a question on libertarianism

[Scam of God]

     Pretty clearly option three. Anyone who says options one or two ought to read up on what libertarianism actually is.

Eh, there's a lot of libertarians who to some extent or another fit under option 2.

Including yourself, as you aren't a libertarian.

[Scam of God]

I vote Option 2 as it fits me the best.  Anyway, SPC I was an anarcho-capitalist here before you too.  If you never posted here with MaC that's a shame, me and him were the only Tancredo fans here

But there's nothing "anarchic" about your political views. You place heavy emphasis on the "capitalist" and almost none on the "anarcho-".

[Scam of God]

     Pretty clearly option three. Anyone who says options one or two ought to read up on what libertarianism actually is.

Eh, there's a lot of libertarians who to some extent or another fit under option 2.

Including yourself, as you aren't a libertarian.

I wouldn't really call myself a 'conservative.' I do have a conservative outlook on some aspects of modern society other than the economy or social issues likes guns/affirmative action/school choice where the right and 'north' typically overlap.. But I'm not exactly Ron Paul.

Conservatism and libertarianism are fundamentally antithetical. Western society itself is built on a social superstructure that, of necessity, denies to the individual the furthest possible extent of his liberty. And anything that destroys that antiquated world-order I consider a friend.

Too many people advocate mere unrestrained capitalism and call themselves 'libertarian', and everything I do on this forum is dedicated to combating that. Economic freedom without unbridled personal freedom is an exercise in mass hypocrisy.

[Scam of God]

Incidentally, it's pertinent to note that Ayn Rand-style free market libertarianism is hardly the only philosophy that calls itself such. I feel more at home among libertarian socialists like Pierre Joseph-Prodhoun than among Objectivists. Indeed, until about forty years ago, libertarianism was a decidedly left-wing phenomenon. I consider its recent incarnation an intentional perversion to neuter the movement of its potential to threaten the status-quo. Paulite libertarians are less than useless; they play directly into the hands of the corporatists who encourage the growth of the State so that they can "partner with" (i.e. control) it.

[Scam of God]

Incidentally, it's pertinent to note that Ayn Rand-style free market libertarianism is hardly the only philosophy that calls itself such. I feel more at home among libertarian socialists like Pierre Joseph-Prodhoun than among Objectivists. Indeed, until about forty years ago, libertarianism was a decidedly left-wing phenomenon. I consider its recent incarnation an intentional perversion to neuter the movement of its potential to threaten the status-quo. Paulite libertarians are less than useless; they play directly into the hands of the corporatists who encourage the growth of the State so that they can "partner with" (i.e. control) it.

That pretty much describes me.

If the Paulites/Objectivists/bog-standard American libertarians get their way, what we'll see isn't a genuine growth in personal freedom - what we'll see is the gradual replacement of the functions of government by corporations. In a word, all of those fictional cyberpunk dystopias will suddenly seem all too real.

Any concentration of power, be it the State, be it private, will eventually strive to limit the power of the individual man to free himself. And all of these concentrations of power must be fought against.

[Scam of God]

Where I'm coming from is really pretty simple. I view a lot of modern trends like multi-culturalism, moral relativism, the destruction of the family, etc. to be extremely negative. I think they've created a very atomised and dysfunctional society and at least in part have fueled some of the authoritarianism we see now as people try to restore some semblance of 'order' to society. Now does that mean I'm anti gay rights/anti-feminism/fundamentalist/etc.? No.

Those aren't real concerns. Protip: the American ideal of a hegemonic culture in which virtually everyone knows their parents and the nuclear family exists in virtually every household is a myth. It has never been real.

"Moral relativism" is not a 'modern trend'. The most forceful relativists in philosophy, Stirner and Nietzsche, both worked over a hundred and fifty years ago. They were also both genuine individualists (moral relativism is a prerequisite of any individualistic philosophy, which is why our "Christian civilization" can never be truly individualistic). That you take affront with it demonstrates that you're not, really, an individualist.

You don't really care about those things, of course, but you'll say you are in order to mollify your political allies. You pretend you do in order to extract economic concessions from the Religious Right (a voting bloc historically inclined to a very selective form of economic collectivism), because, again, you're not actually a libertarian. You're a bog-standard economic conservative throwing bones to the theofascists, on whom you can always rely to vote your fellow bog-standard economic conservatives into power.

The genuine individualist does not take the individualistic impulses of others for granted. Neither does he deign to impose his own wishes on them, because he'd not want them to do likewise to him. You want a monolithic culture that pays lip-service to individualism and does nothing to show it actually believes in it, while permitting free-reign for your ilk over its stock markets.

I don't want society to go away. I want Western civilization to crumble. There is a difference, though I don't expect a prig like yourself to see it.

[Scam of God]

That's not what I'm talking about. Obviously the concept of nuclear family has only been around since the 19th century or so. However, the family structure now is far weaker in this country than it ever has been. You used to have a lot more care for elders, extended family, real shared responsibility in childcare (not daycare or whatever), etc. All of that has fallen by the wayside thanks to a combination of changing social attitudes and economic pressure. I find it hard to view that as anything other than a net negative for society.

So? If an individual has no desire to contribute to his or her family, should we blame the ever-nebulous word "society" for that? Or are they responsible at the end of the day for their own world-view and their own life choices?

You want your cake both ways, as it were. You want to placate your political allies and pretend to profess some radical vision of individualism. The fact of the matter is that you're not really either; you're a chameleon ready to mouth anything as long as it gets you that slice of pie.

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If I am a sovereign individual, what right have you to demand that I not create my own moral system as I see fit, to govern my own life? That's what moral relativism is actually about: the act of self-creation out of the destruction of socially traditional mores. You want a form of cultural authoritarianism enforced, not by the direct application of State power, but by the soft power of ideology. That is, in my view, just as much a form of socialism - cultural socialism - as anything Marx wrote about. And it is, again, not libertarian.

None, of course. "Individualism" is empty if there's nothing genuinely individualistic about it.

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But I never see you looking at the bigger picture. You never bitch about defense subsidies (the mythological missile defense system your Republican friends always throw out), or tax rebates to corporations, etc. You don't seem to have a real problem with corporatism on a large scale, only specific things you dislike about it.

[Scam of God]

I'm talking about the consequences for society as a whole here. It has nothing to do with assigning blame, which is sort of futile because it would take several pages to really list all the contributing factors to the trends I'm talking about here. I do not think government can really solve this problem, nor do I really think that's necessarily appropriate. It's up to society as a whole to recognize that having a nation of stressed out single moms, grandparents rotting in nursing homes and kids hooked on ritalin spending most of their day being raised by strangers is one that's gone down the wrong path.

And this isn't better than a century ago, when the elderly were consigned to poorhouses, the young to workhouses, and the mothers were mostly incapable of even owning a house? Go read Dickens if you don't believe me.

There's too much pathos from you here for it to be in earnest. We are positioned better as a society than we were even a century ago in terms of social cohesion. There is too much conformity today. It makes the possibility of fascism in this nation too real for me.

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You claim to be a libertarian. Genuine libertarianism is radical individualism. There is no libertarianism that isn't individualistic in origin and egoistic in its philosophical orientation.

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But I don't think it's real. That's the thing: I don't believe you when you claim to be upset about these pressing issues. For one, they're not actually issues that can be measured in any valid way; they're impressions upon your subjective consciousness. For another, you seem to be awfully concerned with defending those fine institutions that protect this sort of mindless consumerist mindset - the legal corporation, and its tendrils in the judicial apparatus in the United States.

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I know exactly what's going on in Germany right now. I also know that it's sensationalist pap used by rags like The Sun to bolster readership - a couple of trials hither and yonder do not a plight make. The vast majority of European Muslims don't even use the sharia courts.

Moreover, if, say, a Muslim woman is stupid enough that she wants to wear the traditional garb, why not let her? Most American paleo-conservatives-cum-pseudo-libertarians like to pretend we're violating their individual rights by not letting them choose to segregate their places of business; doesn't the same principle apply here? We needn't protect anyone from their own stupidity.

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You provide no evidence here, as usual. I've not read one post of yours decrying any of these State-originated excesses. Not one. I see you occasionally criticize the Religious Right (very occasionally, and usually begrudgingly); I have never seen you say a single negative thing about the Republican economic programme. But, by all means, if you have, let's see the thread - and a single offhanded remark will not suffice as evidence that you are equally critical of all the forms of statism.

[Scam of God]

Hey. Buddy.

Now that Ted Kennedy's dead, are you going to join in with me in celebrating the fact that he defunded the SAFEGUARD system back in the 1970s, the largest piece of military pork in United States history?

No? Instead you're going to treat Mary Jo Kopechne as a martyr, because it pleases your political allies?

Oh, right. That's about right up your ally. Where would you be if you couldn't be a hypocrite?

[Scam of God]

lol

Einzige, serious question: What is it about me that actually ruffles your feathers? Obviously there's something else going on here. Answer that and maybe I'll give you a serious reply.

The fact that you pretend to be a libertarian, and so twist that word into something beneficial to the Far Right, whom you serve. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Scam of God]

Einzige, you've accused me of literally lying about my positions not just my ideology. Obviously there's some other personal issue here.

Since you've lied about ideology, then, as an inevitable result you lie about your positions every time you post. Or, to put it another way: you conveniently cherrypick from right-libertarian dogma what best suits your allies' ears, and ignore those things you find inconvenient. I'm here to remind you that there's more to it than that.

[Scam of God]

lol

Okay so I've lied about being pro choice, pro gay rights (and bisexual), pro drug legalization, pro legalized prostitution, anti-obscenity laws/fcc, anti-patriot act, anti-military industrial complex, etc. I'm really an evangelical Republican. Yeah, that's not paranoid.

What you lie about, dear sir, is your opposition to the corporate State: you don't denounce in no uncertain terms any private-public "partnering"; your opposition to the military-industrial complex is, at best, tepid; you don't see the idea of using tax-rebate checks as being an inverse form of welfare. Again: you're selective as Hell in what you denounce from a libertarian perspective. If you were more vocal on those issues that put you on the left-wing of the political spectrum, perhaps then I wouldn't feel that trying to believe you is like swallowing a marble.

[Scam of God]

What bothers you is that no one else has the same priorities you do.  That's only narrowmindedness, which is ironically contrary to libertarianism.  It's not that he (or I) don't support the same things you do, it's that we don't let it consume our entire political thought process and life.

When you're trying to correct a historical mistake - the transformation of libertarianism from a progressive political view to one that bolsters and supports the status-quo - then, yes, you'd let it become the center of your political thought, too.

It has more to do with your lack of balls than my narrow-mindedness. The fascists in this country are too convenient to totally give up on, aren't they?