Libertarians and the left

[PGH]

We tend to want to abolish standing armies. They all think the police need more power – to crack down on guns, if you’re a liberal, and to crack down on drugs, if you’re a conservative. We libertarians think police have way too much power and flirt with the idea of doing away with them altogether. The conservatives and liberals all want to keep Medicare, Social Security, and public schools intact, if tweaked around the edges. We see these programs for what they are: the parasitic class’s authoritarian and regressive programs to control the youth and foment intergenerational conflict.

No mililtary. No police. No schools.

No support from 98% of the public. And that's how it will always be.

Ron Paul 20NEVER

 

[lomiller]

It seems to me that you are here playing exactly the semantic game you are accusing others of playing.

You define yourself as a “centrist” and a “moderate”, and anyone to the right of you as a rightist.

Nope, while it’s certainly possible to have “ideologically pure leftists”, it simply doesn’t follow that any deviation from libertarian ideals makes you one.

Clearly the centrist and moderate would be the people willing to accept pragmatic positions, since it’s the Libertarians that re rejecting mainstream positions on economics and other issues it’s pretty clearly they are not centrists or moderates and for the most part they even reject these definitions themselves.

Given 300 million people to chose from it’s obvious that you are going to be able to find people equally ideologically motivated on the left, but I’m willing to bet that most of if the people of significance you would call “leftists” are embracing mainstream scientific or economic views while the people you identify as centrists commonly reject the mainstream views as some form of “conspiracy”

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I read it, but I don't know what I was supposed to be convinced of. The author tried to critique a lot of positions I don't find amongst many Leftists. The ones that are more supported were just rejected at face value.

The fact is, libertarianism is an ethical system whose discovery tends to compel its adherents to fight – and not mostly for themselves, but for the freedom of their fellow man, for perfect strangers.

Libertarians will fight to free our seniors and disabled citizens from the oppression of food stamps!

 

[mysteronyx]

If you think you can, try reading this with an open mind and try absorbing the actual words and what they actually mean without applying your interpretation. If you walk away from this still convinced that you walk in the light and people like me are from the dark side, well, I give up. You win. Congratulations. Enjoy your amazing victory.

http://lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory217.html

Thanks for linking to the essay. I liked his rant about the current state of affairs, but I don't think he made a strong case for the left fearing libertarianism. The only fear I see is that their votes are going to corporate Republicans.

 

[Ladewig]

If you think you can, try reading this with an open mind and try absorbing the actual words and what they actually mean without applying your interpretation. If you walk away from this still convinced that you walk in the light and people like me are from the dark side, well, I give up. You win. Congratulations. Enjoy your amazing victory.

http://lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory217.html

I read the piece. My first question is why you think this particular article will convert people? I really don't see it as being very convincing.

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Disclaimer: I will probably vote libertarian in the next election. Not because I actually want to see a libertarian president. I will vote for that party because I believe the two-party system is harmful to America. I want other viewpoints brought to the table. I want libertarians to have just enough say in the government that we can consider things like the war on drugs.

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The linked article included a link to a piece about how dangerous the police in America are and how much better privatize enterprise could control and respond to crime. Mr. Gregory even asserted that

If protecting life, liberty and property is important – and it most certainly is – we cannot to let the central planners and their armed enforcers run the show. Fire them immediately. The market will find a better way to protect us within 24 hours, if it takes nearly that long. If we all take up the abolitionist cause, certainly by the time police are abolished, civil society will find a way to fill the void. [from Abolish the Police by A. Gregory]

Really?! Do you, Billykid, believe that if we fired the police, the market would produce a better solution within 24 hours?

I was also partial to

Meanwhile, even the government’s pursuit of actual criminals entails numerous rights violations in itself – investigations of the innocent, enslaving jurors and witnesses, turning lives upside down. Victims are never made whole.[sic]

Enslaving witnesses? Requiring witnesses to recount what happened at crime scenes is tantamount to enslavement?

 

[Beerina]

Interesting article. It shows that biased, hate-filled partisan screeds, full to the brim with strawmen, are not limited to conservatives or liberals.

It's exactly why I rarely visit the "Oh yeah? Well, check out this nutzo Libertarian!" threads anymore.

I can get my fill of that without leaving the mainstream, where "mainstream" is defined as the numerically most popular levels of equally idiotic memetic deviancy and fraud.

 

[leftysergeant]

It just shows that Libertarians are really conservatives who never grew up.