Effing-a. Right on, Nick:
My favorite line: “If the rest of us actually want to address the sort of racism that’s screwing over today’s minorities we’d do better to bust down barriers to work and the drug war and tear apart the school monopoly.”
-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from The Ranch)
Absolutely all good points.
I think the drug war is the only one of the three that conservatives support (not those who are libertarian minded but the social cons).
Most conservatives want people to be able to work without being overly burdened by regulations and absolutely hate teachers union. Until democrats send their children to DC public schools I don’t particularly want to hear about how horrible charter schools and other alternative schools are. Democrats keep throwing money at education but buying more of what doesn’t work isn’t going to make education better.
Excellent interview covering many good points. However, the Libertarian movement will never be taken seriously so long as the belief that “Laissez-faire” policies on international and social issues will carry the day. The “soccer Moms” are not going to vote for legalization so long as there is no minimum age requirement nor will the majority vote for military policy that allows Putin and the Chinese to have more advanced military capability in weapons systems.
While I call myself “libertarian” because my views on government power align with the Libertarians, I’m still too socially conservative to ever fully commit to the philosophy’s social views entirely. I’ve gotten better, but I still think a fully libertarian social doctrine would be too chaotic.
Let’s imagine the four elements of Classical Greek philosophy to represent different societal structures: Fire is pure anarchy, the mentality of looters and rioting mobs that destroy everything in their path. Air is egotistic individualism, individuals moving of their own accord and recoiling when they come into contact with one another, and the whole situation gets more volatile as pressure increases. Earth is totalitarianism, harsh and unyielding, without freedom or flexibility. Water represents the ideal society: individuals can move as they wish within the boundaries of their container, but they maintain connection to other, so the society remains cohesive; depending on conditions, the society can range from totalitarian to individualist, but once the conditions that brought on the change are removed, the society normalizes again.
Many members of both parties favor an Earth society, or at least a very viscous Water society. Libertarians favor an Air society. Too much freedom leads to chaos, too much order leads to stagnation. It is the Water society, the society that permits all that is not strictly forbidden, that is the necessary compromise between the two.
Sean L., you misunderstand libertarianism. It is not anarchy. It is do not hurt other people and do not take their stuff. It is being responsible for your own actions, not making somebody else pay for your mistakes.
@ Juan: There are aspects and forms of libertarianism that I like. But I dislike the “actions that do not harm others have no impact on others” camp of libertarians, the radical individualists who completely disregard the community. Hence my comparison of absolute individualist libertarianism to Air.
The more community-oriented forms of libertarianism, the ones that acknowledge that all actions can impact the community, are more appealing to me. The limits of acceptable behavior would be decided by the consensus of a community, but everything within those boundaries would be tolerated. The perfect marriage of freedom of action and societal structure. Hence, my comparison to Water. I have a feeling this community-based form of libertarianism is the one you are referring to.
The clippers guy was dating a half black woman who egged him on in the conversation she recorded. It was so that Junk Bond Milken could control all the sports in that part of CA.
The drug part is wrong. Go out to any gay club in DC or Miami and see a guy snorting coke off a table and you will see he just dances. To see what crack does look up Rodney Kings full video where he gets out of his car, attacks cops, and is too high on crack for a police stun gun to work. I worked at a toxicology hospital ,where people who do bad street drugs end up, for a couple years and there was more black than white drug abuse. The only thing that shows whites doing as much drugs as black/Hispanics is voluntary surveys, and research on veterans who ended up getting drug tests shows lots of people will lie about doing drugs.