Stereotypes associated with Libertarianism and Ron Paul

It's all about compromise. It's better to live under the rule of slight oppression then constant anarchy. Most libertarians I've met assume that the rich work hard for their money, and that the poor do not. It's mostly rooted in simply not knowing that hard work does not translate to riches, or not recognising the implied "the poor are lazy".

This is true for some, but obviously not all, as you pointed out. Some of the few aren't willing to be pushed just that little bit further, though. It's a shame to me, personally speaking.

Well, yes, the incapability of the Libertarian bloc to comprehend that the system isn't perfect, and not everybody (and in fact most people) is just so awesome that they can go from nothing and then end up super-rich.

Not everyone is Gail Wynand.

Also, I'm not sure how this "taxes are oppression" thing works. You like to drive on roads. Government builds roads. You pay taxes, you use the roads. How is this any different from buying something from somebody, except on a large scale?

It becomes oppression when the taxation levied is not used properly. But taxes themselves are not immoral, inherently-speaking.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

I've never quite understood the strict moral argument against taxes. Well, I understand it, I just don't think it's real. As you said, most Libertarians (again, Big L. I should point out that by Big L. I generally mean right-wing libertarians, as opposed to left-wing libertarian anarchists such as Savage) when challenged will say that taxes are ok when it comes to things such as policing. At that point, it stops being a strict moral argument. Taxes are no longer theft.

At that point, it becomes a utilitarian argument. Which is fine. Different people can have different opinions on what is best from a utilitarian standpoint. But it's no longer a moralistic based ideology. The clear, clean absolutes are now broken.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

I think taxes are necessary, but too high, mostly due to spending them on unnecessary things.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Well, what exactly would not be "too high"? People will always say that...

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Actually, more importantly, what are the unnecessary things? What are the ramifications of cutting those unnecessary things and do you have ways to mitigate said ramifications?

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

^^Well, I'm of the opinion that there are certain things that the US has been spending lots of money on that it shouldn't have been spending lots of money on, such as going to war with Iraq because...well, just because. The US accomplished absolutely nothing over there but destabilizing the region, and it cost a lot of money.

Another's the postal service. It's redundant with several private companies that do a better job, sometimes for less money.

Ninja'd.

edited 7th Jan '12 9:30:49 PM by INUH

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

I've always wondered how much money we may save if we did what factories and such did back at the turn of the century, where they hired engineers and scientists to come in, time how long it took people to do things and why it took them that long to do it, and then figure out what they'd have to do to do it faster but without fucking up the process or lowering quality...

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

And if you do away with those (which won't happen, realistically), then you still can't lower taxes, because then at best you have removed the necessity of going ever deeper into debt. At best.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Ok, the postal service. That's a good one.

The ramifications of that, is that a lot of rural customers will have no mail delivery options because it's very likely that it'll never be economically profitable to serve those customers. Is this something that we as a society can live with? What about these people if that something that caused significant negative effects on them? (Speaking for myself I really couldn't care less about local delivery, either to a home or a local P.O. Box)

Edit;I should add that my "solution" to that is paid relocation to non-rural (I.E. high-density) population centers. But you might not like that solution.

As someone who has actually done that sort of thing (unpaid, unrewarded and resulted in me basically losing my job because of it), it's very difficult to do that sort of thing in any situation where you're dealing with an outside factor..like a customer or a client. You can find ways to make it more "efficient", but it's never a one-size fits all type thing.

For what it's worth most governmental agencies I've had experience with have already done all that stuff. Most places have.

That stone, the blood is gone from it. (For what it's worth, that blood is the fuel for the current economic doldrums, but lets not go too far OT for that)

edited 7th Jan '12 9:37:40 PM by Karmakin

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

I'm fairly sure we'll end up doing away with the Postal Service soon enough anyhow, due to technological progression, so I'm not hugely worried about that getting privatized because guess what: the private fools are sort of fucked, too.

Granted, there's always packages and such, but...

Edit: Actually...

The Postal Service might just get revived soon by the online stores, if they manage to overtake brick-and-mortar conventional shopping. So maybe I should be more concerned...

edited 7th Jan '12 11:19:13 PM by Flyboy

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

I don't live in a rural area, but I have no intention of ever using a private mail service when the regular Postal Service works just fine. The rates are reasonable, and I trust them more than I'd trust something like Fed Ex. And it employs people; cut out that and suddenly you have a lot of people out of jobs that won't necessarily be able to get jobs in the private services.

Think of something better to cut. Like the military.

Blah blah blah Just World blah blah. The idea is that they have no choice to "opt-out" of the system, thus that they are forced to pay into a system that they may wish to have no part it. It's an argument familiar to some from the healthcare debate; they fail to realise the fact that it's largely cutting off your nose to spite your face. Do they do better because they are inherently better, or are they kept good due to competition from the public sector? I admit that I have no idea.

I do think that rural customers will get shafted, since it will generally be a loss to expand your postal service beyond areas with a dense concentration of people. Of course, "getting shafted" is all a part of the private sector experience.

...?

Yes, but that argument is stupid. Nobody in the Libertarian bloc complains when the government spends money on the military so nobody invades their asses, but god help us if we want the government to spend money on roads or people's healthcare, because then we're STEALING!

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

Just World is an assumption that "if the world were just, [X] would be true". Since the world is not a just place, there's little point in using morals to justify things, since force uses it just as well.

You're lumping in something that has to be provided for a territory with something that can be applied as an "at use" type of thing.

Fight smart, not fair.

Like I said, at that point it's not stealing here or there. It's strictly a utilitarian argument, not a moralistic argument, so you should keep your arguments among those lines.

So the question is why are public roads a bad idea?

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Karmakin, it's only a utilitarian argument if you're logical enough to realize that the moralistic argument is retarded.

And, probably because "the private sector does it better" is the universal, biblical truth to Libertarians...

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

I'm not sure why people think utilitarian arguments have nothing to do with moral arguments. They start off with "this is good" and work their way out to the actual event.

Fight smart, not fair.

I am a Left-libertarian/Libertarian Socialist(Specifically a mix of Mutualism,Green Anarchism and Anarcha-feminism).I used to be a Right-libertarian.I was originally a moderate Classical liberal/Cosmotarian mix and later became a Radical Christian libertarian conspiracy buff.I have since come to the realization that Capitalism as the private ownership of the means of production is in fact abhorrent to the Free Market despite the claims of Rightists to the contrary.

Is necromancy also a stereotype associated with Libertarianism?

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Cool story, bro.

If the only reason you joined the wiki was to make political speeches, we can do without you.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"