If nothing else, Mark Hemingway's terrific reporting from the Libertarian National Convention will leave readers informed and amused. As Hemingway's largely sympathetic article for The Weekly Standard makes clear, the Libertarian party has a problem: its membership, while well meaning, is downright loony. The article is worth reading in full. Among other tidbits:
And this kookiness -- as Hemingway strongly implies -- is a real problem if one wants to build an effective pro-liberty movement. Personally, my own views in favor of economic deregulation, low taxes, school choice, gun rights, and gay marriage are pretty much small-l libertarian. But it's hugely unlikely I'd ever vote for anybody the current Libertarian party puts forward or, indeed, leave the Republican Party for any reason. From the self-evidently loony birther/truther conspiracy theories that seem to resonate in Libertarian and Republican-libertarian circles to the crazy-but-not-self-evidently-so plans to abolish the Federal Reserve System that have gained some mainstream credibility, libertarianism has gone off the rails in ways that transcend the harmless kookiness that Hemingway observed. It's simply not a credible governing philosophy in its current form. And this makes the conservative/libertarian "fusionism" that comprises the heart of the conservative movement inherently unstable going forward.
A brief detour into the history of the Right can explain why. Fundamentally, the modern political Right draws on a "fusionist" idea that Burkean conservatism emphasizing "habit and tradition" is best served by personal freedom, limited government, a strong defense, and free markets. This presents some obvious tensions -- say when it comes to weighing the obligation of government to protect human life with some women's desire to end pregnancies -- but these types of difficult choices are the very stuff of Democratic governance. And, more often that not, fusionism works: it seems obvious that a government that dictates personal economic choices can make it difficult (or impossible) for people to live in accord with their own values.
Problems, however, emerges when the equilibrium between the two gets upset. While some people of faith would like to see all sexually explicit material banned, for example, there's little enthusiasm for doing this in the modern Republican party because it's so obviously an affront to personal freedom. But much of what the Libertarian/libertarian movement now disdains the traditions and habits of that conservatism has supported.
Nobody alive today can distinctly remember a world without the Federal Reserve System, and essentially everyone in the workforce has always assumed that Social Security and Medicare would continue to exist in something like their current forms. Likewise, few Americans want to abandon Israel, cut and run in Afghanistan, or stop being a global force for freedom and democracy. And these are all things that conservatism, in the Burkean sense, ought to defend. Except on Medicare -- where libertarian-ish Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden have put together a plausible enough plan to rethink the system -- the libertarian portion of the Republican Party has essentially come to reject the habits and traditions of America without offering plausible alternatives.
Ryan's initial social security plan -- which would have sharply cut benefits while increasing government liabilities by having the federal government guarantee principle deposits into semi-private funds -- was entirely unworkable. Replacing the Fed with a gold standard would cause an economic contraction big enough to make the recent recession look like a walk in the park. So are increasingly popular-among-libertarians proposals to sharply slash defense spending, cut-to-nothing the trivial amount the country spends on aid to its allies, and adopt an isolationist posture towards the world. And so forth.
The bottom line is simple: Simply wishing that government would vanish is no substitute for figuring out how to run it. When government gets cut, it's best to target first the obvious absurdities -- bailouts for beach-home owners, farm subsidies, and Warren Buffett's Social Security checks (none of which, its true are the causes of current deficits) -- and be much more deliberate about fundamental reforms. Libertarians can offer practical solutions. They don't need to get in bed with the political Left. But, if they want the fusionist alliance to keep going and the political right to remain in power, libertarians are going to have to stop being nuts.
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Wendell Potter: Guess Who Would Benefit From Privatizing Medicare?
Ron pauls voting record speaks for itself. This is one reason why I don't trust libertarians. They say one thing, but do another. The other reason is they're nuts, lol.
Listen to the Bard, take a walk, hug a tree, and smile at a bird.
courtesy of Walt the Bard of America
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back awhile sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
Nothing doing. The cancer, which is government, needs to go away. Until then, it will only slowly strangle all of us and eventually kill those who keep it alive with their productive labor.
Libertarianism wouldn't solve our problems. An unregulated derivatives market is already laissez-faire. You'll have our collapse, steroidified.
Economic central planning doesn't work, and has lead to this current collapse. More of it will get you more pain in the future. There was absolutely *nothing* "laissez-faire" about the derivatives market.
I have read mentions of the Federal Reserve. Since its creation our US Dollar has lost 97% of it value.
We would not have a 16 trillion dollar deficet if it was not for the fed supplying credit to our government.
Money that the fed creates out of thin air. Our constitution requires that gold and silver are money and issuence is by our treasury.
Here are some quotes from the family who created and owns the fed.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
Gutele Schnaper Rothschild’ “If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.”
And here is the reason why nobody alive today can...Because no one is still alive when it was established or doesn't remember...So here is some history and education people on our so called "FED RES. SYS"....One of the most ungodly and fraudulent institutions ever perpetrated on the American people and the world, is the Federal Reserve System which through deceit became the central bank of the United States in 1913. The idea came about on a meeting in Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia in 1910. The bankers in this country, especially J.P. Morgan, created a currency panic in 1907 in order to get the American people to accept the idea of a central bank.
If you'd like to continue reading and learning then I click on this link and educate yourself...you may not like what your about to read...
The Federal Reserve: History of Lies, Thievery, and Deceit
http://www.scionofzion.com/federalreserve.htm -
We, the People ARE the "government". We govern ourselves. We choose our leaders, and they set up what we can and can't do in the economy. We don't live in a vacuum. The government isn't some uncontrollable foreign entity, it's us. If you are saying that the government is the problem, you are saying that the problem with governance is its own citizens. This is a fundamental flaw in libertarian thought that makes it a farce of itself.
I, for one, do not feel as though my civil liberties and constitutional rights will be safeguarded in the slightest by private enterprise, which would fill the vacuum of a less powerful government. Go to a shareholder meeting and try exercising "free speech", see where that gets you.
George Carlin - Wrong About Politicians
http://tirelessagorist.blogspot.com/2012/02/george-carlin-wrong-about-politicians.html
Carlin was dead on about one thing. the game is rigged.
Without boundaries the majority will oppress the minority, they will start telling peaceful couples who can and can’t marry, they will tell us what we can put in our bodies, they will send our children off to war to protect their sponsors and they will give protections and privileges to the elite.
Without keeping government in the role of protecting the rights of the individual, we might get all of those scary things I mention and more! Glad that won’t happen.
A political gaft in politics is when a politician tells the truth. The statement may not be "politically correct" but it resonates with a large percentage of the public.
If you attend a libertarian meeting you will be bombarded with gafts and speech that is not "politically Correct."
The political reality is that the left wingers are the New Conservatives. They are attempting to preserve those socialistic programs, enacted at the beginning of the 20th century, when Marxism, utopian-ism, and religious revivalism was sweeping over Europe and the USA.
The left is afraid that those programs will have to be resold to a new generation and they are not in the mood to sell socialism in today's economic climate.