why don't Democrats understand libertarians?

Small government was tried for about 140 years. It was rejected here and abroad for the same reason, it did not work. As for the Crusoe example, very good comment. A libertarian actually believes that he is alone in a sea of individuals, there is no community he belongs to yet he drives on communal roads, is kept safe by communal forces, goes to school, work, play on community funded and backed institutions and enjoys the benefits of community without ever considering he owes them anything or should participate in any of it. Libertarians are selfish children IMHO

 

How did it not work? Considering what it started with and how much it managed to improve it in those years, I don't know how you can say it failed. also, that's not the point of my crusoe example.

 

"Small Government" was tried in America for roughly 100 years, and as was said before, it was during that time that an unprecedented period of economic expansion occurred which has yet to be rivaled. The fact that it "was rejected here and abroad" isn't a convincing argument. Who rejected it here? Who gets to make the conclusion that it was "rejected"? Was it ever even attempted abroad? If so, where and when was it attempted, and why did those places end up "rejecting" it? I can assure you there are very few places in the world and throughout history that have truly embraced laissez-faire economics.

In reality, Libertarians pay taxes just like everyone else so there's nothing selfish about any of it. We believe those things should be privatized and taxes eliminated, so there's no ideological inconsistency. If the fruits of my labor are going to be pried from me at gunpoint, you better believe I'm going to take advantage of whatever I can get in return. The fact that you find it necessary to steal the fruits of my labor in order to create your "community" makes you a selfish child IMHO.

 

No, but they will coerce you into accepting a low wage, working 12 hours a day and have no defense against abuse since small gov is powerless. Man, you seem so happy at the idea of bending yourself 90 degrees in front of the corporations... how about some vaseline?

 

Um no, in fact mass production necessitated massed populations of workers, ergo since all there actually was available was employment there was no one to clean up the mess or tend to the sick, or control rents.

There was indeed squalor before, but not to such extent that the situation became untenable. Did capitalism create that? No more than feudalism did, it simply did nothing about it.

Indeed industrialisation started in the UK with our free markets, we also seen much higher rates of filth and dregration also. It was also quickly over taken by europe where free markets and organised capitalism, or social democracy went hand in hand. Sweden is an interesting example of the power of regulated and organised capitalism.

 

And how will they coerce me into accepting that, point a gun at me or what? Also, what do you mean by abuse? A responsibility of this small government would be to protect against coercion and fraud, etc.

Are you saying the workers lived happily on their farms before moving to the cities? No, please don't tell me you thought that..

But it did. Just look at the statistics some other guy, kimjongilisanucklahead or somethin, posted. more wealth was created than ever before, more food, more stuff, more everything, whilst population grew. As I've said, capitalism has produced soo much wealth that even the poorest nowadays have cellphones and cars! get some perspective

And yet, europe still has some of the freest markets in the world. As I've said, free markets are what create wealth, and a welfare system isn't incompatible with that as long as it doesn't distort the free market too much.

 

And how will small gov defend your rights if it's powerless confronted to corporations? How is the small fish defending you against the big fish? If we common people have many rights it's because we fought to have a government defending our rights, much blood was spilled to gain those rights... you seem to want to strip us of those rights.

 

Becuase it won't be powerless, obviously: It will have men with guns, just like it does now. The small fish defends against the big fish because it has a shotgun, that's why. What rights are you talking of?

 

Got electric lighting in your house, watch movies, have a refrigerator, a telephone, a car, ever fly in an airplane, watch television, eat food or wear clothing brought via modern transportation? People who assume the pre welfare central state was all about poverty and misery seem to neglect that all those things listed, all those indicia of an explosion in prosperity for all, were delivered swiftly into the hands of common people by capitalist markets and completely voluntary transactions.

That there was some period of real privation pre giant federal government in the US is a myth, so much a myth that anyone advocating such ever happened has the burden of demonstrating things like "how many actually starved? where and when exactly?" Then the question becomes "was that better or worse than in the pre US Constitutional past?"

Our schools do an -excellent- job of making sure every student (indoctrinee) reads "The Jungle" and that everyone knows the terms "Gilded Age" and "robber barons," a stellar job of pumping out textbooks full of "misery pictures" from the Great Depression of children selling apples and matches, but a curious, however predictably awful job of describing the unquestionable benefits that arose for common people during the period. The central schools are great at telling the impressionable how "laissez faire doesn't work," yet seem to skip right over the indisputable fact that our prosperity as a country in very measurable ways is linked directly to relative laisse faire in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Why do they create this false historical narrative? Because it is in the interests of a bureaucratic-educational complex to deemphasize capitalist contributions and overemphasize the bureaucratic and educational role in our prosperity. Government and its shills in education and media, since the dawn of recorded history, has been stealing credit from commerce, which is too busy innovating and creating prosperity to do much about it.

 

It's rare that I see a whole paragraph post on net forums that has not a single true sentence in it. Well will give you the "Crusoe" sentence, which is arguably opinion. The rest though, every sentence, utterly false.

 

But without a strong government, how do you protect anybody's right to anything? Most people can't even protect their own rights alone, let alone anyone else's. And as republicans love to tell us -- as though this somehow makes them seem logical -- human exploitation is human nature. Left to their own devices, some people will turn as many other people into their own slaves as possible. And without a strong government, we are, in effect, leaving everyone to their own devices.

Libertarians are great. Philosophers.

 

Modern liberals (in the American sense) have been disconnected from the enlightenment concept of liberty. They see freedom in terms of freedom from want, hunger and so on. Basically freedom is a grab bag of goodies.

 

No one is suggesting rolling back basic, legitimate, protective laws, but rather making government less central while decreasing its size. There's lots of fat to trim from this:

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

And cutting out lots of it does not equal "anarchy" or allowing the strong to trample the rights of the weak. You should do some reading in US 5th Amendment takings and eminent domain jurisprudence in the 20th century for some clear examples of exactly who is trampling on whom.

 

A strong government but with limited responsibilities? I don't think no one except anarchists want a weak government.

Well, this divide actually stems from the enlightenment. That other lefty understanding of liberty has been with us since rosseau.

 

Conservatives have been disconnected from any concept of liberty in the reality sense of liberty. They see freedom in terms of the freedom to oppress minorities. Basically freedom to them is a matter of their own privileged status.

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As long as those responsibilities aren't limited to protecting the rich from the poor, which is what libertarians normally end up championing in a practical sense.

"Limit the government purely to the military and the protection of property rights!" How many times have we all heard that?

 

Ah you mean the whole "we must merely force men to be free" part?

 

*sigh* anything else, other than partisan bs?

Well, protecting property and life would mean protecting the rich, but not only the rich, form the poor. It would mean to pretect everyone, from everyone. as it should be. I'm actually not really a libertarian myself btw, or atleast not a very hardcore one. I'm very much in favour of a welfare system, altough of a liberal and conservative model.

And what's that paradox supposed to mean?

 

That's one of the flaws of libertarianism is that it's very weak on foreign policy and is incapable of coming up with solutions or ways to handle complex foreign policy problems other then by saying they wouldn't exist if Libertarians were in charge. 9/11? If we hadn't been poking around the middle east, it never would have happened. World War II? If we hadn't been involved in WW1 it would have never happened... no matter what, they think isolationism would prevent foreign policy crisis's. They've no policy to deal with the world as it is. Their "solution" is that they problem shouldn't exist.

 

You mentioned rousseu having to do with a leftists understanding of liberty (not as rights, but in the context of (*)(*)(*)(*) I'm owed by the gubmint), and that quote illustrates rousseu's disconnect with the concept quite succinctly IMO.
Sorry I have a degree in philosophy that I never get to use. When someone mentions a philosopher whose work I'm familiar with I feel compelled to comment. I was agreeing with you

 

How would a company force you to work 12 hours a day for a low wage?

The government has certainly forced me to work much more than a 12 hour day in the past with a very low wage, but they had the law and guns on their side to do that. How would a private company force that on me?

 

Indeed, I too find that to be one of their weak sides. You are supposed to be active out in the world, to finally make good people out of all those (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) non-swedish barbarians! That's why I'm always so happy to see an IKEA store.. It's an outpost of high-culture, civilizing people bit by bit.

 

Oh, how interesting. I haven't had the time to study philosophy in school or university yet -there's so many other funny things to read- but I do enjoy it very much outside of school and I read books and listen to lectures and stuff like that. Very interesting stuff.

 

Yeah I think with the American revolution the concept of liberty went one way, and with the French Revolution it went another. I would have to say that overall, the French Revolution and it's descendants, like Nazism and Communism, and all sorts of other petty tyrannies, have won the Western philosophical argument. There seems to be little interest in the American Revolution version worldwide.

I'm curious if you really believe that or if you think you are scoring some sort of points.

Conservatives share the same concept of liberty with the Libertarians. When we use the term, we know what each other means. Now where did you pick up "freedom in terms of the freedom to oppress minorities?" I admit that's a hoot!

 

eh strictly speaking we were a moderating influence on what the french wanted to do to germany after the great war. It might have been WORSE actually. The japanese would've expanded into the pacific regardless, and they would've come for hawaii and our other pacific holdings eventually. Whether or not we would've had those or even the majority of states were we libertarian in the "true" sense is up for debate. But its like arguing a time travel paradox. There is not a way to KNOW anything, we're just stroking off. We might as well argue metaphysics.
Isolationism isn't ideal, but its often better than this half assed imperialism we've been at for so long. If you're GOING to do the imperialism thing you have to do it full out. There is no half assing something like that. As it stands the american people and therefore by extension our politicians don't have the stomach to do what it takes to win a war much less to occupy a nation. Which is why we should butt out, because we lack the will to DO it right and we're just wasting lives, resources and political capital we can't afford to waste.
I wish we had a population with the WILL to prosecute a war if necessary, but the wisdom to know when that was necessary and not. I'll settle for a population that would rather just leave people in peace, both foreign and domestic.

 

Yeah its great for opening a bottle of wine and lounging about the house.