Libertarians- why does anyone take them seriously?

[Panopticon]

Riddle me this.I recently read an interview with Martina Navratilova ,the former tennis champion.The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is her favourite book.One of the questions was :Which living person do you most despise? A.Dick Cheney.

Now I'm not up to speed on these loonies but I thought the recent War was promoted by the libertarian right ( hence the rush to steal -sorry privatise - Iraqi assets and the malign involvement of Cheneys firms) but now I'm confused again.

2000,if you get a spare mo ,could you do a little diagram showing where these lads are on the spectrum? Like - Old Conservative, Religious Right, Libertarian /neo con, Becontree .Where do they all fit in ?

You are conflating liberal interventionists with libertarians. Cheney was by no means a libertarian. Nobody who pushed forward the Patriot Act was a libertarian, so that rules out the Bush Administration. On the other hand, Cheney & Co. were certainly "liberal interventionists" in that they liked to invade countries to impose liberal institutions like democracy and modernism. In general, the true-blue libertarians would describe military intervention of any sort as a form of coercion.

[Monkey-Magic]

Riddle me this.I recently read an interview with Martina Navratilova ,the former tennis champion.The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is her favourite book.One of the questions was :Which living person do you most despise? A.Dick Cheney.

Now I'm not up to speed on these loonies but I thought the recent War was promoted by the libertarian right ( hence the rush to steal -sorry privatise - Iraqi assets and the malign involvement of Cheneys firms) but now I'm confused again.

2000,if you get a spare mo ,could you do a little diagram showing where these lads are on the spectrum? Like - Old Conservative, Religious Right, Libertarian /neo con, Becontree .Where do they all fit in ?

Secretly most libertarians support the state doing things like building roads, providing policing, killing Iraqis etc It's when they have to pay any taxes that they get pissed off. It's essentially an ideology baked up so that rich people get to b1tch and moan about having to give back a little to society.

[cHeal]

So just to clarify this once and for all, lads you are in favour of the complete abolition of social welfare and its replacement by voluntary charities?

Some people would be yes, it is a fundamentally broken practice in this country anyways but it could be worked, with the proper social policy, to be very efficient and in-expensive.

[feargach]

Economics is hard, a lot of facts to keep track of. Libertarian economics is easy because you just make up whatever facts please you at the time.

[macdarawhitfield]

You are conflating liberal interventionists with libertarians. Cheney was by no means a libertarian. Nobody who pushed forward the Patriot Act was a libertarian, so that rules out the Bush Administration. On the other hand, Cheney & Co. were certainly "liberal interventionists" in that they liked to invade countries to impose liberal institutions like democracy and modernism. In general, the true-blue libertarians would describe military intervention of any sort as a form of coercion.

They are as confused as me so.I often meet devout free market anti govt. types who want someone ( presumably a militia consisting of armed private citizens) to stop immigration.
And drug taking.Libertarians in regard to no.1 - Authoritarian for everbody else, it would appear.

[cHeal]

Riddle me this.I recently read an interview with Martina Navratilova ,the former tennis champion.The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is her favourite book.One of the questions was :Which living person do you most despise? A.Dick Cheney.

Now I'm not up to speed on these loonies but I thought the recent War was promoted by the libertarian right ( hence the rush to steal -sorry privatise - Iraqi assets and the malign involvement of Cheneys firms) but now I'm confused again.

2000,if you get a spare mo ,could you do a little diagram showing where these lads are on the spectrum? Like - Old Conservative, Religious Right, Libertarian /neo con, Becontree .Where do they all fit in ?

Mate, you just equated neo-cons with Libertarians? What the hell have you been reading. Neo-cons bare no relation to libertarians. Libertarians, of the sort this thread appears to be about, are classical liberals. Some of the greatest minds the world has ever seen were classical liberals. Libertarianism has many different guises, including a socialist/anarchist side but it's primary concerns are freedom. Freedom of the individual to live their life as they chose, provided they do not hurt others through their actions. Many different social philosophies are based off this same principle, neo-conservatism is not one of them.

As noted, most Libertarians would have stood against the war in Iraq AND Afghanistan. The interventions in kosovo, somalia and Vietnam.

Secretly most libertarians support the state doing things like building roads, providing schooling, killing Iraqis etc

That's incorrect and now you are just trolling because your naivety of what libertarianism is has been exposed.

[cHeal]

They are as confused as me so.I often meet devout free market anti govt. types who want someone ( presumably a militia consisting of armed private citizens) to stop immigration.
And drug taking.Libertarians in regard to no.1 - Authoritarian for everbody else, it would appear.

Anarchic Capitalists that sounds like. Yeah they are libertarians but, again another shade. Few would ever consider getting rid of the government completely, it to me is compltely un-workable and largely undesirable. While I am Libertarian I don't believe that conflicts with being for immigration controls, the state is sovereign and has the right to maintain its borders, however if there is no state, there is no sovereignty and no borders thus any talk of immigration is irrelevant.

[Monkey-Magic]

Mate, you just equated neo-cons with Libertarians? What the hell have you been reading. Neo-cons bare no relation to libertarians. Libertarians, of the sort this thread appears to be about, are classical liberals. Some of the greatest minds the world has ever seen were classical liberals. Libertarianism has many different guises, including a socialist/anarchist side but it's primary concerns are freedom. Freedom of the individual to live their life as they chose, provided they do not hurt others through their actions. Many different social philosophies are based off this same principle, neo-conservatism is not one of them.

As noted, most Libertarians would have stood against the war in Iraq AND Afghanistan. The interventions in kosovo, somalia and Vietnam.




That's incorrect and now you are just trolling because your naivety of what libertarianism is has been exposed.

"libertarians" don't give a toss about freedom. They wouldn't know what freedom was if it bit them on the arse. As I pointed out already "libertarians" want to turn 99% of the world's population into slaves. Wage slaves that is. This means workers will have no choice but to rent their bodies out to a capitalist master just so they can eat and have shelter. Where exactly is the freedom in that?

[20000miles]

Economics is hard, a lot of facts to keep track of. Libertarian economics is easy because you just make up whatever facts please you at the time.

I've not heard of the Libertarian School of economics. Probably becuase there's no such thing. You must be a bit confused. It's to be expected.

[20000miles]

"libertarians" don't give a toss about freedom. They wouldn't know what freedom was if it bit them on the arse. As I pointed out already "libertarians" want to turn 99% of the world's population into slaves. Wage slaves that is. This means workers will have no choice but to rent their bodies out to a capitalist master just so they can eat and have shelter. Where exactly is the freedom in that?

So in others words, not slaves at all...