Are you a libertarian?

[manlymatt83]

I've been searching for a party to align myself with for quite some time. Over the past few years, I've steadily realized that I am very fiscally and economically conservative, but am very socially liberal. The libertarian party seemed to share those views, so I have followed them for the past year, and finally joined the party a few weeks ago.

I do consider myself an Independent, and don't like to "align myself" with any one particular organization, though it's a good thing to be able to explain 90% of your views with a single word. I especially like the Libertarian view on Government dominance, Copyrights/Patents, Free Market, People taking responsibility for themselves, and most importantly, a reduction in over-spending and serious regulated control of the world economies.

 

[yllus]

Yes. My name is Howard Roark. Watch as I stand in the nude, hands on my hips, and laugh at the world around me!

 

[Schadenfroh]

I am not libertarian, Paleoconservatism best matches my political ideology. No party currently reflects my political views, so I just fancy myself a Conservative Democrat, but I have not officially joined any political party.

I admit that conservative libertarianism is a relatively better ideology than what currently dominates both parties.

 

[sMiLeYz]

I'm not a fan of the Democrat or Republican parties, I'm just a fan of parties...

 

[Elias824]

I'm just waiting for the anti-libertarian crowd to come pouring in any second now.

I would consider myself a soft core libertarian, like you im socially liberal and fiscally conservative. It just comes down to what extremes do you take these things in. Do you want to eliminate medicare, medicade and social security and let everyone fend for themselves, or do you want to just limit the programs to whats practical and sustainable?

The problem with the republicans is that they are dominated by the religious right who are more concerned with socially restrictive policy and dont actually seem to do much to be fiscally conservative.

The democrats on the other hand seem to be ok with more socially liberal policy, but do very little to actually move any real legislation in that direction. They also let people like harry reid, pelosi, and obama lead their party and although many of the moderate democrats seem to at least talk about being fiscally responsible, they then turn around and vote on huge spending bills that the minority of the party actually wants.

When it really comes down to it though, everything is the wrong choice.

 

[Scotteq]

Another Fiscal/Economic Conservative and Social Libertarian here. Though when it comes down to it, I vote with my wallet.

And yeah - We'd all be better off with more 'Practical and Sustainable' policies.

 

[Anarchist420]

I'm a paleolibertarian/anarcho-capitalist. I favor market anarchy, but I think if the state has to exist, then it should ban abortion decentrally and not allow any illegal aliens in. It should also ban fractional reserve banking if the owner of their deposits doesn't consent to them being lended out.

I guess one could say that if there has to be a state, then I'll be a paleocon/libertarian hybrid.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I've been searching for a party to align myself with for quite some time. Over the past few years, I've steadily realized that I am very fiscally and economically conservative, but am very socially liberal. The libertarian party seemed to share those views, so I have followed them for the past year, and finally joined the party a few weeks ago.

I do consider myself an Independent, and don't like to "align myself" with any one particular organization, though it's a good thing to be able to explain 90% of your views with a single word. I especially like the Libertarian view on Government dominance, Copyrights/Patents, Free Market, People taking responsibility for themselves, and most importantly, a reduction in over-spending and serious regulated control of the world economies.

NO, i'm an UK LibDem.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I'm a paleolibertarian/anarcho-capitalist. I favor market anarchy, but I think if the state has to exist, then it should ban abortion decentrally and not allow any illegal aliens in. It should also ban fractional reserve banking if the owner of their deposits doesn't consent to them being lended out.

I guess one could say that if there has to be a state, then I'll be a paleocon/libertarian hybrid.

No, son, what you are isn't an anarchist, nor are you a paleolibertian, what you are is dumb, that is ALL that you are.

 

[Scotteq]

I'm a paleolibertarian/anarcho-capitalist. I favor market anarchy, but I think if the state has to exist, then it should ban abortion decentrally and not allow any illegal aliens in. It should also ban fractional reserve banking if the owner of their deposits doesn't consent to them being lended out.

I guess one could say that if there has to be a state, then I'll be a paleocon/libertarian hybrid.

Indeed...


A strong statement in favor of socialized retroactive abortion, if I ever saw one. Thank you for those words of wisdom.

 

[shortylickens]

I vote Libertarian but I am not registered with their party.

 

[Bateluer]

I voted Libertarian in 2008, for what that's worth.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

The problem with being a fiscally conservative and socially liberal libertarian is you're just trading government overlords for corporate ones. Laws are shaping our society less and less while corporate marketing is shaping it more and more. If corporations weren't rivaling, and sometimes exceeding, governments in power and influence I'd be all for a small & limited government too. Politicians and corporations both behave like sociopaths, but at least we get a vote on the former.

Edit: Here's your Libertarian phone bill:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upsho...phone-bill-horror-stories-motivate-regulators

 

[Craig234]

I've been searching for a party to align myself with for quite some time. Over the past few years, I've steadily realized that I am very fiscally and economically conservative, but am very socially liberal. The libertarian party seemed to share those views, so I have followed them for the past year, and finally joined the party a few weeks ago.

I do consider myself an Independent, and don't like to "align myself" with any one particular organization, though it's a good thing to be able to explain 90% of your views with a single word. I especially like the Libertarian view on Government dominance, Copyrights/Patents, Free Market, People taking responsibility for themselves, and most importantly, a reduction in over-spending and serious regulated control of the world economies.

Well there's this one party that's socially liberal, and fiscally conservative that it took the sky high deficits of Reagan/Bush 41 down to zero - and had small deficits preceding that.

That advocates policies like 'Paygo' to pay for what it spends rather than adding to the debt. That took massive spending Bush had off-budget like wars and put it in the budget.

The Libertarians, on the other hand, IMO are uninformed people who advocate very damaging and radical policies that will do little but move the country more to oligarchy.

Let's roll back all the programs that built the middle class and return to the gilded age where everyone was rich in 'rights' on paper and poor otherwise.

Why, ANYONE has the right to employ kids for 16 hour days in dangerous conditions.

 

[Attic]

The ideo of libertarians claiming they are fiscal conservatives and social liberals is an ego trip IMO. You can't have both.

Better a fiscal conservative and social realist.

The feel good bullshit policy of being a social liberal results in wasteful spending. How can you be a fiscal conservative when being a social liberal is incredibly expensive? The whole idea of being a fiscal conservative revolves around a conservative idea of government's involvement in society. A social liberal needs intense government involvement.

Problem we have now is that the United States has become to complicated to govern efficiently and justly by those we have in office. Party affilations or feeling good about a personal policy isn't going to do jack shit to fix it. The system has vomited out it's own path to slip and fall down on and it's just going to continue to vomit unless it's completely removed from the road.

 

[Scotteq]

How can you be a fiscal conservative when being a social liberal is incredibly expensive? The whole idea of being a fiscal conservative revolves around a conservative idea of government's involvement in society. A social liberal needs intense government involvement.

Two things: The first is you are confusing Socialist beliefs (that the State is ultimately responsible for the well being of individuals) with Libertarianism. The second is you have linked Economic issues with Social ones - these are decidedly not mutually exclusive.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/

Libertarians believe in the principals of Self Ownership and Self Responsibility. This means that along with the freedom to do as we please, we are also responsible for ourselves and for "our own".

 

[BigDH01]

Two things: The first is you are confusing Socialist beliefs (that the State is ultimately responsible for the well being of individuals) with Libertarianism. The second is you have linked Economic issues with Social ones.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/

Libertarians believe in the principals of Self Ownership and Self Responsibility. This means that along with the freedom to do as we please, we are also responsible for ourselves and for "our own".

That's a gross oversimplification of Socialism. It was not a foregone conclusion that Marx was going to win the battle against Proudhon, but there are many factions of Socialism that arose at that time, including Georgism, Mutualism, Syndicalism, etc, etc. We might refer to them now as Anarchists, Libertarian Socialists, or Left Libertarians.

Your link briefly touches on this when it discusses the difference between left and right libertarianism. On your scale, left libertarians would fall under libertarian collectivists.

 

[Scotteq]

/agreed it's a gross oversimplification. But that wasn't the point of my post. My point is that it's perfectly reasonable for the same individual to be a both Conservative on Fiscal matters and also Libertarian on a Social scale.

(Not to be confused with Socialism as a form of Government)

 

[shira]

The glaring flaw of pure libertarianism is the insistence that society be structured on the assumption that entities will truly be "responsible" for the consequences of their actions, when it's absolutely clear that entities - driven by greed and/or ignorance - are capable of inflicting far more damage on others than the entity can possible correct.

 

[Scotteq]

The glaring flaw of pure libertarianism is the insistence that society be structured on the assumption that entities will truly be "responsible" for the consequences of their actions, when it's absolutely clear that entities - driven by greed and/or ignorance - are capable of inflicting far more damage on others than the entity can possible correct.

Of course.

Absolutes in any form ultimately fail.

Otherwise all laws could be boiled down to "Don't be an @$$hole..", and we'd have to teach lawyers to ask "do you want fries...".

 

[SP33Demon]

While I do like some of the Libertarian belief system, it simply is not realistic to think that everyone in society will act responsibly...

My views tend to align more with the Whigs:
http://www.modernwhig.org/issues.html

 

[drebo]

Edit: Here's your Libertarian phone bill:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upsho...phone-bill-horror-stories-motivate-regulators

Buyer's Remorse and ignorance of the rules have nothing to do with Libertarianism.

If anything, Verizon should be celebrated for knocking $25,000 off her bill.

When I went to Brazil for 2 weeks, I didn't take my cell phone because I knew I wouldn't be able to afford the international roaming. It's not hard to be responsible.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Buyer's Remorse and ignorance of the rules have nothing to do with Libertarianism.

If anything, Verizon should be celebrated for knocking $25,000 off her bill.

When I went to Brazil for 2 weeks, I didn't take my cell phone because I knew I wouldn't be able to afford the international roaming. It's not hard to be responsible.

The mere fact a cell phone company can charge someone $35,000 is proof enough that they have too much power. "Personal responsibility" has become libertarian code for empowering corporations to dick folks over more. Like I said, one overlord for another unless both government and corporations are small and limited.

 

[drebo]

The mere fact a cell phone company can charge someone $35,000 is proof enough that they have too much power. "Personal responsibility" has become libertarian code for empowering corporations to dick folks over more. Like I said, one overlord for another unless both government and corporations are small and limited.

A cell phone companies resources are not unlimited. If she's using her phone 24/7 to make calls and send text messages, her cell phone company has to dedicate a channel for her. If the cell company doesn't have towers where she is, the cell company has to "rent" that time from another provider.

Why is it bad for that cell company to recoup those costs by billing the customer that caused them?

This is not the cell company's fault, it's the customer's fault. The customer used the time and sent the text messages. "Not knowing" doesn't excuse that. You can't run a red light and then tell the officer that you "didn't know" that a red light meant stop. Doesn't fly.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

It's the fault of the system that allows $35,000 phone bills to exist in the first place. Especially given the insane markups that already exist with cell phones. It's a $35,000 PHONE BILL. It's insane and indefensible.