Can't Kill This, Chump!

[Eliahad]

But Mike won the last one! It's Tahlvin's turn. We talked about this.

[Elle]

The Master! I want him to win now so his guy can lose in Nov.!!! They are all trying to guilt me into voting Hillary over Gary.

[Mike]

Gary? Really?

[Tahlvin]

[Mike]

Any suggestions for a new avatar theme? It's about time.

[Cazmonster]

[Eliahad]

Bad string players!

[Cazmonster]

[Tahlvin]

How about an avatar theme of "dark cthulhu".

[Cazmonster]

[TheMaster]

Everyone should vote for Gary Johnson! I love his tax plan!

[Elle]

Yes, Gary. A choice between corporatist Democrats and Libertarian Republicans would finally be a real choice for me again after years of GOP corporatists. Or what the social conservatives really should do is fight equally hard against climate change and environmental destruction - I.e. all the human meddling and tampering with the divine creation - and then both crazy wings of the GOP would suddenly become palatable choices to me.

[Mike]

Yes. No income tax. Legalize many drugs. Get government out of our lives. Personal freedom over all. There is a lot in the libertarian platform that is appealing.

But that also comes with no more worker protections (no minimum wage, no overtime laws, no protection from dangerous or abusive conditions); no public education of any sort; no health care support; no unemployment; no welfare; no social security; discrimination against anyone for any reason becomes legal; no regulation of food safety; no requirement that companies even tell you what's in their food (or for that matter, they'd be allowed to simply lie to consumers about what's in their products, and no one could stop them. What? You don't have your own food testing lab to help protect yourself? Well, that's your tough shit); no restrictions on immigration at all (unless we think you might be dangerous); no restrictions on banking practices; no restrictions on pollution; government stops building and maintaining your roads.

Some of that will appeal to many people, but some of it will be surprising and/or distasteful. But none of this is made up. Pretty much everything there is taken straight from their official party platform. The principle of personal freedom above all else is incredibly attractive and easy to grasp, but if you want to be a purist about it (and libertarians do), then it leads to some pretty drastic ramifications, all of which point to going back to a time of the robber barons of a century ago. I know plenty of people disagree with me, but I find the idea of a truly libertarian government in this country to be extremely scary.

I would love to see libertarians have a greater voice, just as I would love to see lots of other small parties have more say in public discussion, but I would hate for them to be running everything.

Note... this response was written before seeing Elle's post.

[Eliahad]

I'm going to just keep the thread alive so the discussion can continue.

[Mike]

You bastard! This thread was MINE!

[Elle]

Libertarianism is kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing, much like those of its proponents I've had the mis-or-fortune to know. I work with two of them. One of them is dr. Jekyll. The other is mr. Hyde. At least speaking in terms of how they represent their political philosophy and how persuasive they make it appear. Others managed to combine both in a single human being.

[Mike]

And for me, the two broad categories of Libertarians go like this:

1) Libertarians in name only. These are people who want to have the conservative fiscal policy of the right-wing Republicans but the liberal social philosophy of left-wing Democrats. They don't give a crap about abortion. They're supportive of gay people. They don't care if you want to smoke weed. What they do care about is not having to pay so much in taxes and cutting government support and interference. There are varying degrees of this, but they are mostly reasonable (and usually educated and middle-to-upper-class) people.

2) True Libertarians. If you support most or all of the Libertarian party platform as written, then you and I have virtually no common ground to work from, because true Libertarians believe in the myth of the free market. That is, they truly believe that free market competition solves every problem and makes everything better. I can't buy into that. Eliminate public schools: free market, for-profit schools will result in better education for all. Eliminate the FDA and the EPA: educated consumers will naturally choose to spend money on better, safer products, and sub-standard or dangerous products will be forced out of the market. Eliminate welfare, Social Security, unemployment and all other forms of government assistance: without a safety net, people will plan for misfortune and retirement, etc, and if they don't, then someone will take care of them, be it family or friends or churches or whatever. Eliminate all banking regulations: as with other products, people will give their money to banks that treat them the best and give them the best deals, thus forcing crooked practices out. Etc etc etc. I'm all on board with a lot of their protection-of-individual-rights stuff, but we've seen with our own eyes that you cannot rely on the free market to fix everything in the world. Unrestrained capitalism is dangerous, and in fact leads to less choice and less personal freedom for the majority of people living under it. I'm not buying it.

Libertarian ideas have merit. Libertarian-Republicans are a viable political party (even though they don't formally exist yet). Pure Libertarianism in practice is nothing but anarchy with a border patrol. And so while I've met many people who call themselves Libertarians who I've found to be very nice and quite reasonable, the official Libertarian Party Platform is a piece of insanity, and anyone rallying under that banner is advocating a form of government that would destroy most of the things that I think are good about our nation.

[Elle]

Yes, that first view you mention is Dr. Jekyll's; the second is more Mr. Hyde. I think Gary is campaigning as a Jekyll with a Hydeish platform behind him. Which one is he, really?

If I thought he might win it would be trickier. But I want his party to become un-ignore-able and stronger, better capable of influencing the Republicans and policy debates in general. I don't see the GOP as much better on any of the free market / consumer protection / public good issues you mention. Their supposed intellectual leader can't detach from Trump and is some kind of man-boy Ayn Rand lover. Sigh.

But there is a third kind of libertarian who is free-speech/bill-of-rights motivated, anti abortion on grounds that it's murder, and sees the merit of some of those public good/consumer protection issues on the grounds that they preserve openness and freedom of choice. That and they basically dislike other people, so your bleeding heart feelings make no mark...

[Mike]

Vote Trump!

[Elle]

There's the Mr. Hyde issue rearing its head again...