Stereotypes associated with Libertarianism and Ron Paul

Ok I would like a little help here I myself am a Libertarian and i'm not understanding what the deal is with all the Ron Paul backlash i've researched his activities and voting records and such and he seams pretty genuine but I would like to hear the other side here and what the whole schtik. Also could somebody explain alot of the negetive sterotypes and baggage that come with Libertarianism.

His fanbase tends to be somewhat rabid. And he holds a lot of views that aren't really well liked, like how he's pro-life and such.

He's a republican I can respect though.

As for the Libertarian party, they seem to be hijacked by right wingers who want to get rid of things like government regulations, OSHA, FDA, etc. and other crazy things that basically empower corporations to a point that they become the rulers of this country.

I myself am a leftist libertarian, but they don't seem to have any voice in the party.

there are certainly decent arguments on both sides of getting ridof thesse reguolations or maintaning them it's hard to say. Also looking at Paul's voting records it seams like he doesn't let hispro-life ness get in the way of his Libertarianism looking again at his voting records the only anti-abortion bills he has ever voted for are ones dealing with late term abortions and mid birth abortions which is pretty reasonable ifyou ask me. Also more perspective on this would help I'm not a big supporter of the FDA either OSHA maybe but not the FDA not after the Bacon dog incident in California and then there's the fact that the war on drugs has been a total waste just like the wars in the middle east. I'm not perticularly in support of Universal Healthcare because of some of its implications (many people in country's with this system have to come here for treatment, makeof that what you will) I mean I don't know enough about the issue but i'm more concerned with the Federal Reserve and their corpretist ideas and inflationary monetary policy that has caused the dollar to go down %96 in value. But more on healthcare if they are going to do it it has to be checked against the constitution and decided on my the legislative branch and have a proper ammendment made for it you can't just put it in to place. Also as far as getting rid of these government regulations that's actually one of the reasons healthcare is so expensive these days BECAUSE of the governments hands in it such as the HMO's and pandering to corpret interests to create regulation against natural cures that can't be patented.

edited 7th Mar '11 12:19:56 AM by tnu1138

I don't know a lot about Ron Paul, sorry.

The main issue I've had with libertarians on-line is with the extreme idealists who argue that it is best to privatise everything - fire departments, the entire road system, everything - who tend to dig their heels in when everyone else points out the massive flaws with such a plan.

Ok ok you got me humility time i'm guilty of that myself ESPECAILLY the digging my heals in part. I'm a little weary about some industries and think they should atleast be delegated to the states rather then the federal government though. I think back on ancient Ireland and that seamed to work pretty well.

As a rule, systems from ancient civilisations don't tend to have much mileage in the modern world.

And before anyone brings up democracy, actually bother to read up on how Athenian democracy worked please and thank you.

edited 7th Mar '11 1:10:36 AM by Iaculus

I believe one of the stereotypes (for Libertarians in general, not Ron Paul) is that they fall really damn hard into the just world hypothesis, and insist that if someone is being harassed or screwed over, they were probably being stupid and could have avoided it.

Also, much mention of bootstraps and Ayn Rand.

Debating about whether a service should be under the jurisdiction of local, state or federal is fine. It's when the arguments about how absolutely everything should be in private hands and sorted out through the free market when the discussion gets loopy. Especially that debate I've had with the libertarian who thought free market competition could deal with all public roads.

edited 7th Mar '11 1:12:11 AM by TrapperZoid

when you think about it it sort of makes sense i'm not entierly certain myself on the issue but I think that it COULD work i'm just hesitent to jump on it. the whole idea of government services is sort of like the government holding a monopoly. the way I see the roads and such argumenti s that the competition created would make roads of better quality and actually cheeper then what we pay in taxes because the companies have to earn our business. Admittedly there may be some holes (I argue this one with my dad sometimes) but i'm not willing to dismiss either out of hand. As for the just world thing that doesn't quite add up because the core tenet is that no individual has the right to initiate force or fraud against another essentailly the line in the sand.

edited 7th Mar '11 1:24:53 AM by tnu1138

How could you possibly run a road industry that wasn't a monopoly? Would you want three different roads for each route, because that makes most government waste look small by comparison.

well think about this the town needs a road for whatever reason. Bob sees a profit in this so he starts a business based around that model. Alice also sees a profit and starts her own. the people need to decide whether to take the services from Alice or Bob. So they spend quite abitof time trying to one-up eachother for business and resources they want more emplyees so they would each try to offer better wages and working conditions. They would also need to pleas the customer so they would each make an attempt to one-up the other in providing abetter service i.e. safer and better built roads. It all falls under the rule of supply and demand.

You leave out quite a few details. How would the people choose between Alice and Bob? If you choose an election then the winner will be whoever spends more money on campaigning, the amount of effort they put into actually building the road is irrelevant since by that point they have already won the vote, and being a private corporation f there is no money in safety they will not care about safety, so you will end up with very dangerous low-quality roads.

Besides, is the road system really that bad the way its run now?

you make a good point to consider like I said i'm not perticularly on either side of the fence on this one. I don't know enough about economics and road building to really understand the issue as much as i'dlike but I think the Wisdom of Crowds may play a role here.

"Across the nation, drivers face more than 90,000 miles of crumbling highways and more than 70,000 decaying bridges."

I believe the current method for road construction is for the government to contract a private company to do it. Since that relieves the state of the responsibility of management. The problem with decaying roads isn't that private companies do a poor job, but that road construction isn't a federal priority. There ARE road companies, just a google search turned up 6 different ones.

No, it's other industries, such as electric companies that are the problem. Since they basically operate government sanctioned and government protected oligopolies on our nation's power infrastructure. It's practically required though, since we can't have multiple companies creating competing gas or electric lines.

"healthcare is so expensive these days BECAUSE of the governments hands in it such as the HMO's and pandering to corporate interests to create regulation against natural cures that can't be patented."

No. It's because health care insurers jack up prices arbitrarily and deny services. Additionally, lack of preventive care causes more expensive health related injuries later that are treated by the emergency room and such. The second part has to do with the drug industry not the health care industry.

In short, the problems aren't with the regulatory industries but lack over oversight. Tougher regulations on where corporations could lend their money to bribe officials would prevent that shit. But the minute someone says "Regulation" Republicans just scream COMMUNISM.

"FDA either OSHA"

You do realize why those regulatory bodies were created right? Because corporations, with a lack of oversight, were letting shit get into food and locking their employees in buildings that could burn down.

again there are arguments for either side but I don't buy that our econemy needs to be regulated up the ass in order for there to be good conditions for customers and workers. you know how many medicalcompanies lobby to get natural cures that can't be patented banned for theirown self interest? our current Corpretist system is failing and I don't think forced Socialism is the solution. If Socialism or Communism could work fine but i'm not seeing much evidence of government monopolies being efficent in the least.

Yes, the weird debate I had wasn't about the government tendering out to the best private road construction company (that's reasonable), it was about every single road being a privately owned toll road (let free competition sort it out!) It was... weird.

Regulations aren't socialist.

That's like saying Police are fascist.

sometimes I wonder with how they try and regulate our personal lives our our activities and create a sort of security form ideas that a majority considered "improper" nevermidn that thats entierly subjective. As long as you don't harm anyone else who gives a shit who can marry who or what you show on TV?

No regulations are not Socialist Regulations are Corpretist which IMO is acxtually alot worse. With Socialism at least things could be fair and balanced and even but with Corpretism power is put in the hands of a hand full of rich corperations who can afford to get these regulations passed at the expense of the little guy who CAN'T afford some of them.

edited 7th Mar '11 2:16:44 AM by tnu1138

Hold on, I thought that regulations were often about taking power away from the rich corporations?

not entierly the rich corperations themselves can afford these regulations at the expense of the smaller business who mean well but can NOT afford them.

Then why is the primary corporate drive in politics towards deregulation?

You make a valid point can you back that statement up? Honeslty i'm not interested in debating something I have admittedly limited understanding of. I could very well be worng as all hell and I'll admit that.

One of the big reasons why health care in the US is so expensive is that you have multiple bureaucracies, each with their own rules and regulations acting in parallel. The problem with ending it is that it creates an awful lot of well-paying jobs.

My big beef with right wing libertarianism is that it simply doesn't understand that often smaller systems can be a larger threat to freedom than wider systems. Part of it is a simple disagreement on the nature of freedom. Often Libertarians portray freedom as being negative, that is, simply preventing government from interfering. However, I see freedom as something that should be positive. That is, maximizing the freedom for as many people as possible. The latter does require rules and regulations to be set down in order to achieve this.

To this end, often times I can say that I would rather something be done nationally than on a smaller political level because to be honest, I think the smaller the political unit, the more natural corruption that occurs. There are of course, often times things that are better handled at the lower levels, especially local infrastructure.

And re: roads, just to show you where this can go. Alice builds a network of roads. John builds a supermarket off of one of these roads. Alice decides to sell her network to Carl, who runs his own supermarket chain. Carl then tears up the road leading to John's supermarket.

One thing about having public infrastructure, is that it's reliable in terms of doing business. It can't be used as a weapon or a sledge against competing businesses (at least barring massive obvious corruption). It promotes stability, which is a good thing.

The worst thing I didn't like about Ron Paul was his extreme isolationism when it came to foreign policy. The last time we did that, 60 million people were dead by the time we learned our lesson.

And a lot of you are woefully stereotyping libertarians as Republicans-under-a-different-name. The core philosophy of the libertarian movement in the US is adhering to and going no further than the tenets of the US Constitution. Meaning we oppose a lot of programs not because we're corporatists, but because the Constitution frankly doesn't allow it and the reasoning used to pass it is so flimsy it doesn't add up.

Take Obamacare, the libertarian point of view is it is blatantly unconstitutional. The power of mandate does not exist in the US Constitution at the Federal level. (That may in fact only be a state power given the 10th Amendment) Likewise it is not hard to argue that the restrictions are also unconstitutional because technically health care insurance cannot cross state lines. You legally cannot sell health insurance in interstate commerce thus by a logical loophole the Congress created over the issue, the entire industry falls outside the scope of the commerce clause. (The commerce clause specifically states interstate and international commerce. If an industry fails to fall into those boundaries, it is outside the power of the Feds. Health insurance is one such industry and the situation was self-created by the Feds.)

The libertarian wing of the US follows the same line of logic all over the country even if we don't agree on everything.

I have lots of Libertarian leanings, but most of the support for libertarianism around where I live are just potheads who think that legalizing drugs is the single most important thing we should be striving to attain.