Bye, bye to masquerading as a libertarian

[AntonLee]

I've never made the mistake of calling myself a libertopian. Bunch of douches.

me either.  Nice avatar!

[Diogenes The Cynic]

Ziggy, you have no need to identify yourself by the labels other people define. You define yourself.

I feel comfortable enough saying that I am a libertarian that believes in stop signs. I dont feel this is a problem.

[Alex Libman]

See, that's why I don't like pot-heads... You aren't helping.

Yes I am.  I'm just not helping you.

[trollfreezone]

See, that's why I don't like pot-heads... You aren't helping.

Yes I am.  I'm just not helping you.

Who or what are you helping?  Prohibition advocates?  Moms against altered consciousness?  Alcoholics who think everyone who's touched pot is a pothead?  How freedom-loving of you!

[AntonLee]

that would be Mr. Libman, the sometimes liberty lover. . . (except when it comes to drugs). . .those people can be lynched. . . .

and that's why I don't think he'll ever be all the way.  "my drugs are better than yours"

[Alex Libman]

I'm not supporting prohibition, I am opposing potheads who have very little general interest in libertarian philosophy calling themselves libertarians and becoming the defining face of the movement.  Someone like Obama will legalize pot someday, and some of those people will be licking his socialist asshole for it!

And I never supported lynching anybody, I've merely supported the right of property owners to define rules and punishments.  I think you keep coming back to what I've said in defense of Singapore, which is far from perfect but still has some attributes worth defending.  It would be an even better example if there were no native Singaporeans and 100% of the population was there by choice - you go to Singapore with a kilo of pot you risk your neck.  You work for my company, you don't smoke pot.  Etc.  Those rules are just.

And I am not an alcoholic.

[Shara]

I'm not supporting prohibition, I am opposing potheads who have very little general interest in libertarian philosophy calling themselves libertarians and becoming the defining face of the movement.  Someone like Obama will legalize pot someday, and some of those people will be licking his socialist asshole for it!

And I never supported lynching anybody, I've merely supported the right of property owners to define rules and punishments.  I think you keep coming back to what I've said in defense of Singapore, which is far from perfect but still has some attributes worth defending.  It would be an even better example if there were no native Singaporeans and 100% of the population was there by choice - you go to Singapore with a kilo of pot you risk your neck.  You work for my company, you don't smoke pot.  Etc.  Those rules are just.

And I am not an alcoholic.

I think you're right Libman... But this comment is why some people get upset at you. Lol!
Singapore might be the best place for me. Low economic restrictions, but just the fact that they would restrict a plant, even though  I DON'T want to touch it does REALLY bother me.
And also, that's another reason that the FSP might not work for me, aside from the fact that I can't convince my husband.
I like freedom, I like Liberty and choice, but I think that many people, like you said, are in it for the pot.
I don't want to move there and be surrounded by a lazy (not saying that they're ALL that way, but it seems that many are) pot culture with no innovative businesses for my kids to work at other than Walmart and McDonalds.

I guess the Sacle (sp?) CAI guy, and the  Interknobs guy prove that the Liberty movement does have some innovative people that are driven. Maybe they smoke pot, and maybe they don't, and maybe I need to rethink my stance that potheads are mostly lazy.

However, I think that Libman's right.
We've got some good straight on people here that do smoke pot, and there are some people that are for the Liberty movement that are very fickle and do it for the drugs, and they WOULD be licking Obama's asshole if he legalized it. Hell, they'd lick Bush's to if it was his last move before he left the whitehouse.

[trollfreezone]

I'm not supporting prohibition, I am opposing potheads who have very little general interest in libertarian philosophy calling themselves libertarians and becoming the defining face of the movement.  Someone like Obama will legalize pot someday, and some of those people will be licking his socialist asshole for it!

And I never supported lynching anybody, I've merely supported the right of property owners to define rules and punishments.  I think you keep coming back to what I've said in defense of Singapore, which is far from perfect but still has some attributes worth defending.  It would be an even better example if there were no native Singaporeans and 100% of the population was there by choice - you go to Singapore with a kilo of pot you risk your neck.  You work for my company, you don't smoke pot.  Etc.  Those rules are just.

And I am not an alcoholic.

Who do you think these "potheads" are?  If you bring up "potheads" whenever pot is mentioned or someone you believe uses it posts something you disagree with, don't be surprised when others bring up alcoholics because you bring up booze.  It's really childish.  I don't know what you said about Singapore; although people should be able to run their business however they want, the government's fascism is not "worth defending."

We've got some good straight on people here that do smoke pot, and there are some people that are for the Liberty movement that are very fickle and do it for the drugs, and they WOULD be licking Obama's asshole if he legalized it. Hell, they'd lick Bush's to if it was his last move before he left the whitehouse.

Who are they?

[burnthebeautiful]

You guys should look into Switzerland a little more before calling it socialist. Switzerland is one of the most libertarian countries in the world. It has the second free-est/most capitalist economy in the entire world after Hong Kong, and also has one of the lowest tax burdens in the world. The marijuana laws are among the least restrictive in the world - there are legal weed stores in most states. The gun laws are also amongst the least restrictive in the world. Switzerland also has one of, if not the most, de-centralized forms of government in the world. It is my understanding that many of the highways in the country are privately owned. I know that saying "the best kind of democracy" is kind of like saying "the best kind of cancer", but Switzerland has a pretty neat direct-democracy system where all you need to bring about a national vote is to get 50,000 people to sign your law proposal.

Yes, there is government funded health-care and welfare programs for poor people. But the country is far from socialist.

GAH. I was just advocating Switzerlands Socialist program, because, like you said, it's citizens are usually rated as the happiest against other countries,but you say that it's the most CAPITALIST? Are it's citizens taxed on a voluntary basis? I mean, they're socially free, but from what I've heard, very NOT free economically. But, their tax burden isn't too bad compared to what their getting, so overall, it's not a bad deal for them.
I'm just saying, they DO have restrictions on starting up a business at the spur of the moment that say Chinaman will not (I mean, as long as he's in China and not spitting on the sidewalk or smoking pot).

I think he means it has one of the least restrictive economies and social policies of it's citizens. It's socialism-lite in a sense, welfare statism done well, but socialist it is. Then again I'd label almost every government on the planet socialist, so I may be biased in this judgement.

Yes, that's what I meant. I had the second free-est economy in the world thing, wrong, though. I just had a look and apparently it's only the second free-est economy in Europe. Cut and paste from Wikipedia:

"Switzerland has a stable, modern, and one of the most capitalist economies in the world. It has the 2nd highest European rating after Ireland in the Index of Economic Freedom 2008. The nominal per capita GDP is higher than those of the larger western European economies and Japan, ranking 6th behind Luxembourg, Norway, Qatar, Iceland and Ireland. If adjusted for purchasing power parity it ranks 15th.[22] The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report currently ranks Switzerland's economy as the second most competitive in the world.[23] For much of the 20th century, Switzerland was the wealthiest country in Europe by a considerable margin.[24] In 2005 the median household income in Switzerland was an estimated 95,000 CHF, the equivalent of roughly 55,000 USD in purchasing power parity, which is similar to wealthy American states like California and Vermont."

I'm not willing to call a country with those stats 'socialist'. I guess it takes more than a country having tax-funded education and health-care etc for me to be willing to brand the country with the label "socialist". To me, the word 'socialist' should be used just as carefully as the word 'libertarian'. Just like you shouldn't call anyone who wants to lower the income tax a little bit a libertarian, you shouldn't call anyone who wants tax-funded education a socialist. Socialism, like libertarianism, is an ideology with principles and it takes more than sympathizing with a few of the ideas for the label to be accurate.

[trollfreezone]

I think the subtle difference here, BtB, is that you can have a socialist nation, but not a libertarian nation (contradiction in terms.)  I'm sure most of the people in the socialist nation are not socialists, but...

Yes, these things are socialist, and there's a lot of socialism in the US too.

[burnthebeautiful]

I think the subtle difference here, BtB, is that you can have a socialist nation, but not a libertarian nation (contradiction in terms.)  I'm sure most of the people in the socialist nation are not socialists, but...

Yes, these things are socialist, and there's a lot of socialism in the US too.

I agree that having things like tax-funded health-care and education is socialistic, but that's sort of like saying it's libertarian for there to be privately owned restaurants, legal alcohol or whatever. Just because a given country has a handful of the things that the ideology proposes doesn't mean the nation itself is socialist/libertarian.

[Kevin Freeheart]

Just because a given country has a handful of the things that the ideology proposes doesn't mean the nation itself is socialist/libertarian.

It's a semantics issue, but at the heart of it is why I essentially reject the idea of government at all. There are no such things as "nations". There are people who consider themselves part of a nation, but each person in that group has their own ideas and values. No nation can ever be described in terms of BELIEF system since there will never be only one. Even "libertarian" as a label is grossly inaccurate since it is an umbrella for so many vantage points. Nations don't exist, therefore there can be no socialist nations or libertarian nations.

[AntonLee]

I'm really pretty tired of the whole "you're not in it for liberty, you're in it for pot" argument.  Some people are in it for the pot, yes.  Some people are in it for the consentual underage sex.  Some are in it for prositution.  Some are in it for homeschooling.

get over it, please.  People that are for legalization and not for overall liberty aren't libertarians, voluntaryists, anarcho-capitalists. . .whatever. . .

get your own land, and make your own rules.  I'll not be around, because I don't like wet brain fools who can't take a toke.

[HOO-HAA]

I think that the problem with libertarianism , for Ziggy - and for many others, is that the lack of tax-funded welfare and aversion to foreign aid often equates to social darwinism ie: libertarians advocate 'survival of the fittest' (to the detriment of the weaker and vulnerable elements of society/ the world).

This is a common concern, and it could be argued that at least some linertarians are social darwinist in their thinking.   

Consider this excerpt from the interview with Church of Satan High Preist, Peter Gilmore:

'Interviewer (DS): Capital punishment is not antithetical to Satanism.

PG: Not necessarily, but essentially we would rather shrink from the government having the power to take you and murder you, because we don’t have a lot of confidence in people being rational, or being truthful, and we have seen so often—especially with DNA testing—that a lot of people have been jailed and accused of murder and they were wrong. That’s wrongful. So it’s not this broad, “We accept capital punishment and it’s fine!”

DS: “Slaughter them all!” [Laughs]

PG: Right! But there are certain situations where it would be appropriate. Say, when Colin Ferguson shot all those people. There should be absolutely no time wasted on that.

DS: But should it be the government doing it?

PG: I think the government can have the ability but under control. There needs to be checks and balances. That whole idea in the United States that has come from so many other past forms of government is something we feel is necessary. We don’t want any form of megalomaniacal government with absolute power that can do anything willy-nilly to its citizens. Satanists are generally Libertarians. They may choose their specific political alliances because it might better whatever they are trying to do in their lives, but essentially most of us are fairly libertarian people. We would like to have government as minimal as possible....'

(read the full interview at: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Satanism:_An_interview_with_Church_of_Satan_High_Priest_Peter_Gilmore)

[trollfreezone]

I think the subtle difference here, BtB, is that you can have a socialist nation, but not a libertarian nation (contradiction in terms.)  I'm sure most of the people in the socialist nation are not socialists, but...

Yes, these things are socialist, and there's a lot of socialism in the US too.

I agree that having things like tax-funded health-care and education is socialistic, but that's sort of like saying it's libertarian for there to be privately owned restaurants, legal alcohol or whatever. Just because a given country has a handful of the things that the ideology proposes doesn't mean the nation itself is socialist/libertarian.

Not really.  It's libertarian to have privately owned (all that) without any state interference.  There's no such thing within the bounds of the state.  Again, no such thing as a libertarian state, but there is such a thing as a socialist nation--the moment they begin redistributing wealth, they're socialist nations.  Just because most of the nations are socialist by this definition doesn't mean the definition needs changing.  The twisted definition is a sign of the times.

Just because a given country has a handful of the things that the ideology proposes doesn't mean the nation itself is socialist/libertarian.

It's a semantics issue, but at the heart of it is why I essentially reject the idea of government at all. There are no such things as "nations". There are people who consider themselves part of a nation, but each person in that group has their own ideas and values. No nation can ever be described in terms of BELIEF system since there will never be only one. Even "libertarian" as a label is grossly inaccurate since it is an umbrella for so many vantage points. Nations don't exist, therefore there can be no socialist nations or libertarian nations.

Clearly they exist, as they have tangible effects.  That they only exist as a form of behavior makes them somewhat abstract.

I'm really pretty tired of the whole "you're not in it for liberty, you're in it for pot" argument.  Some people are in it for the pot, yes.  Some people are in it for the consentual underage sex.  Some are in it for prositution.  Some are in it for homeschooling.

get over it, please.  People that are for legalization and not for overall liberty aren't libertarians, voluntaryists, anarcho-capitalists. . .whatever. . .

get your own land, and make your own rules.  I'll not be around, because I don't like wet brain fools who can't take a toke.

Well said.

I think that the problem with libertarianism , for Ziggy - and for many others, is that the lack of tax-funded welfare and aversion to foreign aid often equates to social darwinism ie: libertarians advocate 'survival of the fittest' (to the detriment of the weaker and vulnerable elements of society/ the world).

That's a common misconception.  Just because we don't want government aid for others does not mean we don't want aid for others--many of us would even personally provide for it.