LOL I'm going to be in trouble: Dear Libertarians...

[HeyItsZeus]

Now, I do not hate you (but this guy does).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mXmZSSKSbw

[theVOID]

That was like unleashing a straw man flood gate.

Firstly he's equating the tea baggers with libertarians, can't say I blame him with the amount of bullshit going on in the USA, but the teabagggers don't represent libertarians, they represent mostly fundamentalist Christian anarcho-fascists, the difference between these people and say, Ron Paul, is quite marked.

Secondly, Body scanners were introduced by the Obama adiministration, I don't see why 1) He's blaming the libertarians or 2) He thinks libertarians support this shit. Most prominent libertarians, like Adam Curry and John C Dovorak at the No Agenda podcast, are completely against body scanners.

Thirdly, there are some really good arguments against the FDA and similar administrations, at least to the extent where they shouldn't have so much power, like the amount of people who die waiting for them to approve treatment when these people (especially the ones who's mortality is certain and soon) would gladly take the risk on themselves at a chance of getting better - The number of people who die waiting for the effective treatments to be approved outweighs the number of people helped by a significant margin, There is some excellent data on this that I can track down if anyone is interested. Essentially, if a dying person want's to get on an unapproved medicine that has gone through the drug companies internal trials they should be free to do so. The FDA has a reasonable role in testing medicine that is to be used as part of large-scale public health drives, but it should ultimately be as much the right of an individual to chose to take this pre-FDA medicine as it is their right to refuse it.

As for the constitutional shit I think he's right in principle, I've said before that adherence to the constitution for the sake of adhering to the constitution is bullshit, nothing more than worshipping the founding fathers of the USA.

He's completely wrong about libertarians being for the law enforcement 'forks', they want these organisations to have much much less power, such as removing their abilities to spy on people through phone taps etc without the use of warrants. They're COMPLETELY against tobacco administrations, they are unnecessary, it's scientifically established that tobacco is potentially harmful, as long as the tobacco manufacturers are honest about this they are doing nothing wrong by selling it, purchasing tobacco is the right and responsibility of the person buying it. Tobacco is little more dangerous than cars yet rather than imposing a multitude of taxes on car manufacturers they give them subsidies...

Completely wrong about military spending too, most of the libertarians didn't think Obama's defence budget cuts were big enough.

He's right about the 'tea bagger' libertarians being hypocritical, such as being against a woman's right to chose to have an abortion, that does not make it the position of libertarians, it makes the teabaggers pseduo-libertarian cunts.

He's using another massive strawman when he says "to libertarians the government are untrustworthy simply because they are the government". That is not true at all. Libertarians want and trust the government to uphold the law and protect people's liberties from being thwarted, the distrust is not one in principle, it is one based on governments becoming more and more authoritarian and taking more and more power over people's personal rights.

Another Straw man: Libertarians DO NOT think the government always lies and are always out to fuck you over, their reasons for wanting smaller government is because they (and myself included for the most part) believe that there are a great many things that government does that would be much better done by the people themselves. (This DOES NOT include the idiots who distrust Obama because he's black or whatever).

Another straw man. Libertarians DO NOT think that corporations never lie, only that MOST do not, that is EXACTLY why libertarians want a government to protect them from attempts to thwart their liberties, consumer pressure is ONE of a set of different tools for dealing with corporate force, fraud, coercion or negligence - They want executives punished for doing wrong with harsh fines and prison sentences. He's also completely fucked up here when he says "corporations lie as a matter of business" - That is the overwhelming minority of businesses and they are specifically the ones who libertarians want punished.

His point about taxes is right in principle but wrong in practice, people vote for scarce few options out of all possible options none of which particularly represent everything we would like, we are given the option to chose who we most agree with (or the lesser of two evils depending on your position). He also says that no matter whether the person you voted for won or lost you still got a say in how much you were taxed - Bullshit - If you vote for pepperoni and your friends chose Hawaiian and they win did you get a say in what pizza you ended up with? No. Also, half the taxes imposed by an election winner were not part of their campaign, to say you had a say in those taxes is complete BS. And like fuck people get to decide who is taxed, last time I checked the people who voted Dem wanted the bush tax-cuts ended, that's not what they got.

He also has the strawman that libertarians want NO TAX. That's not true at all, they want less tax and less spending. It's a simple fact that the amount of taxes, tariffs, excise etc is increasing despite the income tax levels staying rather stable.

He also makes a confused point about libertarians accepting Welfare and Medicade and calling them hypocrites for it, that's not the point at all, they're already paying for these services through taxes and not using them isn't going to get their money back or lower the taxes for the next year so to not use them in the mean time makes no sense at all, what they want is to not pay the taxes for these services and instead have more money so they don't need welfare payments AND the ability to take care of their own medical coverage. Also him saying that there aren't any libertarians aiming to cut Social security is DEAD WRONG, most libertarians are against it, it's plainly a ponzy scheme.

He desperately needs to read "The mind of the markets" by Michael Schermer, perhaps then his straw man count won't be so fucking absurdly high.

[Autumnlicious]

What pisses me off is the rather mistaken view that poor people are just lazy.

It contradicts basic human nature, my own personal experiences and ignores the hideous behaviors businessmen engage in.

Hell, do you know the biggest complaint right now with regards to hiring IT graduates is that they don't have
enough experience coming out of college? What the fuck - that's what real world work is for, but I digress.

REF: http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/02/27/15...eady-To-Go

[Minimalist]

Yep. Pretty much nails it.

[theVOID]

3 Nailed libertarians, 30 nailed scarecrows...

...Not a great success rate.

If this video was about "Teabaggers" he'd have a better hit rate.

What pisses me off is the rather mistaken view that poor people are just lazy.

Right, some are lazy, some are mental and some just can't find jobs because they aren't there.

[Minimalist]

Right, some are lazy, some are mental and some just can't find jobs because they aren't there.

And quite a few are disabled veterans who had their fucking brains scrambled fighting in Bush's wars.

---

http://www.lp.org/platform


I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, Void, and think they have simply haven't thought it all the way through....in much the same way as Marx didn't think things all the way through.


However, deep down I suspect that the people who designed and who sold this bill of goods have thought it all the way through and what they want is business free to rape and pillage at will.


Most tea baggers can't spell "libertarian" but they'll do whatever Glen Beck tells them because...plainly...they are racist assholes.

[Autumnlicious]

Most tea baggers can't spell "libertarian" but they'll do whatever Glen Beck tells them because...plainly...they are racist assholes.

Most tea baggers are verifiable liars about being "libertarian".

Being libertarian means working on solving the job crisis, not attempting to enact laws legitimizing murder of abortion providers, passing bills to ban abortion or the like.

Being libertarian means passing less laws with governmental oversight as the above would do.

Being libertarian means favoring individual rights, even when you don't like what people will do with them (like choose a same-sex partner).

They are not libertarians - they are liars.

As can be demonstrated from their actions in the House of Representatives.

[everythingafter]

Hell, do you know the biggest complaint right now with regards to hiring IT graduates is that they don't have enough experience coming out of college? What the fuck - that's what real world work is for, but I digress.

That's what bothered me the most coming out of college. I couldn't get a job because every employee wanted folks to have experience, and I couldn't get experience because hardly anywhere hires kids right out of college. A lame cycle.

[HeyItsZeus]

That was like unleashing a straw man flood gate.

---

Firstly he's equating the tea baggers with libertarians, can't say I blame him with the amount of bullshit going on in the USA, but the teabagggers don't represent libertarians, they represent mostly fundamentalist Christian anarcho-fascists, the difference between these people and say, Ron Paul, is quite marked.

Secondly, Body scanners were introduced by the Obama adiministration, I don't see why 1) He's blaming the libertarians or 2) He thinks libertarians support this shit. Most prominent libertarians, like Adam Curry and John C Dovorak at the No Agenda podcast, are completely against body scanners.

Thirdly, there are some really good arguments against the FDA and similar administrations, at least to the extent where they shouldn't have so much power, like the amount of people who die waiting for them to approve treatment when these people (especially the ones who's mortality is certain and soon) would gladly take the risk on themselves at a chance of getting better - The number of people who die waiting for the effective treatments to be approved outweighs the number of people helped by a significant margin, There is some excellent data on this that I can track down if anyone is interested. Essentially, if a dying person want's to get on an unapproved medicine that has gone through the drug companies internal trials they should be free to do so. The FDA has a reasonable role in testing medicine that is to be used as part of large-scale public health drives, but it should ultimately be as much the right of an individual to chose to take this pre-FDA medicine as it is their right to refuse it.

As for the constitutional shit I think he's right in principle, I've said before that adherence to the constitution for the sake of adhering to the constitution is bullshit, nothing more than worshipping the founding fathers of the USA.

He's completely wrong about libertarians being for the law enforcement 'forks', they want these organisations to have much much less power, such as removing their abilities to spy on people through phone taps etc without the use of warrants. They're COMPLETELY against tobacco administrations, they are unnecessary, it's scientifically established that tobacco is potentially harmful, as long as the tobacco manufacturers are honest about this they are doing nothing wrong by selling it, purchasing tobacco is the right and responsibility of the person buying it. Tobacco is little more dangerous than cars yet rather than imposing a multitude of taxes on car manufacturers they give them subsidies...

Completely wrong about military spending too, most of the libertarians didn't think Obama's defence budget cuts were big enough.

He's right about the 'tea bagger' libertarians being hypocritical, such as being against a woman's right to chose to have an abortion, that does not make it the position of libertarians, it makes the teabaggers pseduo-libertarian cunts.

He's using another massive strawman when he says "to libertarians the government are untrustworthy simply because they are the government". That is not true at all. Libertarians want and trust the government to uphold the law and protect people's liberties from being thwarted, the distrust is not one in principle, it is one based on governments becoming more and more authoritarian and taking more and more power over people's personal rights.

Another Straw man: Libertarians DO NOT think the government always lies and are always out to fuck you over, their reasons for wanting smaller government is because they (and myself included for the most part) believe that there are a great many things that government does that would be much better done by the people themselves. (This DOES NOT include the idiots who distrust Obama because he's black or whatever).

Another straw man. Libertarians DO NOT think that corporations never lie, only that MOST do not, that is EXACTLY why libertarians want a government to protect them from attempts to thwart their liberties, consumer pressure is ONE of a set of different tools for dealing with corporate force, fraud, coercion or negligence - They want executives punished for doing wrong with harsh fines and prison sentences. He's also completely fucked up here when he says "corporations lie as a matter of business" - That is the overwhelming minority of businesses and they are specifically the ones who libertarians want punished.

His point about taxes is right in principle but wrong in practice, people vote for scarce few options out of all possible options none of which particularly represent everything we would like, we are given the option to chose who we most agree with (or the lesser of two evils depending on your position). He also says that no matter whether the person you voted for won or lost you still got a say in how much you were taxed - Bullshit - If you vote for pepperoni and your friends chose Hawaiian and they win did you get a say in what pizza you ended up with? No. Also, half the taxes imposed by an election winner were not part of their campaign, to say you had a say in those taxes is complete BS. And like fuck people get to decide who is taxed, last time I checked the people who voted Dem wanted the bush tax-cuts ended, that's not what they got.

He also has the strawman that libertarians want NO TAX. That's not true at all, they want less tax and less spending. It's a simple fact that the amount of taxes, tariffs, excise etc is increasing despite the income tax levels staying rather stable.

He also makes a confused point about libertarians accepting Welfare and Medicade and calling them hypocrites for it, that's not the point at all, they're already paying for these services through taxes and not using them isn't going to get their money back or lower the taxes for the next year so to not use them in the mean time makes no sense at all, what they want is to not pay the taxes for these services and instead have more money so they don't need welfare payments AND the ability to take care of their own medical coverage. Also him saying that there aren't any libertarians aiming to cut Social security is DEAD WRONG, most libertarians are against it, it's plainly a ponzy scheme.

He desperately needs to read "The mind of the markets" by Michael Schermer, perhaps then his straw man count won't be so fucking absurdly high.

---

In case you had not realized I only posted this to push your buttons and Adrian's too.
(This isn't meant to be a serious discussion. That's why I posted it in the Off Topic section)

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm surprised that you didn't expect a serious response.