Are we being led by the Libertarians?

Let us say that the direction society goes is generally driven not so much by the more apathetical majority but rather the more militant minority. That said, I would say that it is the militantly faithful Christians and the hard right among the Libertarians who drive the direction the Republican Party goes. And the Republican Party, in turn, has set the direction of the nation during the last half century in a way similar to the way the Democratic Party set the direction during the half century before that.
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We all are all to aware of the dogma of the Christian Right, but what is that of the Libertarians? It is, after all, an ideology also. It is a belief that, ideally, business can and should take over the functions of government. A significan number of Libertarians do not feel business should or can go that far, but they all agree that "Big Government" is bad but business (which they do not refer to as "Big" Business) is better than government and that "the less government the better."
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Most of us are familiar with the Hippy movement following the Vietnam war and the mess they made of their lives. We are generally femailar also with the gay parades of San Francisco. All this tended to sap the energy of the liberal movement and give emphatis to conservatism. No longer is the liberal movement nearly as liberal now as it was and the conservative movement is what has been leading the left away from its earlier more radical nature.

brough
civilization-overview dot com

 

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You are just talking shit about hippies. That was the beginning of a rising movement for equal rights and environmentalism. The whole Republican movement since then has been a reaction to that, to take us back to some mythical time when people didn't have to think about blacks or gays or pollution...

 

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There is no noteworthy left wing in the US. There is a moderate right wing, a very right wing and a retarded extreme nutjob right wing.

 

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I think that sums it up.

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You have a sorry misunderstanding of Libertarians. Those types who like "big business" are the republicans and the corporatists. The businessmen who lobby the government for subsidies and special favors and litigation and legislation against their competitors are corporatists. The company that lobbied to have the TSA adopt their naked scanners and got millions for it are corporatist. The companies that fuel our military industrial complex are corporatists. The politicians who accept the bribes and are in the pocket of big business are corporatists.

Libertarians don't want the government out of the way so "big business" can take over, they want government out of the way so businesses can no longer use the government and politicians as tools to unfairly further their own business through a channel other than the market.

When businesses seek to further their power and influence by going through the competitive market, they do so by innovating and offering people goods and services they want. When businesses seek to further their power and influence by going through the political system and lobbying, they end up destroying time and wealth that could have been spent producing, and they also destroy competitors who don't have teams of lobbyists.

Microsoft came to dominate a market by offering products at low prices that vastly improved people's standard of living. I don't know of anyone who could be upset at microsoft for that. They did that without a single lobbyist. Then as soon as they started to get slapped with antitrust lawuits they had to ramp up the lobbying, and now they spend millions on it, money that could be spent on developing new products and improving, but in a world where everyone lobbies, you can't survive unless you do it too.

Unfortunately in this day and age, everyone is a corporatist, and there's really not much of a difference between democrats and republicans, just what corporations they are in the pocket of.

 

This and That

A libertarian explained, last year:

If the elites of the GOP mostly just like us because we have in our ranks many who will write apologia in exchange for 30 pieces of silver, then lambast us for that. But saying that libertarianism is dominated by the Reds is not the same as saying that libertarians dominate the Reds. If they are using us, it reflects poorly on us, but it does not follow that we are ascendant in their ranks. If anything, it makes us look even worse, because we sold ourselves to them and all we got in return was this lousy t-shirt that they charged us 29 pieces of silver for.​

• • •​

No, he's just promoting a book. Note the lack of any specific consideration within the topic post; he might as well have a computer generate his posts.

The point is that he's hoping you find the post interesting enough that you'll go to the website he includes when he signs the post.

It doesn't actually matter what he puts in the posts. Rather, he just needs you to be impressionable. Kind of like the Christians who try to tell kids how hip and down with it all they are. As if the average teenager is going to say, "He used three buzzwords in a single sentence. He must be cool. I think I want to be more like him."

Likewise, you're supposed to say, "What an interesting topic post! I want to find out more about this guy! Oh, how lucky, he told me where his website is!"
____________________

Notes:

Thoreau. "Libertarians are way too hip on double entendre to ever call themselves 'Teabaggers'". Unqualified Offerings. March 16, 2010. HighClearing.com. April 26, 2011. http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/16/10870

 

Yea.. Instead of having this corporatist minimal regulation government you get a pure corporate rule. That's what would be the effect of a libertarian government. I know that's not what they tell you.

What you need is proper regulation that gurantees competition that is beneficial to the consumer. Not corporate communism or austrian school libertarianism.

 

A world ruled by corporations would be bad.
A world ruled by government would be worse.
A world where government and corporations collude to rule (what we have now) is the worst.

I don't know why you think there would be corporate overlords ruling us. Unlike the government, they can not use force against you, and can not take money from you unwillingly, only by providing you a good or service in a voluntary transaction. As long as there are minimal regulations to enforce contracts and ensure that there is no force used or violation of rights then i don't know what exactly you fear that business will do to people.

 

False, you seem to forget that until 1995 the US government was controlled by the Dems in majority, in congress Senate follows aside from the 98th and 99th Senate Democrats always had the majority of seats.
Senate Seats :

=!87th : Dems (64) Republicans (36)
=!*88th : D (66) R (34)
=!*89th : D (68) R (32)
=90th : D (64) R (36)
=91st : D (57) R (43)
=92nd : D (54) R (46)
=93rd : D (56) R (42)
=94th : D (61) R (37) Conservative (1) Indep (1)
=95th : D (61) R (38) I (1)
=!96th : D (58) R (41) I (1)
=97th : D (53) R (46) I (1)
=!98th : R (55) D (45)
=!99th : R (53) D (47)
=100th : D (55) R (45)
=101st : D(55) R (45)
=102nd : D (56) R (44)
=103rd : D (57) R (43)
104th : R (52/53) D (48/47) 1995 --> Political changes cause number variations in the 104th congress
105th : R (55) D (45)
106th : R (55/54) D (45) I (0/1) 1999 ---> Republican changes to Indep
107th : R/D (50) Changes led to a fluctuation the final numbers were R (50) D (48) I (2)
108th : R (51) D (48) I (1)
109th : R (55) D (44) I (1)
=!110th : D (49) R (49) I (1) Independant Democrat (1)
=!111th : D (57) R (41) I (1) ID (1)
112th : D (51) R (47) I (1) ID (1)

Where = indicates a Democratic majority in the house, ! = same party affiliation in the Senate Majority and Presidency, and * means a commanding lead in the senate 2/3 majority. As Presidential elections don't run a 6 year scheme the ! indicates only that at some time during the Term of the Senate, there was a president from that party in office.

With about a 50/50 mix of Republicans and Democrats in the presidency. 50 years 1961 : JFK (D) LBJ (D) Nixon (R) Ford (R) Carter (D) Reagan (R) Bush 1 (R) Clinton (D) Bush 2 (R) Obama (D)

Your starting premise is false, why would consideration to the rest of your rant be given?

 

Why can't they use force?
Minimal regulation is what started the financial crisis.
Proper regulation is what we need. Whenever I see these theories about how the free market magically fixes everything, I get discouraged.

 

This guy right here . You all listen up good for it is spot f--cking on . Administration is eating up the world and less and less goes to production of wealth . Get your self a good grant writer is all I got to say,,,the new reality is in your face, Denial time is coming to a close in our not to distant future

Guy You get a gold star , spend it how ever you want

 

Oligarchy:

From: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oligarchy

Not precisely...

So there seems to be a need for a new word here.

Corporatism?

BTW...it's not just that corporations and the government collude...if you look at the upper echelons of federal agencies, at least in the US, there's a pattern of individuals rotating from heading private industry to regulating the very business they worked for.

So when the government and the corporations are almost merged like that?

 

Government / private partnerships . Learn what it is !! It is a corporate take over of government if you ask Me . Were the ones embedded in government paying the way for the politician agendas ( Politicians gots god job ) and lobbying hard fast persuasively get advantages . They are Cronys and they practice cronyism. The assault they have you flaming libs do on business does not touch them . It touches the common person with a business. The ones that use to provide a butt load of jobs that are disappearing. Yeah you can go work for Big World wide corporate McDonald's , I here they are hiring 50,000 in a day . Them F--cks , I want my Happy Meal toy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

There is a word Trans corporat something Can't remember , but it is were World corporations control the flock , capture market share and compete among then selves on the world stage . Topple governments and all kinda nasty stuff like that . We are eaters and worker bees to them . They have no conscience and the main goal is to corner the market . There are some Corporations that are independent but like the guy said " They got to Microsoft and I remember the day Bill Gates tune changed . I said to my wife when I could see the change in his demeanor " THey Got Him !!! She said Yeah they did !!! It is so obvious . You Can tell by the rhetoric that shoots out of there mouths for they all get the same marching orders . Bullet points on what the agenda is if you want to play the game.
Andrew Jackson could see what they were up to back in the day and he hated the bastards with a passion . He stopped them in there tracks or they would have taken over then

 

No not the Librarians, oh wait it's Libertarians my bad. (What's one of those) a Liberty taking nation? America?


peace.

 

He is badly underinformed about how Microsoft achieved market domination - the notion that it was some kind of innocent victim of the government collusions of others, or that its competitive advantage was higher quality and more useful product, is silly.

Self-described "libertarians" with noble motives are not excused for ignorance and naivety, if they do (as so many seem to be attempting) acquire political power. When you get government "out of the way", the question of what it was in the way of becomes urgent.

If you don't want big business to take over, taking government out of its way is not a smart move.

That's the current corporate Republican line - as they cover ass for the depradations of the Reagan era now reaching its end.

The modern corporation came along some time after Jackson, and its predatory political efforts have been leveraging from Jackson's constituency and power base for a generation now. Your heroes are more FDR and fellows, if curbing tyranny by corporate power is your cause.

The two Parties have different characters, and have played much different roles in the recent disasters. That the Dems are mostly corrupt or influenced to some degree does not mean the two Parties are equivalent in nature even now, let alone over the past generation.

 

If you refuse to finance a business by refusing to buy their products, what happens? NOTHING

If you refuse to finance the government by refusing to pay income tax, what happens? You get taken to jail using force or the threat of force with guns and police and are then held against your will.

When was the last time a business forced someone to buy their products or pay them money (other than if they caused some damage to businesses property or something like that)? NEVER

When was the last time the government forced someone to pay them money? ALL THE TIME. Income tax, sales tax, all of it taken by force, because if you don't pay income tax they come with guns to take you to jail.

If a business ever did use force on people, or committed fraud by deceiving people or concealing information, or broke contracts they had with people, then the people have the right to use the government and the court system to bring force against the business. The government is the referee, and it has a monopoly on the use of force. It is because of this power, this authority, that the scope of their power must be severely limited! What if the referee in a football game, with the power to call penalties, stop the clock, move the ball, etc. were participating in the game, favoring different sides at different times? It would be a disaster! Teams would stop playing the game and try to win favors from the ref. The referee should only participate in the game in the case of infractions, where it is his role as an unbiased arbiter to level the playing field according to the rules and hold everyone to an equal standard.

I'm not an anarchist, I agree that proper regulation is what is needed. But proper regulation is just enough to level the playing field and allow fair competition, and too often regulation is overdone and with motives to just help or hurt certain companies due to bribes from those companies.

Minimal regulation helped cause the financial crisis, as did bad incentives caused by other pieces of legislation. And by the way it was clinton who did most of the financial deregulation even though bush gets all the blame for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation

*I hate bush as much as the next guy, this wasn't meant to be a defense of him. It's just that most of the people who point to deregulation for causing the crisis blame bush.

 

I agree. Lots of the tea party idiots calling for smaller governments are fakes and corporate shills, trying to actually expand their power. Not all of them though, and certainly not me.

Agreed again. 99% of the republicans calling for "small government" are hypocrites. Again I assure you, that is not me. I know you probably won't believe me, since everyone here seems to believe you have to be either a democrat or a republican, and if I don't agree with you I must be a racist teabagger conservative.

Republicans worry about government taking over business and democrats worry about business taking over government. It's irrelevant because they are the same thing. Either way, it is one group with the power to legislate and govern and the power to control the economy. It's too dangerous. That's why Businesses shouldn't have the power to make laws and regulations (which they attempt to do through lobbying for regulations and subsidies and such) and the government shouldn't have the power to use taxpayer money and legislation to make products and services for people (which they attempt to do through public works projects, bailouts, nationalizing things, etc.) Both of them want more power, and both must be curtailed. The power the government holds is more vicious though, since the businesses still have to work through the market - only government can bypass market forces. Thus it is this power which needs to be cut back, preventing government from having it and hence preventing businesses form having it.

 

There is something wrong with american government. I just don't think less regulation is the cure. Frankly I think there is no cure now. That it's already too late. The next ten years will probably tell for sure.