[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgTnjTm3YhQ]YouTube - What it means to be a libertarian[/ame]

 

Can we get a Libertarian club up in here?

"Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure."

One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed (1886)

libertarian here

oh yeah

 

I belong to a local group, but they always have meetings when I can't attend :angry:

Liberals and Conservatives are at most levels not the same. Perhaps only basic biology is shared in common.

Government that is the arbiter of fair play is what is needed, not shrinking government down to some hamstrung institution, nor allowing government to become a corrupt tool of the plutocracy.

Libertarianism is a nice ideal, but it's impractical. Get rid of the requirement of a driver's license? No agencies to oversee food safety? At-your-own risk banking?

Been there, done that, not going back to the bad old days!

I think I'd be considered libertarian. I mean I'm for all free rights, but also be fiscally conservative. So yeah... I'll join.

Liberals and Conservatives are at most levels not the same. Perhaps only basic biology is shared in common.

Government that is the arbiter of fair play is what is needed, not shrinking government down to some hamstrung institution, nor allowing government to become a corrupt tool of the plutocracy.

Libertarianism is a nice ideal, but it's impractical. Get rid of the requirement of a driver's license? No agencies to oversee food safety? At-your-own risk banking?

Been there, done that, not going back to the bad old days!

 

lol if you lived by the massive retirement community that I do, you'd realize drivers licenses are useless when nobody can drive.

 

At your own risk banking, we have at everyones risk banking now, hurting almost everyone in the country. Obviously what we have isn't working

Liberals and Conservatives are at most levels not the same. Perhaps only basic biology is shared in common.

Government that is the arbiter of fair play is what is needed, not shrinking government down to some hamstrung institution, nor allowing government to become a corrupt tool of the plutocracy.

Libertarianism is a nice ideal, but it's impractical. Get rid of the requirement of a driver's license? No agencies to oversee food safety? At-your-own risk banking?

Been there, done that, not going back to the bad old days!

 

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

 

I don't want the so-called 'services' which are forcibly imposed upon me by the government. I want a world in which I can freely choose my own services.

A question to all the libertarians on this board:

 

Do you believe that we should not pay taxes and that everything should be privatized?

A question to all the libertarians on this board:

 

Do you believe that we should not pay taxes and that everything should be privatized? [/color]

Ideally, yes. But obviously something like that couldn't happen all at once, that would probably cause a little bit of chaos.

 

Baby steps. Slow and steady wins the race. Et cetera, et cetera.

A question to all the libertarians on this board:

 

Do you believe that we should not pay taxes and that everything should be privatized? [/color]

 

Ideally, yes. However, not all libertarians share that viewpoint. Libertarians just want less taxes, less government intervention, and more personal freedoms. That said, some Libertarians want to get rid of government intervention and taxation altogether. There's nothing that the government can provide which can't be provided by the private sector. For example, the government doesn't build roads; they hire private contractors to build the roads for them. Why can't the people pay the contractors directly?

Ideally, yes.

 

omg we must be twins :drunk:

omg we must be twins :drunk:

 

Hahaha awesomeness. :cool3:

Ideally, yes. But obviously something like that couldn't happen all at once, that would probably cause a little bit of chaos.

 

Baby steps. Slow and steady wins the race. Et cetera, et cetera.

 

Ideally, yes. However, not all libertarians share that viewpoint. Libertarians just want less taxes, less government intervention, and more personal freedoms. That said, some Libertarians want to get rid of government intervention and taxation altogether. There's nothing that the government can provide which can't be provided by the private sector. For example, the government doesn't build roads; they hire private contractors to build the roads for them. Why can't the people pay the contractors directly?

 

I personally find that view point very unrealistic

 

my major problem with privatizing everything is:

 

the only thing that companies want is to make a profit, a company does not care about the welfare of individuals and/or about the welfare of our planet. Their only goal is to make a profit.

 

Without someone regulating the private companies I fear that the companies and their practices will go out of hand - I think some level of regulation is necessary.

 

And as for taxes I personally feel everyone should have access to good schooling, healthcare, clean drinking water and all the other necessities of life.

If we privatize these things than only the rich will be able to acquire them - and I feel that if we are too live in a good and productive society then EVERYONE should have at least their most fundamentals needs met.

 

I feel libertarians look at the world through a very middle class/rich perspective - I can't imagine someone who is a minority or someone who is poor having a libertarian view point

Without someone regulating the private companies I fear that the companies and their practices will go out of hand - I think some level of regulation is necessary.

 

Your fear is quite common (in fact I'd say 90 to 98% of adults think like you do). It's simply a matter of not thinking things through. It's similar to "Of course the earth is round, but only in certain places (where there are hills). On the whole, the earth is still flat!"

 

Think about what a government is:

 

It is a monopoly security corporation.

 

Think about how you (and your fellow citizens) "control" the government:

 

You drop slips of paper into boxes, hoping they'll be counted. Then you hope whoever wins the most slips of paper will do something you wanted him to do.

 

Think about what a law is:

 

It's a threat. If the citizen chooses to ignore it, he will be punished. If he refuses to be punished, he will be killed.

 

Corporations, businesses, etc... sure they do bad things on occasion. But they don't start wars that end up killing hundreds of millions of innocent people. They don't create man-made famines and gas ethnic groups. They don't steal 33%+ of your money every year.

 

If you don't like a corporation, you can shop somewhere else. If you don't like a government... you're dead.

I personally find that view point very unrealistic

 

my major problem with privatizing everything is:

 

the only thing that companies want is to make a profit, a company does not care about the welfare of individuals and/or about the welfare of our planet. Their only goal is to make a profit.

 

In order to make a profit, a company has to make its customers happy! It's as simple as that. No company is going to succeed if it doesn't do something to enhance the lives of its customers. Kind of a non-argument there. As far as the planet is concerned, most companies nowadays are 'going green' by their own initiative, not because of some silly law. As a customer, do you prefer to buy products from a company that helps the environment, or from one who hurts it? Most consumers, including myself, are more likely to purchase a product when we know the company isn't hurting the environment.

 

Without someone regulating the private companies I fear that the companies and their practices will go out of hand - I think some level of regulation is necessary.

 

And as for taxes I personally feel everyone should have access to good schooling, healthcare, clean drinking water and all the other necessities of life.

If we privatize these things than only the rich will be able to acquire them - and I feel that if we are too live in a good and productive society then EVERYONE should have at least their most fundamentals needs met.

 

In a privatized school system, the schools would have more of an incentive to get their students good standardized test scores and, in the future, good jobs. Some schools would be better and thus more expensive, however, just like private universities today, they would offer financial aid in order to attract the brightest students. Plenty of affordable schools would pop up, and free schools, paid for by charity money, would also exist. Public schooling isn't necessarily a good thing anyway; only some countries have 'good' public schools. In many countries, especially in South America, the public schools are terrible anyway, and really don't do much to help prepare the students for a good career. Health, security, and many other services would function in essentially the same fashion.

 

I feel libertarians look at the world through a very middle class/rich perspective - I can't imagine someone who is a minority or someone who is poor having a libertarian view point

 

http://aypcghana.org/

I think that government should be off most things but there are some things that I think should be run or at least under some influence of the government in terms of regulation and giving guidelines.

 

 

But I do think that companies should be able to compete against each others. And also making things private as mentioned will probably make things go faster because companies are always looking to make more money.

A few more questions directed at all the libertarians that have replied thus far:

 

1. What can we do in a libertarian society if a company is dumping toxic waste in rivers and oceans, if a company is using child labour and if a company is discriminating its employees based on race/colour/gender/sexual orientation etc...

 

2. In a libertarian society what can we do if an asteroid is going to hit the Earth, what can we do about Global Warming, what can we do about other natural disasters?

 

3. In a libertarian society how can we help the poor and the needy?

 

4. and lastly in a libertarian society what can we do if we are attacked and if someone wages war against us. How would a libertarian society respond to the threat of Hitler and/or September 11?

1. Who owns the river?

 

What do you do if a river is flowing through two countries, and one country (upstream) is dumping toxic waste into the river so it flows downstream into the other country? Do those countries go to war? Kill hundreds of thousands of people?

 

Or do they make an agreement? Think about this.

 

Child labor only exists because it is necessary for the survival of the family unit. Children aren't forced to work unless the economy is so technologically-primitive that it can barely produce enough to feed them. As an economy progresses, child labor becomes unnecessary.

 

Discrimination will occur, sure. Customers can discriminate, too. A law is not going to magically make people love each other. That's a cultural thing.

 

2. I'm not sure. What can we do about those things now? Not much. Do you think Obama will build a time machine? Does he have a magic formula for preventing Earthquakes?

 

3. We start by spending $7,000,000,000,000 on a couple of wars in the middle east. Oh wait, nevermind.

 

4. How would a government respond to September 11? Wasn't there a government around when that happened? What did it do to prevent it? Oh, right: nothing.

 

Hitler... we have nukes now.