Libertarians- why does anyone take them seriously?

[cHeal]

"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?

They can chose not to? While I don't deny that the current system of "wage slavery" is balanced hugely in favour of the "Capitalist", it is free, even if it is incredibly unfair and leads to slavery.

I'm unsure of how "wage slavery" can be abolished myself, but I would very much welcome that. However whenever I hear a socialist talk, they talk about the "workers". The mentality of the "workers" and the "Capitalists" only further embeds in the public mind the class separation of the employer and the employed.

Every Employee has the chance to become an employer, there is no legal bar aginst this, however the greatest failing of capitalism has been the huge power accumulated by a few, which has managed to create defacto impossible obstacles against such social mobility.

The US is more socialist now than it ever was, and it also has far far less entrepenuers among it's citizenry than 100 years ago, the wealth and power has acummulated in the hands of the very few and they have used that to subjagate the many.

It's all very well and good to talk about the re-distribution of wealth but taxation is theft. Clear and simple, the government MAKES you give them money, that's not to say it is wrong, but it should not be the first resort by which we seek to spread wealth.

Social mobility is of far greater importance in society than equality but freedom is the most important thing.

I'm not a Capitalist btw, I just understand it.

[20000miles]

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 ?

Well at the most basic level, neoconservatives are people like George Bush and Dick Cheney. The neoconservative doctrine is not limited by small government ideology. The Neocon is explicitly concerned with national glorification, both domestically and abroad.

Now a libertarian is basically anyone who adheres to the non-agression principle, and one who values individual freedom as the highest political end. The libertarian camp is divided into anarchists and "minarchists" (those who think that governance is OK, but exists only to protect property rights).

[cHeal]

Well at the most basic level, neoconservatives are people like George Bush and Dick Cheney. The neoconservative doctrine is not limited by small government ideology. The Neocon is explicitly concerned with national glorification, both domestically and abroad.

Now a libertarian is basically anyone who adheres to the non-agression principle, and one who values individual freedom as the highest political end. The libertarian camp is divided into anarchists and "minarchists" (those who think that governance is OK, but exists only to protect property rights).

I'd beg to argue but we got into this before and I'm not really bothered.

[Clanrickard]

Well at the most basic level, neoconservatives are people like George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Bush was not a neocon. You don't understand what a neocon is.

[20000miles]

Feel free to elaborate, Clan.

[cHeal]

Give him a minute, he'll have to look up the meaning of the word.

[cHeal]

Yeah no it's all the fault of those dirty jews, innit.


Go away.

[cHeal]

That's an extraordinarily off-target reading of the post it refers to, in addition to revealing something very ugly under a dismaying intolerance. Add to that statements like "Every Employee has the chance to become an employer", "The US is more socialist now than it ever was", and "Social mobility is of far greater importance in society than equality but freedom is the most important thing", and I could almost believe you're some sort of absurdist comedian.

I have been known to mime!

[Irish Liberty Forum]

There's been some talk about how libertarians view secession, decentralisation, etc. I'll shamelessly refer people to the following:

Lisbon Redux: CCCTB (And Why The EU Is So Dangerous) Irish Liberty Forum
Maintaining our Independence: The Irish Case Study Irish Liberty Forum
Did You Know? Centralisation Leads to Poverty Irish Liberty Forum

[20000miles]

You are deliberately muddying the waters. You said "individual" not town or neighbourhood. For the record there must be some delineation for a secession to take place such as linguistic, historical or cultural. Otherwise you'd have Counties trying to leave Ireland which would give rise to chaos. Bottom line is that to suggest a self governing club of individuals with individuals being entitled to leave is madness.

I'm not trying to muddy the waters; I'm just trying to see what your views regarding secession, and more importantly why you will recognise some people's choice to secede and not others.

To me, your views appear to be: (1) it's fine for a lot of humans in a big area to have a vote and decide to leave a State. (2) However, individual secession is not permissible. Somewhere between (1) and (2) magic happened.

Why should history, culture and language be the magic things that make a secession acceptable to you?