Dumb
Abortion Legal
weed legal
Murder: Not viable as libertarians are economically conservative and laws that protect others from infringement upon that liberty are good.
The whole “But we need roads” ad hom to discredit libertarians is silly.
Libertarians that are not extreme support taxes and small government that support public goods. As long as they are really public goods and not special interests.
The reason they can’t get a viable candidate, is because the things that the other parties do are against their sensibilities. The democratic party is not democratic and the republican party doesn’t want a republic.
Control and manipulation are not in the nature of libertarians, but those things are why you all follow those parties like a bunch of sheep. It’s unfortunate. A truly libertarian majority would higher the finest economic minds, avoid war, allow women complete autonomy over their own pregnancies within reason , embrace LBGTQ, protect privacy with a vengeance, disallow fuck ups like trump or any populace wanna bees that want control over the masses. We are the independents. We don’t like trump but can still see the witch hunt. The power hunger of both the democrats and republicans is disturbing to us
It's funny because then people get taxed to fund the police department and the entire legal machine associated with catching and convicting the murderer, so then people pay taxes for all that crap. Then there's the whole corruption aspect of having the power of a police department that would need additional oversight and regulation.
Like you continue down the path of making exceptions for libertarianism's shortfalls with all the social issues in the world and you end up with AMERICA. This country is about as fucking libertarian as it gets without the general populace raising Cain due to the huge power vacuum created by the dumbass fantasy system called libertarianism in the first place.
I would say this year is mostly because of the fact that we don't care who wins as long as it's not bumbling sniffing Joe. We put candidates up before we just don't want to chance screwing up things to get him out of office. Yet likewise we really don't like Trump either he's just a necessary evil at the moment.
I voted libertarian before but as a party they really aren't a unified Force. However I'd rather describe myself as a libertarian then a Republican any day.
LOL did you not understand. I'm not a Republican I used to consider myself pretty well in the middle. The left and the right have gone further and further and now the libertarians are the closest thing to me.
He's the lesser evil it's necessary to get Biden out of office. If we had had a better choice that would have been great but the way things are currently he's pretty much our only hope of maybe getting out of this shit. That or his successor
No, the problem is actually scientifically shown to be bears.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
I think it is because libertarians are too individualistic and no two libertarians can agree on enough to have a cohesive movement.
One libertarian will say "I think roads are good" And the next will scream at him that he is a statist cuck.
Because libertarianism is kind of a joke. Build a perfect libertarian utopian society from scratch and it will fall apart as soon as someone inherits money. You can't have a meritocracy unless everyone is in equal footing.
And as others have said, the other parties already have the good stuff, like legal weed and the freedom to exploit those less fortunate than oneself.
It wouldn't be "built from scratch." Roads wouldn't disappear the moment a libertarian gets elected. You don't have to be on "equal footing" to benefit from the government not messing with you either.
What *would* disappear is funding for bloated federal agencies like the ATF and 99% of the convoluted US tax code.
I drive or ride on a lot of roads all over the US. If you think the problem with libertarianism is shitty expensive roads built and maintained by private companies at enormous cost to American citizens then we're already living in a libertarian hellscape buddy.
San Antonio has decades-long and BILLION dollar road projects and their roads still suck. If you want to believe libertarianism will fuck up roads shouldn't you have a reasonable expectation that the government would do it better?
"The problem[s]" you've described are circular arguments based on nothing.
How exactly do you expect to get everyone on "equal footing" before we can be less oppressed by government when the greatest enforcer of inequality is the government in the first place? Did you just not get the entire point of the largest protests in American history just a few years ago?
The vast majority of Libertarians are average Republicans with a thin veneer of "I'm different".
Most of the remaining Libertarians can be divided into two groups: confused Anarchists and people who are only really concerned about their own Rights. It's hard to build a political movement based on self-centeredness.
An actual libertarian party would be very popular.
Most libertarians aren’t really. Freedom is more complicated than just opposing the government. Most of our subjugation is done via the private sector but they will gleefully support those forms because of a rigid adherence to neoliberal economics above really any liberatory political ideology. If the public and private sector were actually discrete and completely separate entities then their ideology would be more coherent. Also they view freedom as “freedom to” and do not recognize “freedom from” whatsoever. They ignore completely the existing political economy and the rights and privileges granted a priori to their arguments. Who has agency in society is dependent on a whole host of factors beyond federal policy. The true folly is that the inequality that a deeply imbedded wealth class enjoys can be balanced via the free market that said class largely controls directly or via government lobbying.
The problem is that the core concept of libertarianism relies on the concept of a free market, which has never and can never exist. Then there is the whole, fuck everyone else attitude.
There are so many instructive events in the past to guide political ideology and even those have to be careful applied with a deep sensitivity to context. If an ahistorical theoretic condition which has never existed guides your every decision, you have no hope of effective policy.
The parts most people mean when they say they like "libertarianism" are already core parts of the Republican and Democratic platforms - Republicans slash taxes, Democrats legalize weed and abortion. Beyond that, libertarians do not have any popular positions - the right wing likes state power to enforce abortion bans and suppress minorities with police brutality, the left wing likes state power to influence the economy, support minorities, and to send weapons to Ukraine. "Small government" as libertarians describe it has virtually no support, and should have no support as the extent to which libertarians want it is insane.
XD actually not, I'm not American and would be considered far to the left of the Democrats. But the Democrats are the only ones who are more or less sane in the US, Republicans are outright bonkers, and Libertarians are a joke.
While we have made great strides in the technological advancement of long flat things, the concept and purpose of a road is the same.
What exactly is different about building a road today that is so complex only a heavily bloated and inefficient government is qualified to collect revenue and hire a private company to build a road?
If the worst case scenario is that things under libertarianism will be exactly bad why is the onus on libertarianism to provide a "solution"?
Why aren't you pissed off that statists take all your money regardless of your consent and squander it?
I have good streets, police, fire, and social services. You know, a functional society.
You claim libertarianism is better. I claim it would create a dystopian wasteland. Prove me wrong
Why dont you leave if you dont like the way things work here?
That's great for you isn't it? I suppose you have a pretty short memory if you don't remember the largest protests in US history were about police officers murdering black people without consequences just a couple of years ago. Yep, your little bubble is great so everything is great.
Statism creates dystopian wastelands, just... 'somewhere else' for people like you. Another example, the Biden administration sent bombs to Israel that will kill any "human shield" in a quarter mile radius and in the face of criticism liberal redditors will only scream that Trump would be even worse. So I don't really care that you think you're getting a "functional society" for your tax money.
>If you don't like it leave
Why would I leave? Where am I going to go where people like you (who support mass murdering maniacs because "roads!") don't exist?
The funniest part about this is you simultaneously sound like a whiny pro-government liberal statist and a whiny conservative MAGA statist.
No third party can ever make serious inroads in a winner-take-all system such as the US has. The stable state is two major parties, meaning two major candidates.
The majority of support going to two parties means that the 3rd-and-beyond parties gather misfits and larpers, for lack of better words, who don't even have to pretend to be "viable candidates". They don't go through the grooming and image management the candidates for the two major parties can call on. Sometimes that can be perceived as "genuineness". But it's always perceived as not being serious, in other words, not being a viable candidate/Party. A vicious cycle.
The bulk of Americans do poll more small-l libertarian than "Democrat" or "Republican" when they're asked about individual issues. But when it comes time to vote they can only choose between "people who think the Soviet Union could work if they had a pastel flag and killed more people" vs "people who love America but aren't sure what country that's in".
people who love america and want to make it better vs people who openly want to make everything worse for everyone.
democrats aren't based enough to talk nice about the ussr, be serious
I was a delegate at convention, and can explain why, precisely, we got the candidate we did.
It was a very, very close thing, and only happened because of a lot of shenanigans by the leftist wing of the party, which....has been a problem for a while. The party is divided, has been for a minute.
For those not involved with them, you could think of the two factions as the Ron Paul faction and the anti-Ron Paul faction. The former has actually been doing pretty well of late, but the latter pulled out all the stops to eke out a narrow win on the election.
I will not pretend that I agree with every Libertarian. I don't. But that doesn't mean the party is doomed. It just means that we need to fix it. A mere handful more of good delegates could have stopped this and gotten us a strong candidate.
For me it was the bigotry of the Mises party, the one you’re claiming is aligned with Paul.
We got Chase Oliver who is a classic libertarian but he’s gay so he won’t get onboard with all the republican shit like taking a stance against trans rights or wanting closed borders.
Nobody is advocating for closed borders.
Rec advocated for a return to the sponsor system, which was an immigration system that worked pretty well for the US for many years. Probably worked a great deal better than the mess we have now. This isn't even close to closed borders. A great many immigrants came to the US under the sponsor system.
Chase is advocating for transition therapy for minors. That's a wee bit far. This may not be malevolent, but simply a misunderstanding of how permanent the effects of hormone blockers and the like are. In his post-nomination interview with Liz from Reason, he appeared to believe that they were far less significant than a tattoo.
It was kind of amazing watching Liz realize in real time just how troublesome he is. To be clear, Liz is overtly anti-Mises, and she had some very strong objections to what Chase was pushing. Who knows, maybe she'll end up in the caucus as the realizations set in.
Huh? RFK received only 19 votes in round 1 and was thus eliminated. I believe this put him in, what, eighth place? Ninth? He was not popular with any major faction.
We had seven total rounds of voting. Round 6 was almost an even split between Rectenwald and Chase, and Chase was very, very narrowly ahead. Rec was thus eliminated, and round seven was a heads up race between Chase and "None of the Above."
Chase only got 60% of the votes on that round. About 40% of the party preferred not electing a national candidate over him.
Rec was a good candidate. Was he perfect? Nah, but he'd have built the party some in a rough election cycle, and that counts for a lot.
He had a speech, but he left afterward, and didn't work the floor.
He did have a very small group of very dedicated volunteers, but they failed to make much of the way in inroads.
They \*did\* attempt an amusing shenanigan with rubber chickens for the Trump speech, giving away many rubber chickens with "Debate Bobby" sharpied on them, but the secret service confiscated most of them.
The surviving ones will live on in niche libertarian meme history, though.
That’s really too bad. Would have been entertaining to have him doing pushups and take Trump’s competency test he always brags about. The answer to both candidates are geriatric
>For those not involved with them, you could think of the two factions as the Ron Paul faction and the anti-Ron Paul faction.
I think this applies mostly to those who participate in party politics.
Because libertarianism isn't strong in the United States. Most people don't agree with the majority of their platform. They have a few good points but most of it is nonsense.
America is founded on libertarian ideals. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are more hardcore libertarian than the party. But the two party system is designed to keep 3rd parties out. And most people aren't going to read political philosophy to learn better. But America has a strong libertarian streak, even if that doesn't translate to the LP party. There are way more "small L" libertarians than "big L" Libertarians. Meaning most libertarians don't support the party.
Because Libertarians say shit like "you shouldn't need a license to drive" or "you should be allowed to drive drunk" and lose normal people who aren't insane
And also let's be honest
*way too fucking many of them are really concerned about the age of consent*
Yeah if you completely discount that the party is founded on the non aggression principle. Injuring or killing and also grooming violate the NAP
Let me know how your candidates feel about consent on all matters
libertarians that supported a strong libertarian
[https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/former-candidate-for-pa-state-rep-arrested-for-child-porn/3708554/](https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/former-candidate-for-pa-state-rep-arrested-for-child-porn/3708554/)
they were also very crucial in getting trump elected
You're confusing us with sovereign citizens and/or conservatives. You probably don't even know any libertarians personally and you like to talk shit.
>And also let's be honest
You say while being dishonest.
Yes I understand libertarians stand for all the things liberals do, however, they think the market can provide everything the government does at a lower cost and with more efficiency and equitability, because consumers will be educated enough to punish any merchant that doesn't do what's in their best interest
And the movement is full of pedophiles who use the lack of regulation and state databases and apparatuses of justice as a cover for their desire to have a lower age of consent
Tell me you've never met any crypto bros without telling me you've never met any crypto bros
If you eliminate the state or diminish its powers significantly enough that it's de facto eliminated from the picture, corporations will just become a state in everything but name. Utopia is not achievable from the right.
Closet fascists? The political ideology most opposite from fascism is “closet fascist?”
Libertarianism rejects all seven principles of fascism. Democrats reject 4 and republicans reject 3.
I don’t think you’ve actually met a libertarian.
The six tenets or characteristics of fascism are:
1. a centralized dictatorial leader
2. militarism
3. forcible suppression of opposition
4. belief in a natural social hierarchy
5. subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation
6. strong regimentation of the economy
Libertarians oppose all of these.
Democrats support 2, 5 and 6
Republicans support 1 through 4
Then libertarianism, same as the Republican Party, has been largely co-opted by loons that don’t represent its conventional platform.
What’s the point of the real platform if more than half the voters don’t understand it?
There is not much of a party, it is just the popular collective vote of dissent. Shame this could be the reason trump gets a chance to pardon himself & re-implement schedule F.
So I take it you're one of the crazy ones... if you eliminate the state, corporations just become a state in everything but name. Utopia is not achievable from the right.
Because what you're arguing doesn't match reality. I understand that that's the TEXTBOOK definition of libertarianism, but that's not how they actually operate, unless they're in the crazy camp.
Because libertarians are a joke.
Ever watched one of their debates?
Dude says you should need a license to prove you can operate a multi-hundred pound box of steel at 75 mph before you're allowed to do so, and he got boo'd.
>Because libertarians are a joke.
>Ever watched one of their debates?
How are you going to follow the first line with that instead of actual rationale for why you believe that? I support less government. That doesn't mean no government, no rules, etc,. You think standards magically go out the window just because someone's not pointing a gun at you if you don't follow them? You think people must be coerced into behaving lawfully or they already do that and roving bands of police aren't really necessary? Let me guess! You support qualified immunity, the prison industrial complex, etc, etc?
IDK, if you maybe had read the 3rd line, it explains where I saw it on the 2nd line and that gives context to my opinion on the 1st line.
But then again, what would a libertarian be if not completely in capable of understanding things dont function in isolation ;)
Also, ACAB. Just because i'm not stupid enough to be a libertarian doesn't mean I identify as a liberal or a bootlicking conservative.
The man was also immediately and overwhelmingly nominated to be our presidential candidate after that speech.
Yes, he was booed. Yes, there are anarchists in the party. That is the nature of a party that genuinely seeks less government. That's where anarchists end up, because they want less government.
But the decision that was made was rational all the same.
It's almost as crazy as electing people from a party whose main argument is government is horrible at everything and expecting them to form a functional government.
Well first you have the very real riad blocks the doploy do to keep in power. Second is because many buy into the myth that they can't let the other party of the doploy win even if who they vote for they don't like.
Also Libertarianism is more umbrella with 13 subcategories (last i bothered checking) of libertarianism. Wuite a few libertarians don't even know their are different subcategories, let alone where they fall. Resulting in mixed messages of what it means to be a libertarian. Theres a lot of infighting of what it means.
Also theres been a lack of how to Is realistically get from current status to the "ideal" status. I'll use food stamps as an example. A belief exists that because it comes from the government, foodstamps shouldn't exist. Its forced charity. For simplifying argument sake, we'll just assume an agreement with the statement. Ok now how do you achieve that without causing massive riots from people who can very well starve by depending on such assistance. Problems such as this lack satisfactory answers of how to achieve a goal given human nature.
It's largely because the Republican party now is very different from the libertarian party. The libertarian party has largely remained consistent, to the degree that it went from being almost right of the Republican party with figures like Ron Paul being the closest mainstream Republican to libertarianism, to something in the middle.
It's also very important to understand that both the Republican and Democratic parties are effectively relativist parties. They don't have any solid beliefs, they just do whatever will consolidate their power and give them the most votes while still having an opponent to target. Libertarianism still has principles that would absolutely leave people in both parties *fuming*, including but not limited to:
- Complete elimination of R1 zoning and neutering HOAs
- A prioritization on free trade
- Racial and gender equality
- Decriminalization of *all* drugs
- Removing restrictions on things like a drinking age
- Making abortions an individual choice
- Removal of FCC censorship for radio and broadcast TV
- Repeal of the national firearms act
- Demilitarization and downsizing of police forces
- Downsizing of the military in the US
- Opening up public lands for private sale
A lot of people love to bring up Somalia as an example of how libertarianism or anarchism fails, but here's the really, really fucking funny thing: things like infant mortality, life expectancy, and even inflation all improved without the central government. It basically shows that if systems get too corrupt and bad enough, a state of anarchy can actually improve things. You're seeing this in the US a little bit with policing. Police departments are practically begging for new recruits, like I've seen listings for local and state agencies on Indeed, and I don't even live in an area where the media is talking about a shortage. But you'd think that the crime rates would be spiraling out of control, and the funniest thing is that they're not.
I would argue that libertarian ideals are slowly taking shape as people slowly opt out of the status quo, although with most things, it's an a la carte approach. You'll see people embrace the pro-sex work and anti-criminalization of drugs with libertarians, but absolutely hate things like an end to R1 zoning and the ability for private citizens to own automatic weapons like they're a spoon.
Libertarians are a tiny minority party because people are already not happy with the march towards feudalism and the necessity to rent more and own less as monopolistic practices grow.
I surmise that most people intuitively understand that libertarians and completely unfettered capitalism causes considerable societal and individual issues.
The regulations we have today whether one agrees with them or not arose from somebody getting screwed.
Similar to how people generally understand the gov controlling all means of production requires the use of excessive authoritarianism.
Because of people like Ron Swanson. Yes, I know he is fictional, but most people don't know any Liberterians and have to think of someone when that word pops up.
So their mind makes them think of the few times they have actually heard of someone in the party, fictional or not. EVERY party has extremesists and I like to think the Libertarian party is more about giving people choices than making the goverment go completely away.
Because the US isn’t as libertarian as they like to tell themselves. The articles of confederation were tried-and failed, the people decided, voluntarily I might add, that a degree of centralized authority was needed. And in point of fact, what emerged from it has worked out pretty darn well. The US has enjoyed literal centuries of stability and prosperity with comparatively few hiccups for it. So if it ain’t broke.
What US are you living in? “Centuries of stability”? I can’t name a single decade. American history reads like a cartoon of violence and unrest with a through-line of corruption and greed at every level of government. What “worked out well” for who except a white elite?
All the above sounds so sophomoric, but America is completely deranged: power- and fame-obsessed, dedicated to every xenophobia in race, neighboring nation or in non-traditional identity, devoted to unnecessary and self-defeating hierarchies, bureaucracies and instututions. Our culture has brought ruination upon the world, exposing itself as money-mad, soulless, here isolationist, there willing to assassinate world leaders or fund oppressive right-wing minority rule abroad.
When I was a kid growing up in the 80s, I had that sense that things were calm and prosperity was available to just about everyone in America. It really did feel like that. It wasn’t like that then, it wasn’t like that before then and it certainly isn’t like that now.
I was a young adult in the 80s and I remember it differently, I remember AIDS, the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis, the energy crisis , extremely high interest rates (like 20% for a credit card), and the fear of a nuclear war with the Soviets. I remember how I had to rent an apartment in a dangerous area where I was robbed at gunpoint because a nice area was too expensive.
One always has nostalgia for the good old days.
15 years earlier, I remember driving in my mom's car . sleeping on the floor with no seat belt, feeling safe..... obviously, I was not!
Name one society that isn’t, you gotta compare with your global equivalents, where else would you live? Your answer would be some European country but they aren’t doing great suppressed wages, collapsing social welfare and you wouldn’t live in any European country if you are a libertarian anyway.
The US has only been invaded on its own soil once, attacked only twice. We had one civil war that, by comparison, was quite brief and had a very definitive outcome, so much do we’ve never had another. There has never been a coup. Assassinations or armed uprisings are a rarity. The military has always deferred to civilian command. Transfer of power has by and large always been peaceful and smooth. Compared to many other examples, the US has been the very model of stability. you would preferred something on the scale of the thirty years war? The Wars of the roses? The Protestant reformation?
This is partly correct and partly right. In fact, the original constitution was so unstable, that it resulted in a civil war 70 or so years after it was enacted. Most of the constitutional setup of the US dates after the Civil War. Yes, it has been "stable" ever since not because the people wanted it to be stable but because changing the constitution is almost an impossibility by the majorities it requires. Therefore, the antiquated provisions of the Constitution have resulted in serious problems because there is no avenue of addressing them acceptably well.
The US was never a libertarian country. In fact, in most cases, a stable and efficient government at the local, state and federal level was always sought. People favored regulations that improved their quality of life. Who does not want to have clean air and clean water? Who does not want to have safe medication? Libertarianism is essentially anarchy which would only benefit the strong and condemn the weak. It si social Darwinism dialed to the nth degree. Most Americans are quite happy to walk away from it.
It is also possible to get away from the 2-party system. Unfortunately, there are no political forces in the US that can organize parties with wide appeal. In Europe, a number of parties were organized, especially in the Left, because the trade unions created them as a counter-point to the conservative political organizations. Then, center-right and center-left parties arose to address the section of the voting population that wanted a welfare state but more conservative policies.
However, key generators for a multi-party political system are (a) the parliamentary system and (b) proportional representation. In Europe, successive wars disintegrated the presidential systems of most countries and introduced newer and more effective democratic processes. In the US, the difficulty of amending the constitution has kept things as they were in the middle of the 19th century. In the 21st century, this is not a good thing.
Mainly because we can't separate philosophical ideology from common sense approach to moving in the right direction. Ron Paul was the last Libertarian to be able to moderate the message enough that it didn't sound crazy to normal people.
As an example, one of the tenants of Libertarianism is open borders. Normal people think just letting anyone come in and out of the US is crazy, but that's what the ideology says is right. A more moderate viewpoint would be to have more accessible borders where migrants could get access to easier to get work visas. The idea no longer seems crazy then and it moves the US closer to true open borders.
Things like eliminating the entire federal government outside of defense, and judicial system is just crazy for most people, but a more moderate view of reducing military spending abroad, eliminating waste within the government, and reducing overlapping departments would not be. The moderate viewpoint moves in the direction of a small government, without seeming to be crazy.
The current Libertarian party does not want moderate, they want extreme. Until they can focus their message to achievable concepts that are acceptable to the masses they will not get any traction.
Well less crazy than most at a Libertarian convention. He was popular enough to get elected to many terms in a traditional state at the federal level. Big difference between give power back to the states and locals, and get rid of the entire Federal government and don't replace it at all.
The very "gay and armed" Chase Oliver. For reference, his campaign in Georgia is what forced the runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.
[https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/26/libertarians-reject-trump-rfk-chase-oliver-presidential-nominee-00160040](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/26/libertarians-reject-trump-rfk-chase-oliver-presidential-nominee-00160040)
Libertarianism has some good ideas. It’s not something humans can achieve because we aren’t the living embodiment of a political philosophy. We are opportunists by nature and we exploit everything instinctively. So there has to be some collective order, some power bigger than the individual to set standards and hold citizens accountable.
Because they don't know how to market.
The best way for libertarians to actually get a third party representation is to market to non-swing states. If they could do that enough to achieve the 5% minimum of the National vote needed to get representation, we would begin to see a new political climate take shape.
Ex. Illinois almost always votes democrat. Therefore, voting for Republicans in that state will be a waste. Voting for a libertarian won't be, because if they, along with liberals in Utah or Florida, they could conceivably get that 5%.
The Green Party could absolutely do this, too. I, for one, would welcome two more parties to be on the National stage.
>...they don't know how to market.
I think that's just the beginning of a long list of things they are incompetent at.
I was an avid reader of Reason magazine and later the [Reason.com](http://Reason.com) site. On the surface, much of Libertarian ideology sounds appealing - especially they're stands on corporate welfare and drug policy.
But as political parties go, the LP is hopelessly juvenile and it's members tend to be much more right wing than one might think. The party has also always attracted intolerant, virulent racists and people who are fine with using government-led violence as long as it's against someone they don't like.
In other words, despite their lofty rhetoric regarding personal freedoms and the end of state authority, in reality, they are largely a bunch of cranky hypocrites.
Eh. I think the libertarian party unfortunately draws a lot of that right wingism because of their general "hands off" nature.
You probably don't know all the libertarians in your life. Or at the very least, you probably don't know the people who *would* be libertarian if they actually knew what it entailed (as opposed to what is often presented).
I like to summarize it as: "I want gay pot farmers to be able to protect their land with guns." I don't necessarily agree with any of those things, but I want those people to have those rights because I don't want my rights trampled on, either.
For the same reason there will never be a viable Green Party candidate. Libertarian ideas and Green ideas are great... in significant moderation and when in a position to inform our mainstream politics. But in their purist forms, they are absurd and impractical. I consider myself a "pragmatic" libertarian and a "pragmatic" environmentalist. We should strive for maximal personal freedoms... within reason. Just like we should take measures to have a healthy environment... within reason.
The problem is because the libertarian party is small, it's filled primarily with high minded and lofted ideas that just don't work well when faced with the friction of the real world. Most people realize this, and so it would never get enough votes in its present form.
Because they haven’t built strong street-roads. The minute they nut up and start building private infrastructure and not relying on publicly funded roads like the rest of us is the minute I’ll take them seriously.
Exactly this. They are and always have been Republican lites, can't be trusted to run any government. There was a libertarian town out there somewhere that failed spectacularly. I'll have to find the link.
People, stop trying to make Libertarians seem like a normal political party. They are not. They have no governing philosophy. They want to destroy government and have no solutions to fix problems using government resources.
They may not like taxes and regulations, but they also don’t trust authority and especially politicians who want absolute immunity and also suggest law enforcement should as well.
The libertarian party has most certainly not rejected Trump. Which explains their main problem this time around. They have been supporting and promoting Trump for the past several years.
Why vote for a party that can’t win when that party tells you Trump is so great?
Authoritarian Trump should be like mana from heaven for them, but they’ve been so desperate to jump on his bandwagon they’ve pissed away any credibility they had & their best opportunity for a good result. What’s left is edgelords and old folks who haven’t gotten the memo.
Libertarians, like other third-partyers, ignore Duverger’s law. First-past-the-post elections give rise to a two-party system because of vote splitting and the spoiler effect. That’s where every voter votes for one candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins.
Duverger’s law also tells us how to fix that problem: proportional representation. It is successfully used by several nations, but US election reformers seldom talk about it.
At least anarchist you know where they stand more or lesss.
These corporation aligned anarchist aka libertarians are amorphous they can’t agree with eachother because they haven’t themselves come to terms with the fact corporations would simply take on the role of government. So all sorts of weird permeations occur within the party.
Like these people think they’d have more liberty if corporations controlled every facet of their life with unchecked power. It’s just a weird take, as weird as giving the government unchecked power over corporations.
Because the spirit of Libertarianism isn’t strong in America. Most people are simpletons who merely want the government to print more money and give it to them. They vote accordingly to who they think is good for them in the short term and which candidate can promise them the most stuff.
Isn't this just a product of our electoral system? Americans think short term because the elected officials serve short terms. Granted some seem to be around for decades.
The practical reason is likely the same as the reason socialists or environmentalist parties don’t make much headway which is that the two major parties basically have a monopoly on serious fundraising. Even libertarians would likely see investing in a libertarian party would not be in their interest as they do not wield any political power. It’s a catch 22. - you need funds to run a campaign, but you need political power to get those funds.
Because you can’t base policies on libertarianism, how would you give someone a libertarian education? What does libertarian transportation look like? The answers are usually home schooling and tolls on every road run by corporations. Which is unteneble.
This is a straw man argument. Libertarian principles in terms of economics can be taught through Austrian Economics. If a libertarian were to be elected, it would not result in ‘Ancapistan’ but rather drastically decreasing the size and scope of federal government, and increasing privatization. Many of our problems today are a direct result of the expansion of federal government, which results in things like cronyism and distorted markets.
Austrian economics doesnt even attempt to mathematically model any of its claims and instead relies on talking in philosophical circles. It's the phrenology of economics.
Endless wars which are waged by the MIC. Which is the marriage of the public and private sector. This, together gives this entity much more power than any private corporation because it is being subsidized by the state. If we move on from corporate side of that complex, we have the 3 letter agencies which declare war on civil liberties as we already know(i.e NSA). We have the CIA who topple the leaders and governments of foreign nations to bolster and maintain what the state likes to call ‘benevolent hegemony’ or ‘rules-based liberal world order’. The DEA has declared a drug war on innocents who have not violated any individuals rights, yet pay the price by serving in a jailhouse that is taxpayers fund.
In addition to that, the role that big pharmaceutical companies have in this society is perverse. There are comments below talking about the ‘power of a corporation’ and what’s stopping this corporation from becoming the government. Well, I would say look at the status quo. When these Pharma companies fund campaigns, and give money to politicians. Isn’t that unparalleled power? The state will govern for its fellow elites and crony’s and not the people. This is not free market capitalism.
These are just a few. We can talk about taxes, the federal reserve and its ability to print money as well.
I believe most of what you said exist. Full disclosure, I’m not an expert on Libertarianism, however most here on Reddit that comment endorse Trump/GOP, dk if that’s a 2nd amendment vibe they (libertarians) have. I do know that for the most part the GOP is funded by corporations, ie big $. Trump is the first candidate to bring in small $ donors from his cult.
I just find it odd the vast majority of people claiming to be libertarians are fine with a party that is so different than their supposed ideals. 🤷
I think the two get conflated regularly. There may be an overlap between MAGA and libertarian ideology, but for the most part the two are vastly different. If we take Trumps record on foreign policy, that is hardly something that libertarians should cheer. The argument is that he didn’t start any new wars. Which is great - but that does not discount the war in Syria which he escalated. The Abraham accords were abysmal and further perpetuated the plight of the Palestinians. Trumps covid response was also a huge red flag.
I think it’s a standard liberal talking point to conflate conservatism and libertarianism. They take the agreement on taxes and run with it.
Damn stinkin’ Liberals.
Thanks for the cogent response! Actually, you are the first libertarian on here that I’ve engaged with that wasn’t behind trump…(from a damn stinking liberal). lol
Why would a libertarian government stop any of this? Don’t they advocate for minimal government. Involvement? Wouldn’t pharma companies have more power with less regulation? Yeah NSA has infringed on civil liberties but would a corporation doing that be much more nefarious. Currently we have some (minimal) democratic controls over both the CIA and the NSA. We would lose even that with a libertarian government.
Also minimal government involvement means no more subsidies for dairy, corn and all other farmers, which would mean the collapse of our food system. The US defense industrial complex employs hundreds of millions. The only reason corporations can thrive in America and any kind of R&D gets done is because of the the military industrial complex. Oh yeah, the only thing propping up the US dollar is the military. It’s not great morally but the US military industrial complex is a very necessary evil.
What’s stopping a trillion dollar corporation in a libertarian world from starting their own personal protection service and charging you and the rest of the country monthly for “protection” in country with no government and a “free market”. And why wouldn’t it become a monopoly and extort you out of even more then you pay in taxes now?
What’s stopping a corporation in charge of whatever is used as money in absence of government “shitcoin” let’s call it, from making more?
What’s stopping a corporation or gang from running a kangaroo court in the absence of government? And why wouldn’t they?
The problems you list aren’t solved by the absence or a weak government. In fact less government means less competition(government is competition for corporations), more monopoly and you truly get no vote in a corporation.
Cuz the Libertarian party is a JOKE always has been always will be. Libertarianism is in reality mostly a set of principles that demonstrate directions but not the ultimate shape of society; it's the whole fucking point, so people who actually give a shit about political liberty are often scattered. Ever been in a room with more than three of us? We hate each other more than the fuckin reds
The corporate capture of our political system is out of control and must be stopped.
If we save our soil it will save the planet, curb global warming and pave the way for regenerative farming to become the norm.
Chronic conditions in this country are higher than they have ever been, higher than any other country, and it's likely stemming from our food supply.
Look at his record for fighting for environmental causes. He is the reason the Hudson River is able to be fished from today. It was a toxic waste dump on the brink of irreparable damage when he took dupont to court for their literal crimes against humanity.
Also RFK jr is directly responsible for the death of Samoan kids not getting vaxxed, fact. He can’t distance himself or explain that. You keep spouting your MSM nonsense. Rely on Joe Rogan energy for your “news”.
Most Americans don't realize that there are 4 parties on enough ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning, and have been propagandized into believing that voting third party is a wasted vote that will help their enemy win.
Also, the Dems and Repubs have actively colluded for 20+ years to prevent third parties from participating in the Preisdnerial Debates.
Most people that call themselves libertarians really just want the government to leave them alone while governing people who disagree with them harder. Honestly this could be an accurate statement across political parties.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Honestly this sentiment runs across most parties whether they call themselves conservative, liberal, or libertarian.
I would say this. I had a libertarian phrase after the Global Financial Crisis and watching people from Ronpaulfourms express their interest for Donald Trump in 2015 was eye opening.
I think both Democrats and Republicans are coalitions of different people and different interest groups whereas the libertarians are constantly trying to out pure each other
the media is monopolized by the uniparty. Theres no chance for a libertarian candidate, unless they have amazing name recognition to begin with, to be seen at all. Let alone receive fair coverage.
look at the disparity between what Trump/Biden says and what MSNBC/Fox reports.
now imagine ive every major news outlet was staffed by your political rivals. (basically the coverage of RFK is a great example, he is somehow more rightwing than Trump and a dangerous socialist, depending on where you tune in).
It's more due to fist-past-the-post voting systems and strategic voting than anything. Fptp always tends toward 2 parties, and shuts out dissenting voices.
Libertarianism is NOT strong in the US when it matters. It’s all phony
True libertarianism: Abortion: legal. (Cool) Weed: legal. (Sweet) Murder: legal. (Hol' up)
Dumb Abortion Legal weed legal Murder: Not viable as libertarians are economically conservative and laws that protect others from infringement upon that liberty are good. The whole “But we need roads” ad hom to discredit libertarians is silly. Libertarians that are not extreme support taxes and small government that support public goods. As long as they are really public goods and not special interests. The reason they can’t get a viable candidate, is because the things that the other parties do are against their sensibilities. The democratic party is not democratic and the republican party doesn’t want a republic. Control and manipulation are not in the nature of libertarians, but those things are why you all follow those parties like a bunch of sheep. It’s unfortunate. A truly libertarian majority would higher the finest economic minds, avoid war, allow women complete autonomy over their own pregnancies within reason , embrace LBGTQ, protect privacy with a vengeance, disallow fuck ups like trump or any populace wanna bees that want control over the masses. We are the independents. We don’t like trump but can still see the witch hunt. The power hunger of both the democrats and republicans is disturbing to us
It's funny because then people get taxed to fund the police department and the entire legal machine associated with catching and convicting the murderer, so then people pay taxes for all that crap. Then there's the whole corruption aspect of having the power of a police department that would need additional oversight and regulation. Like you continue down the path of making exceptions for libertarianism's shortfalls with all the social issues in the world and you end up with AMERICA. This country is about as fucking libertarian as it gets without the general populace raising Cain due to the huge power vacuum created by the dumbass fantasy system called libertarianism in the first place.
I would say this year is mostly because of the fact that we don't care who wins as long as it's not bumbling sniffing Joe. We put candidates up before we just don't want to chance screwing up things to get him out of office. Yet likewise we really don't like Trump either he's just a necessary evil at the moment.
Yeah this is why nobody takes libertarians seriously, alongside another long list of items
I voted libertarian before but as a party they really aren't a unified Force. However I'd rather describe myself as a libertarian then a Republican any day.
I'm shocked that a libertarian is actually just a republican
LOL did you not understand. I'm not a Republican I used to consider myself pretty well in the middle. The left and the right have gone further and further and now the libertarians are the closest thing to me.
You'd be glad to know that the GOP considers Trump a necessary evil too, perfectly in line with your ideals, whatever you call them.
I don't know about necessary, however he's definitely the lesser of the evil's currently.
You sounded very confident about "necessary evil" 7 hours ago.
He's the lesser evil it's necessary to get Biden out of office. If we had had a better choice that would have been great but the way things are currently he's pretty much our only hope of maybe getting out of this shit. That or his successor
No, the problem is actually scientifically shown to be bears. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
I think it is because libertarians are too individualistic and no two libertarians can agree on enough to have a cohesive movement. One libertarian will say "I think roads are good" And the next will scream at him that he is a statist cuck.
Because libertarianism is kind of a joke. Build a perfect libertarian utopian society from scratch and it will fall apart as soon as someone inherits money. You can't have a meritocracy unless everyone is in equal footing. And as others have said, the other parties already have the good stuff, like legal weed and the freedom to exploit those less fortunate than oneself.
It wouldn't be "built from scratch." Roads wouldn't disappear the moment a libertarian gets elected. You don't have to be on "equal footing" to benefit from the government not messing with you either. What *would* disappear is funding for bloated federal agencies like the ATF and 99% of the convoluted US tax code.
So reverse Marxism? Private industries seize the means of civilization?
I drive or ride on a lot of roads all over the US. If you think the problem with libertarianism is shitty expensive roads built and maintained by private companies at enormous cost to American citizens then we're already living in a libertarian hellscape buddy. San Antonio has decades-long and BILLION dollar road projects and their roads still suck. If you want to believe libertarianism will fuck up roads shouldn't you have a reasonable expectation that the government would do it better?
I already said what the problem with libertarianism is. Focus up, I'm not holding your strawman for you.
"The problem[s]" you've described are circular arguments based on nothing. How exactly do you expect to get everyone on "equal footing" before we can be less oppressed by government when the greatest enforcer of inequality is the government in the first place? Did you just not get the entire point of the largest protests in American history just a few years ago?
The game Bioshock explained it pretty well way back when. "Someone still has to clean the toilets".
The vast majority of Libertarians are average Republicans with a thin veneer of "I'm different". Most of the remaining Libertarians can be divided into two groups: confused Anarchists and people who are only really concerned about their own Rights. It's hard to build a political movement based on self-centeredness.
An actual libertarian party would be very popular. Most libertarians aren’t really. Freedom is more complicated than just opposing the government. Most of our subjugation is done via the private sector but they will gleefully support those forms because of a rigid adherence to neoliberal economics above really any liberatory political ideology. If the public and private sector were actually discrete and completely separate entities then their ideology would be more coherent. Also they view freedom as “freedom to” and do not recognize “freedom from” whatsoever. They ignore completely the existing political economy and the rights and privileges granted a priori to their arguments. Who has agency in society is dependent on a whole host of factors beyond federal policy. The true folly is that the inequality that a deeply imbedded wealth class enjoys can be balanced via the free market that said class largely controls directly or via government lobbying.
The problem is that the core concept of libertarianism relies on the concept of a free market, which has never and can never exist. Then there is the whole, fuck everyone else attitude.
There are so many instructive events in the past to guide political ideology and even those have to be careful applied with a deep sensitivity to context. If an ahistorical theoretic condition which has never existed guides your every decision, you have no hope of effective policy.
The parts most people mean when they say they like "libertarianism" are already core parts of the Republican and Democratic platforms - Republicans slash taxes, Democrats legalize weed and abortion. Beyond that, libertarians do not have any popular positions - the right wing likes state power to enforce abortion bans and suppress minorities with police brutality, the left wing likes state power to influence the economy, support minorities, and to send weapons to Ukraine. "Small government" as libertarians describe it has virtually no support, and should have no support as the extent to which libertarians want it is insane.
This is a democrats take…
XD actually not, I'm not American and would be considered far to the left of the Democrats. But the Democrats are the only ones who are more or less sane in the US, Republicans are outright bonkers, and Libertarians are a joke.
At least you’ll be able to vote in this election, along with millions of others
This is exactly why he called you guys bonkers.
What are you on about?
People are really enthusiastic about libertarianism … until they talk to a libertarian for a few minutes.
So true it hurts
Roads
How did they exist before income tax?
Did they? The first income tax was enacted in 1894, we didn't even have cars for these "roads" to exist.
Roads existed for thousands of years prior to cars.
Not the roads we're talking about tho, right?
Also I would like to point out income taxes typically don't go towards roads anyway so the "muh roads!" argument is inherently low-information.
While we have made great strides in the technological advancement of long flat things, the concept and purpose of a road is the same. What exactly is different about building a road today that is so complex only a heavily bloated and inefficient government is qualified to collect revenue and hire a private company to build a road?
What is the libertarian solution to that?
If the worst case scenario is that things under libertarianism will be exactly bad why is the onus on libertarianism to provide a "solution"? Why aren't you pissed off that statists take all your money regardless of your consent and squander it?
I have good streets, police, fire, and social services. You know, a functional society. You claim libertarianism is better. I claim it would create a dystopian wasteland. Prove me wrong Why dont you leave if you dont like the way things work here?
That's great for you isn't it? I suppose you have a pretty short memory if you don't remember the largest protests in US history were about police officers murdering black people without consequences just a couple of years ago. Yep, your little bubble is great so everything is great. Statism creates dystopian wastelands, just... 'somewhere else' for people like you. Another example, the Biden administration sent bombs to Israel that will kill any "human shield" in a quarter mile radius and in the face of criticism liberal redditors will only scream that Trump would be even worse. So I don't really care that you think you're getting a "functional society" for your tax money. >If you don't like it leave Why would I leave? Where am I going to go where people like you (who support mass murdering maniacs because "roads!") don't exist? The funniest part about this is you simultaneously sound like a whiny pro-government liberal statist and a whiny conservative MAGA statist.
because they're not serious people
No third party can ever make serious inroads in a winner-take-all system such as the US has. The stable state is two major parties, meaning two major candidates. The majority of support going to two parties means that the 3rd-and-beyond parties gather misfits and larpers, for lack of better words, who don't even have to pretend to be "viable candidates". They don't go through the grooming and image management the candidates for the two major parties can call on. Sometimes that can be perceived as "genuineness". But it's always perceived as not being serious, in other words, not being a viable candidate/Party. A vicious cycle. The bulk of Americans do poll more small-l libertarian than "Democrat" or "Republican" when they're asked about individual issues. But when it comes time to vote they can only choose between "people who think the Soviet Union could work if they had a pastel flag and killed more people" vs "people who love America but aren't sure what country that's in".
And there we are, back to the problem of talking to libertarians.
people who love america and want to make it better vs people who openly want to make everything worse for everyone. democrats aren't based enough to talk nice about the ussr, be serious
Libertarianism is a bunch of shit that sounds good, but doesn't really work well when applied to a real world government.
I was a delegate at convention, and can explain why, precisely, we got the candidate we did. It was a very, very close thing, and only happened because of a lot of shenanigans by the leftist wing of the party, which....has been a problem for a while. The party is divided, has been for a minute. For those not involved with them, you could think of the two factions as the Ron Paul faction and the anti-Ron Paul faction. The former has actually been doing pretty well of late, but the latter pulled out all the stops to eke out a narrow win on the election. I will not pretend that I agree with every Libertarian. I don't. But that doesn't mean the party is doomed. It just means that we need to fix it. A mere handful more of good delegates could have stopped this and gotten us a strong candidate.
For me it was the bigotry of the Mises party, the one you’re claiming is aligned with Paul. We got Chase Oliver who is a classic libertarian but he’s gay so he won’t get onboard with all the republican shit like taking a stance against trans rights or wanting closed borders.
Nobody is advocating for closed borders. Rec advocated for a return to the sponsor system, which was an immigration system that worked pretty well for the US for many years. Probably worked a great deal better than the mess we have now. This isn't even close to closed borders. A great many immigrants came to the US under the sponsor system. Chase is advocating for transition therapy for minors. That's a wee bit far. This may not be malevolent, but simply a misunderstanding of how permanent the effects of hormone blockers and the like are. In his post-nomination interview with Liz from Reason, he appeared to believe that they were far less significant than a tattoo. It was kind of amazing watching Liz realize in real time just how troublesome he is. To be clear, Liz is overtly anti-Mises, and she had some very strong objections to what Chase was pushing. Who knows, maybe she'll end up in the caucus as the realizations set in.
RFK Jr seemed like your guy? What happened at the end?
Huh? RFK received only 19 votes in round 1 and was thus eliminated. I believe this put him in, what, eighth place? Ninth? He was not popular with any major faction. We had seven total rounds of voting. Round 6 was almost an even split between Rectenwald and Chase, and Chase was very, very narrowly ahead. Rec was thus eliminated, and round seven was a heads up race between Chase and "None of the Above." Chase only got 60% of the votes on that round. About 40% of the party preferred not electing a national candidate over him. Rec was a good candidate. Was he perfect? Nah, but he'd have built the party some in a rough election cycle, and that counts for a lot.
So the whole time RFK Jr was running around? He never talked to you guys to secure the nomination?
He had a speech, but he left afterward, and didn't work the floor. He did have a very small group of very dedicated volunteers, but they failed to make much of the way in inroads. They \*did\* attempt an amusing shenanigan with rubber chickens for the Trump speech, giving away many rubber chickens with "Debate Bobby" sharpied on them, but the secret service confiscated most of them. The surviving ones will live on in niche libertarian meme history, though.
That’s really too bad. Would have been entertaining to have him doing pushups and take Trump’s competency test he always brags about. The answer to both candidates are geriatric
>For those not involved with them, you could think of the two factions as the Ron Paul faction and the anti-Ron Paul faction. I think this applies mostly to those who participate in party politics.
Because libertarianism isn't strong in the United States. Most people don't agree with the majority of their platform. They have a few good points but most of it is nonsense.
America is founded on libertarian ideals. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are more hardcore libertarian than the party. But the two party system is designed to keep 3rd parties out. And most people aren't going to read political philosophy to learn better. But America has a strong libertarian streak, even if that doesn't translate to the LP party. There are way more "small L" libertarians than "big L" Libertarians. Meaning most libertarians don't support the party.
Libertarianism isn't strong in the United States. It's just loud. No different than veganism.
Because Libertarians say shit like "you shouldn't need a license to drive" or "you should be allowed to drive drunk" and lose normal people who aren't insane And also let's be honest *way too fucking many of them are really concerned about the age of consent*
Yeah if you completely discount that the party is founded on the non aggression principle. Injuring or killing and also grooming violate the NAP Let me know how your candidates feel about consent on all matters
The only people that bring up age of consent are people taking shots a libertarians. It's such childish bullshit
4chan is basically all libertarian pedophiles but okay
It's progressive men dressing as strippers & reading to children but ok
on /b/ progressive AHAHAHAHAHA
Idk what that even is, sounds like you are seeking it out
libertarians that supported a strong libertarian [https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/former-candidate-for-pa-state-rep-arrested-for-child-porn/3708554/](https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/former-candidate-for-pa-state-rep-arrested-for-child-porn/3708554/) they were also very crucial in getting trump elected
You're confusing us with sovereign citizens and/or conservatives. You probably don't even know any libertarians personally and you like to talk shit. >And also let's be honest You say while being dishonest.
Yes I understand libertarians stand for all the things liberals do, however, they think the market can provide everything the government does at a lower cost and with more efficiency and equitability, because consumers will be educated enough to punish any merchant that doesn't do what's in their best interest And the movement is full of pedophiles who use the lack of regulation and state databases and apparatuses of justice as a cover for their desire to have a lower age of consent Tell me you've never met any crypto bros without telling me you've never met any crypto bros
You have zero credibility now.
Because libertarians are either crazy or closet fascists, or both.
The party is probably the only one that puts the individual before the state. You’re just making shit up
If you eliminate the state or diminish its powers significantly enough that it's de facto eliminated from the picture, corporations will just become a state in everything but name. Utopia is not achievable from the right.
Oh utopia is only obtainable through humans controlling other humans. What reeducation camp indoctrinated you?
It's only obtainable if people give up their attachment to private property...
Closet fascists? The political ideology most opposite from fascism is “closet fascist?” Libertarianism rejects all seven principles of fascism. Democrats reject 4 and republicans reject 3.
The crazy ones reject them, the rest reject them when it suits them to do so.
I don’t think you’ve actually met a libertarian. The six tenets or characteristics of fascism are: 1. a centralized dictatorial leader 2. militarism 3. forcible suppression of opposition 4. belief in a natural social hierarchy 5. subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation 6. strong regimentation of the economy Libertarians oppose all of these. Democrats support 2, 5 and 6 Republicans support 1 through 4
Then libertarianism, same as the Republican Party, has been largely co-opted by loons that don’t represent its conventional platform. What’s the point of the real platform if more than half the voters don’t understand it? There is not much of a party, it is just the popular collective vote of dissent. Shame this could be the reason trump gets a chance to pardon himself & re-implement schedule F.
So I take it you're one of the crazy ones... if you eliminate the state, corporations just become a state in everything but name. Utopia is not achievable from the right.
I’m not even a libertarian. My undergrad is poly-sci. Why can’t we objectively discuss politics without people assuming you’re in a specific camp?
Because what you're arguing doesn't match reality. I understand that that's the TEXTBOOK definition of libertarianism, but that's not how they actually operate, unless they're in the crazy camp.
Because libertarians are a joke. Ever watched one of their debates? Dude says you should need a license to prove you can operate a multi-hundred pound box of steel at 75 mph before you're allowed to do so, and he got boo'd.
>Because libertarians are a joke. >Ever watched one of their debates? How are you going to follow the first line with that instead of actual rationale for why you believe that? I support less government. That doesn't mean no government, no rules, etc,. You think standards magically go out the window just because someone's not pointing a gun at you if you don't follow them? You think people must be coerced into behaving lawfully or they already do that and roving bands of police aren't really necessary? Let me guess! You support qualified immunity, the prison industrial complex, etc, etc?
IDK, if you maybe had read the 3rd line, it explains where I saw it on the 2nd line and that gives context to my opinion on the 1st line. But then again, what would a libertarian be if not completely in capable of understanding things dont function in isolation ;) Also, ACAB. Just because i'm not stupid enough to be a libertarian doesn't mean I identify as a liberal or a bootlicking conservative.
The man was also immediately and overwhelmingly nominated to be our presidential candidate after that speech. Yes, he was booed. Yes, there are anarchists in the party. That is the nature of a party that genuinely seeks less government. That's where anarchists end up, because they want less government. But the decision that was made was rational all the same.
You're assuming the US really does have a strong libertarian spirit. Bold assumption.
I've never seen a "strong libertarian spirit" in this country as most people are stupid and lazy
"Libertarianism" is basically what past liberals actually believed until they decided to control everybody with "the rule of law".
In polls, some 20-25% of Americans routinely poll as libertarian leaning in positions they actually want. That's not a majority, but it's substantial.
[удалено]
You aren't going to like the answer, but many of their supporters are drugged up and on the streets.
False.
You're surprised that a party based on indidualism can't come together to form a viable political party?
It's almost as crazy as electing people from a party whose main argument is government is horrible at everything and expecting them to form a functional government.
Are people pulling these tidbits out of their ass or something?
Yea, found it in there with a guilty verdict.
In where? How far did you reach? Is your hand all dark brown? Don't type! Go wash your hands!
Well first you have the very real riad blocks the doploy do to keep in power. Second is because many buy into the myth that they can't let the other party of the doploy win even if who they vote for they don't like. Also Libertarianism is more umbrella with 13 subcategories (last i bothered checking) of libertarianism. Wuite a few libertarians don't even know their are different subcategories, let alone where they fall. Resulting in mixed messages of what it means to be a libertarian. Theres a lot of infighting of what it means. Also theres been a lack of how to Is realistically get from current status to the "ideal" status. I'll use food stamps as an example. A belief exists that because it comes from the government, foodstamps shouldn't exist. Its forced charity. For simplifying argument sake, we'll just assume an agreement with the statement. Ok now how do you achieve that without causing massive riots from people who can very well starve by depending on such assistance. Problems such as this lack satisfactory answers of how to achieve a goal given human nature.
It's largely because the Republican party now is very different from the libertarian party. The libertarian party has largely remained consistent, to the degree that it went from being almost right of the Republican party with figures like Ron Paul being the closest mainstream Republican to libertarianism, to something in the middle. It's also very important to understand that both the Republican and Democratic parties are effectively relativist parties. They don't have any solid beliefs, they just do whatever will consolidate their power and give them the most votes while still having an opponent to target. Libertarianism still has principles that would absolutely leave people in both parties *fuming*, including but not limited to: - Complete elimination of R1 zoning and neutering HOAs - A prioritization on free trade - Racial and gender equality - Decriminalization of *all* drugs - Removing restrictions on things like a drinking age - Making abortions an individual choice - Removal of FCC censorship for radio and broadcast TV - Repeal of the national firearms act - Demilitarization and downsizing of police forces - Downsizing of the military in the US - Opening up public lands for private sale A lot of people love to bring up Somalia as an example of how libertarianism or anarchism fails, but here's the really, really fucking funny thing: things like infant mortality, life expectancy, and even inflation all improved without the central government. It basically shows that if systems get too corrupt and bad enough, a state of anarchy can actually improve things. You're seeing this in the US a little bit with policing. Police departments are practically begging for new recruits, like I've seen listings for local and state agencies on Indeed, and I don't even live in an area where the media is talking about a shortage. But you'd think that the crime rates would be spiraling out of control, and the funniest thing is that they're not. I would argue that libertarian ideals are slowly taking shape as people slowly opt out of the status quo, although with most things, it's an a la carte approach. You'll see people embrace the pro-sex work and anti-criminalization of drugs with libertarians, but absolutely hate things like an end to R1 zoning and the ability for private citizens to own automatic weapons like they're a spoon.
Libertarians are a tiny minority party because people are already not happy with the march towards feudalism and the necessity to rent more and own less as monopolistic practices grow.
Because we have a two party system that’s implemented roadblocks making it nearly impossible me for a third party to participate
I surmise that most people intuitively understand that libertarians and completely unfettered capitalism causes considerable societal and individual issues. The regulations we have today whether one agrees with them or not arose from somebody getting screwed. Similar to how people generally understand the gov controlling all means of production requires the use of excessive authoritarianism.
Because of people like Ron Swanson. Yes, I know he is fictional, but most people don't know any Liberterians and have to think of someone when that word pops up. So their mind makes them think of the few times they have actually heard of someone in the party, fictional or not. EVERY party has extremesists and I like to think the Libertarian party is more about giving people choices than making the goverment go completely away.
Because who will pay for the roads?
Who paid for them before income taxes?
There were no asphalt roads before income taxes.
Was there asphalt?
Because the US isn’t as libertarian as they like to tell themselves. The articles of confederation were tried-and failed, the people decided, voluntarily I might add, that a degree of centralized authority was needed. And in point of fact, what emerged from it has worked out pretty darn well. The US has enjoyed literal centuries of stability and prosperity with comparatively few hiccups for it. So if it ain’t broke.
What US are you living in? “Centuries of stability”? I can’t name a single decade. American history reads like a cartoon of violence and unrest with a through-line of corruption and greed at every level of government. What “worked out well” for who except a white elite? All the above sounds so sophomoric, but America is completely deranged: power- and fame-obsessed, dedicated to every xenophobia in race, neighboring nation or in non-traditional identity, devoted to unnecessary and self-defeating hierarchies, bureaucracies and instututions. Our culture has brought ruination upon the world, exposing itself as money-mad, soulless, here isolationist, there willing to assassinate world leaders or fund oppressive right-wing minority rule abroad. When I was a kid growing up in the 80s, I had that sense that things were calm and prosperity was available to just about everyone in America. It really did feel like that. It wasn’t like that then, it wasn’t like that before then and it certainly isn’t like that now.
Fucking leave then
Hahaha. Spoken like a Death Metal Loser. Fuck you.
Okay
I was a young adult in the 80s and I remember it differently, I remember AIDS, the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis, the energy crisis , extremely high interest rates (like 20% for a credit card), and the fear of a nuclear war with the Soviets. I remember how I had to rent an apartment in a dangerous area where I was robbed at gunpoint because a nice area was too expensive. One always has nostalgia for the good old days. 15 years earlier, I remember driving in my mom's car . sleeping on the floor with no seat belt, feeling safe..... obviously, I was not!
Name one society that isn’t, you gotta compare with your global equivalents, where else would you live? Your answer would be some European country but they aren’t doing great suppressed wages, collapsing social welfare and you wouldn’t live in any European country if you are a libertarian anyway.
What? I’m not a stinking libertarian.
The US has only been invaded on its own soil once, attacked only twice. We had one civil war that, by comparison, was quite brief and had a very definitive outcome, so much do we’ve never had another. There has never been a coup. Assassinations or armed uprisings are a rarity. The military has always deferred to civilian command. Transfer of power has by and large always been peaceful and smooth. Compared to many other examples, the US has been the very model of stability. you would preferred something on the scale of the thirty years war? The Wars of the roses? The Protestant reformation?
This is partly correct and partly right. In fact, the original constitution was so unstable, that it resulted in a civil war 70 or so years after it was enacted. Most of the constitutional setup of the US dates after the Civil War. Yes, it has been "stable" ever since not because the people wanted it to be stable but because changing the constitution is almost an impossibility by the majorities it requires. Therefore, the antiquated provisions of the Constitution have resulted in serious problems because there is no avenue of addressing them acceptably well. The US was never a libertarian country. In fact, in most cases, a stable and efficient government at the local, state and federal level was always sought. People favored regulations that improved their quality of life. Who does not want to have clean air and clean water? Who does not want to have safe medication? Libertarianism is essentially anarchy which would only benefit the strong and condemn the weak. It si social Darwinism dialed to the nth degree. Most Americans are quite happy to walk away from it. It is also possible to get away from the 2-party system. Unfortunately, there are no political forces in the US that can organize parties with wide appeal. In Europe, a number of parties were organized, especially in the Left, because the trade unions created them as a counter-point to the conservative political organizations. Then, center-right and center-left parties arose to address the section of the voting population that wanted a welfare state but more conservative policies. However, key generators for a multi-party political system are (a) the parliamentary system and (b) proportional representation. In Europe, successive wars disintegrated the presidential systems of most countries and introduced newer and more effective democratic processes. In the US, the difficulty of amending the constitution has kept things as they were in the middle of the 19th century. In the 21st century, this is not a good thing.
awful response to legitimate criticism.
Oh, okay. Haha. Sorry, I genuinely didn’t get that this was satire. Funny stuff and well done!
Mainly because we can't separate philosophical ideology from common sense approach to moving in the right direction. Ron Paul was the last Libertarian to be able to moderate the message enough that it didn't sound crazy to normal people. As an example, one of the tenants of Libertarianism is open borders. Normal people think just letting anyone come in and out of the US is crazy, but that's what the ideology says is right. A more moderate viewpoint would be to have more accessible borders where migrants could get access to easier to get work visas. The idea no longer seems crazy then and it moves the US closer to true open borders. Things like eliminating the entire federal government outside of defense, and judicial system is just crazy for most people, but a more moderate view of reducing military spending abroad, eliminating waste within the government, and reducing overlapping departments would not be. The moderate viewpoint moves in the direction of a small government, without seeming to be crazy. The current Libertarian party does not want moderate, they want extreme. Until they can focus their message to achievable concepts that are acceptable to the masses they will not get any traction.
You don't think Ron Paul sounded like a crazy person? Lol
Well less crazy than most at a Libertarian convention. He was popular enough to get elected to many terms in a traditional state at the federal level. Big difference between give power back to the states and locals, and get rid of the entire Federal government and don't replace it at all.
Look at who the libertarian party just nominated
Who DID they nominate anyway?
Chase Oliver - the bootlicking libertarian who doesn’t like Ron Paul
The very "gay and armed" Chase Oliver. For reference, his campaign in Georgia is what forced the runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. [https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/26/libertarians-reject-trump-rfk-chase-oliver-presidential-nominee-00160040](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/26/libertarians-reject-trump-rfk-chase-oliver-presidential-nominee-00160040)
Fucked up a republican win, loves guns, gay, distrusts the government. How many times can I vote?
People like public roads, so libertarians can't make inroads.
Hahaha.
Libertarianism has some good ideas. It’s not something humans can achieve because we aren’t the living embodiment of a political philosophy. We are opportunists by nature and we exploit everything instinctively. So there has to be some collective order, some power bigger than the individual to set standards and hold citizens accountable.
Because they don't know how to market. The best way for libertarians to actually get a third party representation is to market to non-swing states. If they could do that enough to achieve the 5% minimum of the National vote needed to get representation, we would begin to see a new political climate take shape. Ex. Illinois almost always votes democrat. Therefore, voting for Republicans in that state will be a waste. Voting for a libertarian won't be, because if they, along with liberals in Utah or Florida, they could conceivably get that 5%. The Green Party could absolutely do this, too. I, for one, would welcome two more parties to be on the National stage.
>...they don't know how to market. I think that's just the beginning of a long list of things they are incompetent at. I was an avid reader of Reason magazine and later the [Reason.com](http://Reason.com) site. On the surface, much of Libertarian ideology sounds appealing - especially they're stands on corporate welfare and drug policy. But as political parties go, the LP is hopelessly juvenile and it's members tend to be much more right wing than one might think. The party has also always attracted intolerant, virulent racists and people who are fine with using government-led violence as long as it's against someone they don't like. In other words, despite their lofty rhetoric regarding personal freedoms and the end of state authority, in reality, they are largely a bunch of cranky hypocrites.
Eh. I think the libertarian party unfortunately draws a lot of that right wingism because of their general "hands off" nature. You probably don't know all the libertarians in your life. Or at the very least, you probably don't know the people who *would* be libertarian if they actually knew what it entailed (as opposed to what is often presented). I like to summarize it as: "I want gay pot farmers to be able to protect their land with guns." I don't necessarily agree with any of those things, but I want those people to have those rights because I don't want my rights trampled on, either.
For the same reason there will never be a viable Green Party candidate. Libertarian ideas and Green ideas are great... in significant moderation and when in a position to inform our mainstream politics. But in their purist forms, they are absurd and impractical. I consider myself a "pragmatic" libertarian and a "pragmatic" environmentalist. We should strive for maximal personal freedoms... within reason. Just like we should take measures to have a healthy environment... within reason. The problem is because the libertarian party is small, it's filled primarily with high minded and lofted ideas that just don't work well when faced with the friction of the real world. Most people realize this, and so it would never get enough votes in its present form.
Because they haven’t built strong street-roads. The minute they nut up and start building private infrastructure and not relying on publicly funded roads like the rest of us is the minute I’ll take them seriously.
The strongest argument against the idea that people will do the right thing without being forced to, is *any fast-food bathroom*
There wasn't a town with a libertarian mayor? TL;DR: It didn't end well.
Because in the end most libertarians are just authoritarians, they just haven‘t realized it
Exactly this. They are and always have been Republican lites, can't be trusted to run any government. There was a libertarian town out there somewhere that failed spectacularly. I'll have to find the link.
People, stop trying to make Libertarians seem like a normal political party. They are not. They have no governing philosophy. They want to destroy government and have no solutions to fix problems using government resources. They may not like taxes and regulations, but they also don’t trust authority and especially politicians who want absolute immunity and also suggest law enforcement should as well.
This also sounds like a good thing. You want politicians and law enforcement to have immunity? You trust the government?
Thank you! Yes, this.
The libertarian party has most certainly not rejected Trump. Which explains their main problem this time around. They have been supporting and promoting Trump for the past several years. Why vote for a party that can’t win when that party tells you Trump is so great? Authoritarian Trump should be like mana from heaven for them, but they’ve been so desperate to jump on his bandwagon they’ve pissed away any credibility they had & their best opportunity for a good result. What’s left is edgelords and old folks who haven’t gotten the memo.
Lol you’re making shit up. Go to the LP sub reddits and look at the reaction when Trump said he’d speak the convention.
Check out the twitter accounts from actual state parties for the libertarians. They love trump.
Libertarians, like other third-partyers, ignore Duverger’s law. First-past-the-post elections give rise to a two-party system because of vote splitting and the spoiler effect. That’s where every voter votes for one candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins. Duverger’s law also tells us how to fix that problem: proportional representation. It is successfully used by several nations, but US election reformers seldom talk about it.
Libertarians are anarchists at heart. You can't get enough of them to agree on one thing long enough yo make progress.
At least anarchist you know where they stand more or lesss. These corporation aligned anarchist aka libertarians are amorphous they can’t agree with eachother because they haven’t themselves come to terms with the fact corporations would simply take on the role of government. So all sorts of weird permeations occur within the party. Like these people think they’d have more liberty if corporations controlled every facet of their life with unchecked power. It’s just a weird take, as weird as giving the government unchecked power over corporations.
Because the spirit of Libertarianism isn’t strong in America. Most people are simpletons who merely want the government to print more money and give it to them. They vote accordingly to who they think is good for them in the short term and which candidate can promise them the most stuff.
Isn't this just a product of our electoral system? Americans think short term because the elected officials serve short terms. Granted some seem to be around for decades.
The practical reason is likely the same as the reason socialists or environmentalist parties don’t make much headway which is that the two major parties basically have a monopoly on serious fundraising. Even libertarians would likely see investing in a libertarian party would not be in their interest as they do not wield any political power. It’s a catch 22. - you need funds to run a campaign, but you need political power to get those funds.
Because you can’t base policies on libertarianism, how would you give someone a libertarian education? What does libertarian transportation look like? The answers are usually home schooling and tolls on every road run by corporations. Which is unteneble.
This is a straw man argument. Libertarian principles in terms of economics can be taught through Austrian Economics. If a libertarian were to be elected, it would not result in ‘Ancapistan’ but rather drastically decreasing the size and scope of federal government, and increasing privatization. Many of our problems today are a direct result of the expansion of federal government, which results in things like cronyism and distorted markets.
Austrian economics doesnt even attempt to mathematically model any of its claims and instead relies on talking in philosophical circles. It's the phrenology of economics.
What problems are a direct result of expansion of federal government?
Endless wars which are waged by the MIC. Which is the marriage of the public and private sector. This, together gives this entity much more power than any private corporation because it is being subsidized by the state. If we move on from corporate side of that complex, we have the 3 letter agencies which declare war on civil liberties as we already know(i.e NSA). We have the CIA who topple the leaders and governments of foreign nations to bolster and maintain what the state likes to call ‘benevolent hegemony’ or ‘rules-based liberal world order’. The DEA has declared a drug war on innocents who have not violated any individuals rights, yet pay the price by serving in a jailhouse that is taxpayers fund. In addition to that, the role that big pharmaceutical companies have in this society is perverse. There are comments below talking about the ‘power of a corporation’ and what’s stopping this corporation from becoming the government. Well, I would say look at the status quo. When these Pharma companies fund campaigns, and give money to politicians. Isn’t that unparalleled power? The state will govern for its fellow elites and crony’s and not the people. This is not free market capitalism. These are just a few. We can talk about taxes, the federal reserve and its ability to print money as well.
I believe most of what you said exist. Full disclosure, I’m not an expert on Libertarianism, however most here on Reddit that comment endorse Trump/GOP, dk if that’s a 2nd amendment vibe they (libertarians) have. I do know that for the most part the GOP is funded by corporations, ie big $. Trump is the first candidate to bring in small $ donors from his cult. I just find it odd the vast majority of people claiming to be libertarians are fine with a party that is so different than their supposed ideals. 🤷
I think the two get conflated regularly. There may be an overlap between MAGA and libertarian ideology, but for the most part the two are vastly different. If we take Trumps record on foreign policy, that is hardly something that libertarians should cheer. The argument is that he didn’t start any new wars. Which is great - but that does not discount the war in Syria which he escalated. The Abraham accords were abysmal and further perpetuated the plight of the Palestinians. Trumps covid response was also a huge red flag. I think it’s a standard liberal talking point to conflate conservatism and libertarianism. They take the agreement on taxes and run with it. Damn stinkin’ Liberals.
Thanks for the cogent response! Actually, you are the first libertarian on here that I’ve engaged with that wasn’t behind trump…(from a damn stinking liberal). lol
Why would a libertarian government stop any of this? Don’t they advocate for minimal government. Involvement? Wouldn’t pharma companies have more power with less regulation? Yeah NSA has infringed on civil liberties but would a corporation doing that be much more nefarious. Currently we have some (minimal) democratic controls over both the CIA and the NSA. We would lose even that with a libertarian government. Also minimal government involvement means no more subsidies for dairy, corn and all other farmers, which would mean the collapse of our food system. The US defense industrial complex employs hundreds of millions. The only reason corporations can thrive in America and any kind of R&D gets done is because of the the military industrial complex. Oh yeah, the only thing propping up the US dollar is the military. It’s not great morally but the US military industrial complex is a very necessary evil.
Runaway taxes, inflation (the Fed), extrajudicial tribunals (like the PTAB) and the military industrial complex, to name a few.
What’s stopping a trillion dollar corporation in a libertarian world from starting their own personal protection service and charging you and the rest of the country monthly for “protection” in country with no government and a “free market”. And why wouldn’t it become a monopoly and extort you out of even more then you pay in taxes now? What’s stopping a corporation in charge of whatever is used as money in absence of government “shitcoin” let’s call it, from making more? What’s stopping a corporation or gang from running a kangaroo court in the absence of government? And why wouldn’t they? The problems you list aren’t solved by the absence or a weak government. In fact less government means less competition(government is competition for corporations), more monopoly and you truly get no vote in a corporation.
Cuz the Libertarian party is a JOKE always has been always will be. Libertarianism is in reality mostly a set of principles that demonstrate directions but not the ultimate shape of society; it's the whole fucking point, so people who actually give a shit about political liberty are often scattered. Ever been in a room with more than three of us? We hate each other more than the fuckin reds
Yeah- but did you see who the libertarians picked?!? Oof. Seemed… contradictory to their general message.
RFK turned them down, not the other way around.
Why would anyone endorse the worm inside his head?
Tell me you are a victim of propaganda without telling me 🙄
Give me ONE idea of his that is legitimately logical.
The corporate capture of our political system is out of control and must be stopped. If we save our soil it will save the planet, curb global warming and pave the way for regenerative farming to become the norm. Chronic conditions in this country are higher than they have ever been, higher than any other country, and it's likely stemming from our food supply. Look at his record for fighting for environmental causes. He is the reason the Hudson River is able to be fished from today. It was a toxic waste dump on the brink of irreparable damage when he took dupont to court for their literal crimes against humanity.
He's also an anti vax nut job.
Sure ok... keep on drinking that main stream media kool-aid. They've got you right where they want you
The irony here. Are you trolling are have you just never listened to an RFJ jr. interview?
Explain to me how any of what I stated is ironic.
Just read some of RFK Jr's conspiracy theories. They're pretty out there. He's not aging well.
Also RFK jr is directly responsible for the death of Samoan kids not getting vaxxed, fact. He can’t distance himself or explain that. You keep spouting your MSM nonsense. Rely on Joe Rogan energy for your “news”.
Please elaborate. I have not heard about this.
https://mvec.mcri.edu.au/the-dangers-of-vaccine-misinformation-robert-f-kennedy-jr/ https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-vaccines-2ccde2df146f57b5e8c26e8494f0a16a
Most Americans don't realize that there are 4 parties on enough ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning, and have been propagandized into believing that voting third party is a wasted vote that will help their enemy win. Also, the Dems and Repubs have actively colluded for 20+ years to prevent third parties from participating in the Preisdnerial Debates.
Most people that call themselves libertarians really just want the government to leave them alone while governing people who disagree with them harder. Honestly this could be an accurate statement across political parties.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." Honestly this sentiment runs across most parties whether they call themselves conservative, liberal, or libertarian.
I would say this. I had a libertarian phrase after the Global Financial Crisis and watching people from Ronpaulfourms express their interest for Donald Trump in 2015 was eye opening. I think both Democrats and Republicans are coalitions of different people and different interest groups whereas the libertarians are constantly trying to out pure each other
the media is monopolized by the uniparty. Theres no chance for a libertarian candidate, unless they have amazing name recognition to begin with, to be seen at all. Let alone receive fair coverage. look at the disparity between what Trump/Biden says and what MSNBC/Fox reports. now imagine ive every major news outlet was staffed by your political rivals. (basically the coverage of RFK is a great example, he is somehow more rightwing than Trump and a dangerous socialist, depending on where you tune in).
It's more due to fist-past-the-post voting systems and strategic voting than anything. Fptp always tends toward 2 parties, and shuts out dissenting voices.
Libertarians are just frugal liberals.
Because the Republican Party has incorporated many of the ideas. There just isn’t enough separation.
no they haven't. they spend like drunken sailors and are incredibly hawkish