Libertarian Party Goes Crazy

[Cheerful Charlie]

Inequality in America. The rich get richer, the poor get the shaft. Vulture capitalism, crony capitalism in all its glory.

 

[laughing dog]

Government always sounds like a religion to me. Government can fix anything, if you just have faith in it. Regulation is just another hand of god to set things right. And every time it fails, the excuses tend to be that the example is not truly regulation, because some deregulation exists somewhere.

No back to actual discourse, instead of banal stupidity (and my mockery of banal stupidity).

So when is it free market and when is it crony capitalism? There's got to be a way to distinguish between the two. If I provide such a distinction, idiots will say I'm talking religion, so I guess it is up to others to try to help distinguish between the two.

Free markets are just another hand of god to set things right. Something wrong? Deregulate or lower taxes.

No back to actual discourse just a recitation of the stupid magical intonation of "free markets" or "freedom".

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Government is just another hand of god to set things right. Something wrong? Regulate or raise taxes.

If I ever need a banal argument, I can always count on you LD.

 

[marc]

took a peek and wow!

Where have I seen this kind of arguing before?..... Oh yea, with creationists. When called out on their religious bullshit, they try and accuse evolution of being a religion. (ignoring tones of data, facts, nuance, etc.) So yea, free market capitalism is a religion, with its True Believers, and plenty of con-men preaching it while lining their pockets.

 

[laughing dog]

Government is just another hand of god to set things right. Something wrong? Regulate or raise taxes.

Ah, repetition of the banal and stupid libertarian mantra.

If I ever need a banal argument, I can always count on you LD. I'll just make a post.

FIFY

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Government is just another hand of god to set things right. Something wrong? Regulate or raise taxes.

If I ever need a banal argument, I can always count on you LD.

Governments run the gamat from incompetent (Russia, Afghanistan) to pretty competent (Scandanavian nations) and points inbetween. Thanks to the GOP, ours is getting worse by the year.

 

[laughing dog]

Government is just another hand of god to set things right. Something wrong? Regulate or raise taxes.

If I ever need a banal argument, I can always count on you LD.

Governments run the gamat from incompetent (Russia, Afghanistan) to pretty competent (Scandanavian nations) and points inbetween. Thanks to the GOP, ours is getting worse by the year.

Moreover, libertarians believe in enforceable property rights which require laws or custom. Laws mean government (another hand of god). Laws or custom regulate behavior. So the notion that regulation is necessarily bad is incredibly "naive" or hypocritical on the part of libertarians.

 

[Swammerdami]

The 'Free Market' always sounds like a religion to me. The 'Free Market' can fix anything, if you just have faith in it. The 'invisible hand' is just another hand of god to set things right. And every time it fails, the excuses tend to be that the example is not a truly free market, because some regulation exists somewhere.

Some of the claimed benefits do seem reasonable when you get closer to perfect competition, such as business trying to produce better products to edge out the other. But with laissez faire capitalism the market tends towards the monopoly end of the spectrum instead. The free market delusion also seems to require customers to be near omnipotent in knowing when a business is providing an inferior or even dangerous product.

Marc's post reminds me of a must-read 1999 opinion "The Market as God." Enjoy.

Smells of old man yells at cloud. But it is the pulse. The libertarian amounts to "you can't tell me what to do!" because they want to smoke pot or drive fast or drive drunk. But then they want to regulate business in a way that is quite antithetical to libertarian or even classic liberal capital philosophy. What it boils to is that they are generally discontent, fearful, and think that The Powers That Be have taken everything from them to give to the undesiring. Strange thing is, many of them decry the billionaire class but don't see the problem with the Trump/McConnell/Ryan tax give away or all of Trumps industry shill cabinet picks. They think AOC is part of the plot to get them.

There are various "schools" of libertarian "thought" (if you'll ignore the oxymorons). Most recent perhaps are ordinary Trumpists or QAnoners who know their intelligent friends will laugh at Trump voters, so stick their noses in the air and smugly announce, truthfully or not, that they vote third-party.

Government always sounds like a religion to me. Government can fix anything, if you just have faith in it. Regulation is just another hand of god to set things right. And every time it fails, the excuses tend to be that the example is not truly regulation, because some deregulation exists somewhere.

No back to actual discourse, instead of banal stupidity (and my mockery of banal stupidity).

So when is it free market and when is it crony capitalism? There's got to be a way to distinguish between the two. If I provide such a distinction, idiots will say I'm talking religion, so I guess it is up to others to try to help distinguish between the two.

Instead of anything substantive, are we quibbling that "crony capitalism" is sometimes used to describe each of TWO pathologies of capitalism? And then — despite the triviality and unimportance of the phrase's double usage — bitterly refusing to answer a question? That's our Jason!

Hi, Jason. It's been weeks now: Have you ever figured out what will be used for money after the FedRes is eliminated? Rand Paul has moved on, and Alex Jones is in trouble, so you may have to figure this one out by yourself.

 

[senor boogie woogie]

Like I said, I follow Libertarianism and do have some Libertarian ideals. I do believe in small government for example.

Problem is that Libertarians believe in NO government. Interestingly, the format is for the candidates for the Presidential nomination actually have a debate before the delegates (which are in a rented hall in a hotel). One can find these debates online and they are entertaining and mostly batshit crazy. One question was, should people be required to have driver licenses. Four out of five said HELL NO, they have a right of movement and the government has no right to impede that. The only one who thought driver licenses were sane was the front runner and eventual nominee Gary Johnson. Now, I love Gary. If I were in America in 2016, he would have gotten my vote. But Gary.....is sort of an idiot (politically and philophically, he made millions as a builder/businessman from nothing). When Gary Johnson is the voice of reason, you know the other guys were whack jobs.

I would love to go to an LP convention if it was in a marijuana legal state and go party with these people for a weekend. It is sort of cosplay but instead of science fiction or superheros, its politics. Be fun to smoke a few bowls with them and rap, or go to the bar. It is a political nerdfest.

But I do believe in some of Libertarianism. It is sort of like Bernie Sanders being a Socialist, but not a Stalinist. Bernie wants everyone to have health care, not everyone on a collective farm fearing the Gulag.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Government always sounds like a religion to me. Government can fix anything, if you just have faith in it. Regulation is just another hand of god to set things right. And every time it fails, the excuses tend to be that the example is not truly regulation, because some deregulation exists somewhere.

This would be a strawman... also indicative that you can't address the flaws pointed out in capitalism and reliance on the "free market".

Reliance on government isn't the deal here. There is no silver bullet. Don't trust the government (they are incompetent and even in good times, they are usually powerless), but trust the people less than that (they are stupid and easily swayed by snake oil salesman), and trust corporations even less than that (some will do anything for a buck).

We are imperfect and there will be no perfect solution. What we can do, however, is learn from our errors, like going away from the gold standard, no being isolationist during an economic downturn, understanding the regulations and certifications equalize the playing field for businesses (Pringles, ice milk/frozen dairy dessert/food quality).

The "free market" is just a vague idealization, it isn't real. It is effectively saying "let nature take its course", where its course involves flooding out a city.