movement that internet LIBERTARIANS are so eager to jettison. In reality as opposed to theory, so-cons are the most effective libertarians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AlHIxZyJHg4#t=10s
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Is Alan Gura a social conservative?
Or Tom Palmer?
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Is Alan Gura a social conservative?
Or Tom Palmer?
Are they elected officials?