Could The Libertarian Revolution Be Coming?

[hblask 1]

really bothers me to see this easily debunked claim trotted out over and over again. no. absolutely not. the banks had shitty oversight and made risky loans because they believed prices would be increasing across the board. even if that basic concept weren't simple enough, we have proof that they intentionally used phony appraisers repeatedly.I don't know why people believe a gigantic spike in prices during this decade, limited to only select wealthy areas, had anything to do with legislation from the carter era, but it's dead wrong.that quote from BG about the libertarians staying fringe because of their drug policy gets more and more inaccurate as the months pass, doesn't it?

Really? So when the libertarians are correct for all the right reasons, they are still wrong? Interesting concept.

[hblask 1]

The era of individualism is already upon us, the question is whether the government will take 10 years or 50 years to recognize it. Take this forum, for example. This is a forum devoted to online poker. How's that government control of gambling working for you?Government can no longer hide behind a wall of propaganda. We know about Dodd's sweetheart deals that contributed to the laws that lead to the mortgage meltdown. Only the most clueless believe that it was a failure of "free markets" anymore when sitting senators are actively funneling money to protect the worst offenders. The information is all there and readily accessible. This isn't 1932 anymore where a president can go on radio and lie to the public and people have no way to check up on them. We have a century of experiments, from the Great Depression to Japans lost decade to Nixon's wage and price controls to the trainwreck that is SS, to the S&L meltdown to the mortgage meltdown, and they all point in the same direction.And the idea that the government can stop us from seeing what we want, saying what we want, or doing what we want to our bodies is becoming increasingly silly each day. How many government information blackouts have worked in the past 10 years worldwide? How many people that want to use a particular drug are deterred for even a second by drug laws? HOw many protesters in Iran have been silenced by their government?The revolution has already happened, the government just forgot to notice yet.

[strategy 4]

Sometimes the truth can be bothersome.

sorry, the CRA had nothing to do with this crisis. we have been over this a million times, there's literally no room for disagreement.

Really? So when the libertarians are correct for all the right reasons, they are still wrong? Interesting concept.

I have no idea how you get "the libertarians are wrong" from my post.

[brvheart 1,752]

sorry, the CRA had nothing to do with this crisis. we have been over this a million times, there's literally no room for disagreement.I have no idea how you get "the libertarians are wrong" from my post.

I don't know what the CRA is, and I've never said anything about Carter. I don't even remember anyone else saying anything about Carter.(Except for you) It was the dems in 2001-2003 that were pressuring banks to loosen lending standards to minorities and low income people. This is not disputable in any way.And according to my link, Barney Frank and company are doing it again.

[strategy 4]

I don't know what the CRA is, and I've never said anything about Carter. I don't even remember anyone else saying anything about Carter.(Except for you) It was the dems in 2001-2003 that were pressuring banks to loosen lending standards to minorities and low income people. This is not disputable in any way.And according to my link, Barney Frank and company are doing it again.

I should have just cut what I quoted down to the CRA part.frankly, I don't feel like debating the rest of the issue again.I think I have posted this before, but here it is again:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d5aa24e-23a4-11...144feabdc0.html

[dapokerbum 0]

The revolution has already happened, the government just forgot to notice yet.

I think the people of the united states forgot to notice too, because as far as I can tell NOTHING is changing except the faces of the government.

[hblask 1]

I think the people of the united states forgot to notice too, because as far as I can tell NOTHING is changing except the faces of the government.

You don't think the internet has changed our lives just a little?

[dapokerbum 0]

You don't think the internet has changed our lives just a little?

while I agree with the fact that there is more information, the song remains the same in that we are a complacent lot. I have posted before about the fact that there aren't any huge protests when something is awry. Generally it is rewarded with a "well why don't you organize a protest, that is your right" Which is my main point. Everyone wants someone else to do the dirty work. I actually have to provide for my family so I don't have time to get out there and start anything and i think that is the case with a lot of other people as well. We all mean well and we all want to see change in our lifetime, but with all the misinformation that we get from the government it seems amazing to me that there isn't more outrage.

[hblask 1]

while I agree with the fact that there is more information, the song remains the same in that we are a complacent lot. I have posted before about the fact that there aren't any huge protests when something is awry. Generally it is rewarded with a "well why don't you organize a protest, that is your right" Which is my main point. Everyone wants someone else to do the dirty work. I actually have to provide for my family so I don't have time to get out there and start anything and i think that is the case with a lot of other people as well. We all mean well and we all want to see change in our lifetime, but with all the misinformation that we get from the government it seems amazing to me that there isn't more outrage.

People don't care about government as much anymore because they have been quietly carving it out of their lives, in large part to our electronic world. In the past, if you wanted to gamble somewhere where the authorities said you can't, you had find a game, probably with disreputable people, and physically make your presence somewhere. Now you log in. This is just one tiny example. Sex, drugs, interpersonal contact, money -- there's an entire world outside what the government can see and will ever be able to see. This is a huge change that occurred in the last 10-15 years. They can pass all the laws they want, but we don't care because we just google how to get around it. We can save our energy for the really damaging stuff, like the auto bailouts and so-called "stimulus".

[Balloon guy 158]

Wait, what? A serious political post by BG that I completely agree with?

you smoked that Afghan expando bud too?Man I had two hot girls, both 17 when I was 14, invite me to their house to get high, they put in that Afghan expando bud and told me to be careful, which as we all know is code for you are going to get lucky if you can handle this weed.I took a big bong hit, and coughed for 15 minutes straight.They let me walk home....alone.It was the beginning of my belief in the republican party as stated above. And my desire to carpet bomb the middle east.

[antistuff 0]

you smoked that Afghan expando bud too?Man I had two hot girls, both 17 when I was 14, invite me to their house to get high, they put in that Afghan expando bud and told me to be careful, which as we all know is code for you are going to get lucky if you can handle this weed.I took a big bong hit, and coughed for 15 minutes straight.They let me walk home....alone.It was the beginning of my belief in the republican party as stated above. And my desire to carpet bomb the middle east.

like hitler and that jewish prostitute and syphilis or whatever. you make sense now.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

good luck, libertarians. (find a new spokesman)

True dat.

I mean, seriously, are there ANY republicans not cheating on their wives?

And I thought sex was a private thing that had nothing to do with a person's ability to do his/her job?

Only until one spends one's time yammering about "family values" and voting to deny some people rights because of who they have sex with. Then it matters a great deal about how you do your job, because you've chosen to make it part of your job. Remember the line "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion"?

I took a big bong hit, and coughed for 15 minutes straight.

Lucky you. I barfed for 30 minutes. After that, I figured out that I could be slow, smelly, and stupid for free and without breaking the law. Plus, I discovered LSD.

And so, for the sin of continually pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, libertarians are attacked as heartless bastards devoid of compassion for the less fortunate, despicable flacks for the rich or for business interests, unthinking dogmatists who place blind faith in the free market, or, at best, members of the lunatic fringe.

No, they get attacked for this because they generally are all of those things. If they could point out the emperor's nudity without these traits, they'd have a fighting chance as a party. No offense to Hblask because he's very thoughtful and willing to examine his own platform critically, but this statement totally applies to dogmatic Beck-atarians.

[Balloon guy 158]

Only until one spends one's time yammering about "family values" and voting to deny some people rights because of who they have sex with. Then it matters a great deal about how you do your job, because you've chosen to make it part of your job. Remember the line "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion"?

Okay, so Republicans claim a virtue and fall short often.Democrats claim no virtue and achieve it most of the time.If you're happy with that, then I'm happy with that

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Actually, it works for me.

[hblask 1]

No, they get attacked for this because they generally are all of those things. If they could point out the emperor's nudity without these traits, they'd have a fighting chance as a party. No offense to Hblask because he's very thoughtful and willing to examine his own platform critically, but this statement totally applies to dogmatic Beck-atarians.

If people are starting to think Beck is what it means to be libertarian, he is setting libertarian thought back to the 1920s, and I hate him even more.I'm libertarian because I am compassionate, not because I lack compassion.

[strategy 4]

If people are starting to think Beck is what it means to be libertarian, he is setting libertarian thought back to the 1920s, and I hate him even more.I'm libertarian because I am compassionate, not because I lack compassion.

you actually seem pretty angry most of the time

[Nimue1995 1]

you actually seem pretty angry most of the time

H angry? I think you must be confusing him with LMD.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

If people are starting to think Beck is what it means to be libertarian, he is setting libertarian thought back to the 1920s, and I hate him even more.I'm libertarian because I am compassionate, not because I lack compassion.

I don't doubt your compassion, but here's the challenge for libertarians:

And so, for the sin of continually pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, libertarians are attacked as heartless bastards devoid of compassion for the less fortunate, despicable flacks for the rich or for business interests, unthinking dogmatists who place blind faith in the free market, or, at best, members of the lunatic fringe.

1. 1) What is the libertarian vision of a social safety net? Would it change if the country found itself in the midst of a depression like the 1930s, when many millions of people needed those services?2) What steps would libertarians take to stem corporate abuses? Is destroying the value of your employees' pensions, a la Enron, a crime for which a libertarian would jail a corporate executive?3) What is the libertarian critique of the free market?

We all know the emperor has no clothes, but the libertarians come with so much baggage we aren't interested in getting aboard that train. It won't be until libertarians can articulate answers to those three questions that sound intuitively right and fair to most American voters (who really vote on their gut and not on intellectually rigorous platforms) that the party will see any progress.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

If people are starting to think Beck is what it means to be libertarian, he is setting libertarian thought back to the 1920s, and I hate him even more.

[hblask 1]

1. 1) What is the libertarian vision of a social safety net? Would it change if the country found itself in the midst of a depression like the 1930s, when many millions of people needed those services?2) What steps would libertarians take to stem corporate abuses? Is destroying the value of your employees' pensions, a la Enron, a crime for which a libertarian would jail a corporate executive?3) What is the libertarian critique of the free market?

First, if you are looking to the libertarian party, you are unlikely to get answers. The LP is like a Star Trek convention for political junkies. Instead, look to the people who live their lives honestly, caring about their family, friends, and community. They are already giving you the answer.1. The social safety net works it way up from the bottom, not top down. When something goes wrong in your life, do you say "Gee, I wish I had a federal bureaucrat here."? Or do you turn to friends and family and church and community? Guess what -- that's what all honest, hard-working people do. The people who turn to the federal government first are the people that you least want to help. I have no problem with community resources, and to a certain degree a state safety net. A federal safety net is a joke. New Orleans is still recovering from all the "help" the feds gave. Is that what moral, compassionate people offer, or do we offer them a community of close-knit, caring people? Yes, the two are mutually exclusive, as we saw in New Orleans, when the feds actively prevented community groups from rebuilding, and continue to do so to this day.2. Corporate crime, such as Enron, are treated like any crime -- you arrest, prosecute, and jail the guilty people. I'm not sure why people think that libertarians believe corporate crimes should be excused, since I've never heard of a single libertarian anywhere who has said anything resembling that. 3. That's a pretty vague question, so I'm not even sure what you are asking.

[checkymcfold 0]

oooh oooh question time!1. what is the difference between a government bureaucrat and a corporate (private) bureaucrat?2. is any form of impingement upon a hyperbolically free market bad? if not, which sorts of constraints are to be considered valid, and which aren't?3a. what are the criteria by which one ought to judge the health of the economy?3b. how are those criteria linked to the public good?3c. what exactly do we mean by the public good? is this strictly an economic term?

[akoff 0]

Welcolm back Mr. Stalin....great to see you again. Must have finally thawed out in buffalo.

[hblask 1]

oooh oooh question time!1. what is the difference between a government bureaucrat and a corporate (private) bureaucrat?

A corporate bureaucrat has to get people to voluntarily give him money. A government bureaucrat takes it by force of law. An inefficient corporate bureaucrat will, over time, go away. An inefficient government bureaucrat will blame the failure on lack of funding and give themselves a budget increase. If we don't like what the corporate bureaucrat is doing, we can ignore them. If we don't like what the federal bureaucrat is doing, we have to go along anyway.Those are just the main ones, there are hundreds more if you like.

2. is any form of impingement upon a hyperbolically free market bad? if not, which sorts of constraints are to be considered valid, and which aren't?

The constraints are force and fraud, mainly. We can also impose constraints for negative externalities, which is neither force nor fraud but causes harm to unsuspecting and unwilling others. We can spend a fair amount of time arguing about what constitutes fraud. For example, can a credit card, in fine print on page 7 of the disclosures, say that there is a $100 fee each year if you don't use the credit card 30 or more times? I say no, that's too important of a clause to hide in pages of fine print, which few can be expected to read. Companies can be expected to disclose relevant information in a meaningful way, even though not doing so is not technically lying or force.

3a. what are the criteria by which one ought to judge the health of the economy?

Since the government should not attempt to manipulate the health of the economy, it really shouldn't matter. The government's job is to protect us from force and fraud and to enforce contractual obligations. The economy is just millions of people making tiny decisions, not grand pronouncements froma few egotistical central planners.

3b. how are those criteria linked to the public good?

N/A

3c. what exactly do we mean by the public good? is this strictly an economic term?

I would say the public good is a system in which we have predictable safety, as described in 3A above. We need to be able to 1. be safe in our homes and private lives, 2. not get ripped off by thugs or trickery, and 3. be able to make long term plans, all in a fair and equitable justice system that is blind to which particular individual it is dealing with.I don't know if that's an economic term, it's more of a legal framework, I guess.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

First, if you are looking to the libertarian party, you are unlikely to get answers. The LP is like a Star Trek convention for political junkies. Instead, look to the people who live their lives honestly, caring about their family, friends, and community. They are already giving you the answer.1. The social safety net works it way up from the bottom, not top down. When something goes wrong in your life, do you say "Gee, I wish I had a federal bureaucrat here."? Or do you turn to friends and family and church and community? Guess what -- that's what all honest, hard-working people do. The people who turn to the federal government first are the people that you least want to help. I have no problem with community resources, and to a certain degree a state safety net. A federal safety net is a joke. New Orleans is still recovering from all the "help" the feds gave. Is that what moral, compassionate people offer, or do we offer them a community of close-knit, caring people? Yes, the two are mutually exclusive, as we saw in New Orleans, when the feds actively prevented community groups from rebuilding, and continue to do so to this day.

Minus all the moralistic language, you're placing a lot of faith in the idea that such a patchwork of unrelated, non-communicating do-gooders scattered across the US would not have gaps through which people will fall. Why is reinventing the wheel over and over and over in every community better than centralizing and making a clearinghouse for wheel users? Studies have shown that church-based help is discriminatory against drug users, gays, minorities, non-believers, etc. Isn't the kind of safety net you envision highly inefficient?

2. Corporate crime, such as Enron, are treated like any crime -- you arrest, prosecute, and jail the guilty people. I'm not sure why people think that libertarians believe corporate crimes should be excused, since I've never heard of a single libertarian anywhere who has said anything resembling that.

The problem is, there are libertarians who would argue that destroying investors and retirees are not actually crimes in themselves. In other words, if you implode the company without proveable evidence of crime, then you walk away, no matter what happens to pensioners.

3. That's a pretty vague question, so I'm not even sure what you are asking.

What do libertarians believe are the weaknesses and drawbacks of a free market? Where do libertarians believe the free market is insufficient? Where do they believe it fails? Do they believe there are things that people should place above a free market; i.e., things which, if a choice had to be made between market freedom and X, X should prevail every time?The communist critique of the free market is that it crushes and oppresses the people. The capitalist critique is that small businesses need protection from larger ones, so that they can compete more fairly. What is the libertarian critique?

[hblask 1]

Minus all the moralistic language, you're placing a lot of faith in the idea that such a patchwork of unrelated, non-communicating do-gooders scattered across the US would not have gaps through which people will fall. Why is reinventing the wheel over and over and over in every community better than centralizing and making a clearinghouse for wheel users? Studies have shown that church-based help is discriminatory against drug users, gays, minorities, non-believers, etc. Isn't the kind of safety net you envision highly inefficient?

My faith in decentralized solutions has a long history of success, and any remaining faith in central planning can only be based on ignorance of actual results. Reinventing the wheel is efficient because even if someone came up with the exact perfect solution for this moment, in 5 minutes, that solution is obsolete. Plus, the problems of NYC are no relation to the problems in Hawkins, WI, so a federal bureaucracy that claims to create a one-size-fits-all solution will miss at least one of them completely, and probably both.And yes, certain charities discriminate against certain potential clients, which is another reason why they are more efficient at meeting community needs. If the federal government makes a one-size-fits-all rule that the community objects to, we have now created a situation in which that community is WORSE off than without federal help. Instead, localized solutions will tend to reflect the values of the local community and encourage community involvement and a sense of cohesion.

The problem is, there are libertarians who would argue that destroying investors and retirees are not actually crimes in themselves. In other words, if you implode the company without proveable evidence of crime, then you walk away, no matter what happens to pensioners.

If you destroy the company through force or fraud, there is not a libertarian in the world who would say that person should not be punished. The other side doesn't seem reasonable under any circumstances -- that people are punished for attempting to do their best. What kind of a chilling effect would that have on our standard of living if giving an honest try and failing were to become illegal? That's not seriously what you are proposing, are you?

What do libertarians believe are the weaknesses and drawbacks of a free market? Where do libertarians believe the free market is insufficient? Where do they believe it fails? Do they believe there are things that people should place above a free market; i.e., things which, if a choice had to be made between market freedom and X, X should prevail every time?The communist critique of the free market is that it crushes and oppresses the people. The capitalist critique is that small businesses need protection from larger ones, so that they can compete more fairly. What is the libertarian critique?

I don't know that there possibly could be a value higher than "getting the maximum number of people the closest approximation of what they want as possible". Certainly there are side issues, such as pollution, that need to be dealt with fairly. At times community issues need to be balanced against total economic freedom, but I think we'd need a compelling case, and in the majority of cases under current law there just isn't.I don't think I've ever heard that capitalist critique you mention, and don't see any particular reason why it should be true. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The communist critique is hilarious in its irony. I don't think libertarians have any particular critique of markets that does not apply to any part of human nature -- that sometimes people are mean or dishonest or cruel.