Rugged Individualism, Libertarianism, and Social Darwinism

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Libertarians are childishly naive about the nature of greed.

Be honest, if you have a billion dollars, the Government says they need a million dollars to build a bridge they need to get across a lake in Ghettosburg, a real part of you is going to ask "What's in it for me?"

Begrudgingly, you accept.... Or you would have, but then a lawyer, let's call him Morty Goldstein, calls.

You give him 10k, and he'll tell Ghettosburg to fuck off. Give him 15k he'll put together a counter suit that allows the bridge to be built, but you have the rights to it and can charge whatever tolls you want since it's yours.

You give 15k to Goldstein, suddenly it's worth it to the mayor of Ghettosburg to seek money for re-election. Let's call him Dick Richardson.

Dick says you give him the million dollars, and he'll build it, still letting you have the rights to it, by raising taxes in Ghettosburg sky high. It's perfectly legal because Citizen's United. Goldstein tells you, the money you're giving to Dick can be written off as charity.

You get a free bridge, two million from a tax rebate, money from the people using the toll bridge, and you didn't have to do shit.

Maybe you upgrade the bridge from time to time to justify keeping the tolls high, or just because it's become a personal trophy for you.

Wait it gets better

From a combination of the high as shit taxes to pay for a bridge that people pay you to use, and just how nice the bridge is bringing up property values. You've priced ghettosburg out of their homes, some move in with relatives across the country, some become homeless.

The landlords now seeing dollar signs sell you the property. Congratulations you're the master of Ghettosburg.

You tear down everyone's home, put up mansions, tell your rich friends how great Ghettosburg is. They buy homes there, for their kids or maybe to go on vacation.

The homeless people we talked about get mass-arrested for loitering and trespassing. You don't care, they were bothering your rich friends.

Fantastic, you now have your own CWCville and no one can stop you. The cops know how rich you are and that you basically own the town at this point they're going to do anything you tell them, social programs to help those homeless people you created were slashed to pay for your god damn bridge and no one's in a hurry to encourage poor people to return to Ghettoburg.

Thus the fall of the people of Ghettosburg for want of a bridge, and the media will celebrate you as a smart and ethical businessman for it.

My point is, nothing is more toxic or deadly than private enterprise without restraint. With proper leashes, they'll make new gizmos and increase food production to help society. Without them, they'll build shitty technology, charge you three times what it cost to build, and leave it functional enough for you to want it but crap enough that you'll pay another in a few years. As for food production, they'll up throw away edible food to prevent the poor from eating as not to threaten their monopoly on a product everyone needs to not die.


Private Enterprise even with regulation will try to find ways around the rules, but I don't think we should make it easy for them to do as they please. I'd rather my biggest problem with capitalism being buying bags of chips half-full, not the current bullshit of have eight vacamt homes to every one homeless person or forcing the sick to choose between death or bankruptcy.

For some reason, America had its priorities backwards and started applauding for the Scrooges of the world, mistaking wealth for talent, to the most logical extreme of literally electing Donald Trump to office. Support him or not, outside of inherit daddy's money, star in a crappy reality TV show, cameo in both Ghosts Can't Do It and Home Alone 2, and start lines of failed businesses from board games to vodka, what has he ever done? Sometimes I truly believe the only difference between Trump and the average lolcow is an ivory tower to look down from.

My point is

Ultimately we can boil good and evil down to two things. Service to Others (Good) and Service to Self (Evil)

America has been tricked by shit like the Red Scare and the gospel according to Ayn Rand to think that somehow Service To Self is responsible and moral.

One cannot be fully good, or purely in the service of others, without being a literal Christ Figure full of divine powers and devoid of need, as one can't pour from an empty cup. One cannot be fully evil, or purely out for themselves because like it or not humans are social animals and we need other people.

America is simply too selfish to survive, and we're going to pulled closer to the left alongside Europe or Canada, how painful that pull will be depends on how long it takes us to get our heads out of our asses.

I'm not saying we abandon Capitalism, but maybe we could stuck sucking its dick every chance we get.

Libertarians, simply are incapable of understanding a god damn word I just said. Seriously watch Libertarian Political debates, it's amazing the shit they come up with. Keeping the VA up with bake sales instead of tax dollars, arguing that child porn is a completely legitimate business to enter, screaming that driver's licenses are tyrannical. Dear God, it's a good thing people like Gary Johnson aren't electable for major office or I'd be more horrified of their ilk.


Anyway enough autistic screeching, I've said my peace and I'm sure I'll be called "SJW Communist Faggot" several times for it.
 
The biggest problem with libertarians is that they see no distinction between government actions which are burdensome upon the individual, and government actions which seek to alleviate burdens upon the individual.

They make a convincing enough case against things like the drug war, military conscription, restrictions upon free expression, etc, but their arguments against social safety nets, healthcare provisions, and laws against economic exploitation are hilariously unconvincing.

To understand the error in libertarian thinking, you have to understand what freedom ultimately is, and here there are really two main views on the subject that need to be differentiated. The first view is that we are inherently free, and that it is only through other people in society working to take away our freedoms that we can become less free (the view held by libertarians). The second view is that we are, in many respects, inherently unfree, and that it is largely through society working together to maximize freedom that we can become freer individuals.

So what is freedom? I would argue that freedom is best defined as the power that we have to make choices and determine our own destiny. A lone hunter-gatherer in the wilderness has no authority figure to lord over him or tell him what to do (libertarian utopia), but what freedom does he ultimately have? The freedom to hunt and gather? The freedom to starve to death, failing that?

I think it's pretty clear that we become freer as individuals when we use our intelligence to work together to empower ourselves, and in the end, that's all true freedom really is: power.

Thanks to modern society, I have the power to do a lot of things that I otherwise couldn't, and there are many instances in which government intervention can positively impact that. It is for this reason that a good portion of libertarian ideology is irredeemably flawed.
 
Hellbound Hellhound dijo:
The biggest problem with libertarians is that they see no distinction between government actions which are burdensome upon the individual, and government actions which seek to alleviate burdens upon the individual.

They make a convincing enough case against things like the drug war, military conscription, restrictions upon free expression, etc, but their arguments against social safety nets, healthcare provisions, and laws against economic exploitation are hilariously unconvincing.

To understand the error in libertarian thinking, you have to understand what freedom ultimately is, and here there are really two main views on the subject that need to be differentiated. The first view is that we are inherently free, and that it is only through other people in society working to take away our freedoms that we can become less free (the view held by libertarians). The second view is that we are, in many respects, inherently unfree, and that it is largely through society working together to maximize freedom that we can become freer individuals.

So what is freedom? I would argue that freedom is best defined as the power that we have to make choices and determine our own destiny. A lone hunter-gatherer in the wilderness has no authority figure to lord over him or tell him what to do (libertarian utopia), but what freedom does he ultimately have? The freedom to hunt and gather? The freedom to starve to death, failing that?

I think it's pretty clear that we become freer as individuals when we use our intelligence to work together to empower ourselves, and in the end, that's all true freedom really is: power.

Thanks to modern society, I have the power to do a lot of things that I otherwise couldn't, and there are many instances in which government intervention can positively impact that. It is for this reason that a good portion of libertarian ideology is irredeemably flawed.
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I've never seen this argument made so well, I almost applauded irl
 
I'm not quite sure where I stand on the "libertarian" thing, but I think a government of a society and the laws they make should be at the minimum level necessary for a working society. Not entirely absent, nor an excessive police or "nanny state," but a good balance between. This can apply to other forms of government besides a republic or democracy too.

Of course people can debate what the "minimum necessary" is.

For example, businesses should have at least some degree of regulation since corporations don't always behave ethically when unrestricted by law. See: early Industrial Revolution. On the other hand, it's wrong to ban offensive speech just because it's offensive, as not everyone agrees on what is offensive (and to "identity politics," nearly everything is offensive).
 
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Malthus was wrong because cummies.

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in a perfect, libertarian world, all of jojo has completely legal copies that are translated into english with no localization problems concerning the copyright of the names, and we all own self driving cars that work 100% of the time
 
Most Libertarians are ambitious young men. They don't have a need for social programs and have confidence they can ''make it''. But youth and health don't last forever. The ever scapegoated ''boomers'' are now clamouring for pharmacare and social programs because age is catching up to them. Many are former Reaganites themselves, who loved such low tax, small government policies in the 80's during their 20's as they reaped the financial benefits of it. But now they are wanting ''help''.
 
We're all screwed taxwise with the unemployment fraud happening, right now. If filling out a grant form for "front line worker pay" gets my folks an extra $3 an hour, I'm going to do it. It goes straight to them.
E- The money has already been allocated for this reason. Why not try and get it for my people who work hard without complaint?
 
KatsuKitty dijo:
efficient welfare system ensures that all who need help are provided for. Neither our current approach nor just letting people die is doing that successfully.
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I've been thinking how to do that.
Back in the day it was the local government that had the garbage trucks pick up trash. Now these days trash collection is done via a private company. The difference is now the structure is publicly funded but privately ran where before the structure was both funded and ran by the government.

What could be done is a company could be the "privatization " of various social programs. So instead of welfare handouts via the state is be done through a private company. This over time would allow the company to usurp and replace the regular government
 
The ''welfare lifestyle'' in the USA has been basically a dead horse since Bill Clinton. Neo-Con's still talk about this stuff like it's 1992. People don't get free money, they are put to work by government agencies in fast food jobs or low wage as fast as possible. The real recipients of social programs are actually seniors- they are among the largest. But most people don't know that.

The ''boomers are selfish because they already have theirs'' trope is one that is greatly misunderstood. Like I said before, Boomers are actually quite reliant on government programs and they are for more especially as they even older. Many people don't even know the age range of a boomer, thinking it's someone not quite 50. The majority however are over 65 with the absolute oldest at about 76. If any group was to be a tax burden it would be them.

Be fair to argue with me on this but Millennials (25-40 - their true age range) are more conservative than most people think.
 
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Sweetpeaa dijo:
Most Libertarians are ambitious young men. They don't have a need for social programs and have confidence they can ''make it''. But youth and health don't last forever. The ever scapegoated ''boomers'' are now clamouring for pharmacare and social programs because age is catching up to them. Many are former Reaganites themselves, who loved such low tax, small government policies in the 80's during their 20's as they reaped the financial benefits of it. But now they are wanting ''help''.
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I’ve heard this posited as a “gotcha” against libertarians, but I think it speaks more to how the baby boomers have always implemented policies which effectively “transferred wealth” to their generation.
 
Hello, my fellow lolberts. It is here in which we will discuss libertarianism and the Libertarian Party.

My friends, we lolberts are a type most warranted, as we fight for the personal liberties of the common man, of which are slowly being eroded away from us not only through government but corporations too. We like economic freedoms and scarce regulations sure, but in order for us to persist, we must focus our efforts on trying to let people not be so careless as to let the corporations tread all over us too. The Patriot Act has already enabled the government to take our privacy and as more private companies take more power, the internet will be theirs as well not only on the World Wide Web, but our personal applications. We will soon be living in a society ruled through consumption and pleaing to authority and it all begins with those steps. So lolberts, we must discuss our grand plan to take back our country for what it was pre-9/11. TO TAKE BACK WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY OURS IN THE FASHIONABLE LOLBERT WAY! So come my fellow lolberts, THINK! PLAN! Don't be a sheep!

Also yeah, this is libertarianism general thread, so talk anything libertarian wise, I dunno.
 
The reason why no one is afraid of the Libertarian party is because they are a party of losers. They will never win because their entire outlook is defensive and passive. They are degenerates who larp as revolutionaries.
 
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