Republicans don't want small government, they want a fascist police state and a corrupt military industrial complex to oppress people around the world to steal their shit while funding profitable wars for their contractors.
I think the last 2 people who wanted small government and balanced budgets were like John McCain (dead) and John Kasich (retired, but endorsed Joe Biden in 2020) and they're no longer relevant.
Honestly, as a party, they need to go. I want an opposition party to the Democrats, but they're not it. Hell, America really needs ranked choice voting and more open primaries, and probably 4 major political parties.
Hence the meme where the Republican party kills the Libertarians
and probably 4 major political parties.
George Washington was generally against political parties, but especially opposed to bicameralism.
Interesting, the only thing that sets apart the US from being another Russia is the fact that the GOP has to switch with the democratic party every few years
Хаха, нет, даже не близко
I don't respect conservatives. Someone who votes Republican is either ignorant of what their party is doing, is willing to look the other way, or is actively encouraging it. None of these traits are admirable, or respectable.
Republicans run on the campaign that government doesn't work, and once they are in power they prove it.
Libertarianism is the ideology of the childish and selfish, it is the ideology of putting oneself and one's own interests before everything else, just dressed up in pretty words about "liberty".
A nice word that Rothbart stole from Anarchists to use for his capital-Feudalism
It makes me a sad left a libertarian/anarchist.
Used to call myself Libertarian at one point. Then I grew up and realized most "Libertarians" are a group of morons who would get eaten by the wealthy if the world suddenly switched over to their ideal "Libertarian" society. You think the gap is bad between the rich and poor now? Let "Libertarian" ideals run amok for a decade....
I kept misreading it as librarians which really confused me xD
I do think libertarianism has some principles and concepts that are valuable, I would have even called myself libertarian-ish at certain points, but over the years it's fallen into a similar bucket as communism from my perspective.
It's an attractive system until you start introducing the people.
I did call myself a libertarian at a certain point. Then I realized it's trash. The political philosophy itself is stupid.
"Liberty is the most fundamental right." Why? Who says? Why not...idk, caring for others and being cared for in return?
It's an ideology of selfishness fundamentally. And it only makes sense that it was started by a bunch of selfish rich assholes, the same people who champion it now.
I can't speak for everyone but I don't see much out there that gives me the ground to tell someone else how to live their life. So until it affects me or someone else, I have a hard time justifying violence, which is where the "live and let live" thing comes from.
I think that gets a lot of people in the door, and then the reality gets messy. But I don't think that central principle is trash. And the first part of caring for someone else is recognizing their rights as an individual. It's why the party was the first to include marriage equality explicitly as part of their platform nearly four decades before democrats. When democratic presidents and presidential candidates were pushing DOMA, libertarians had had as a tent pole for decades already. And that is the fundamental difference: it's not good enough to have a government that agrees good things are good, they can change their mind and have a bad track record. The libertarian view is that it ought to be a high-bar for anyone to presume the ability to intrude on what's your business alone.
So yes, there's a lot of mess where the rubber meets the road, but there's a lot of good there. A lot of people eventually realize as nice and simple as what I just said above is, there's very precious little in this world that is exclusively "your business alone". Still, the principles a good enough starting point, and you'll find a lot of people are pretty open to things if they're a net positive and applied equitably. You'll find a lot of libertarians that are way more opposed to subsidizing the likes of lockheed martin than they are about medicare for all or food stamps. Hell, there are people that still consider themselves libertarians who are proponents of UBI.
I had hoped the party would siphon off some of the more reasonable republicans rather than catch the crazy itself. Sadly that's not how it played out. Add that to the crazies ("age of consent is a violation of my rights!"), and I 100% get your take. But man... I don't know about you but I'd sleep much better in a Garry Johnson/Biden election than a DeSantis/Biden election.
It's the sort of thing that people think they are until they look around and it's just people who don't want to pay taxes, and by extension believe that poor people deserve to die.
Republicans are just libertarians who've realised they can weaponise the crazies to win elections.
Libertarianism is a very wide spectrum and isn't really nailed down to a single ideology. There's forms of socialism, capitalism, and communism with libertarian counterparts.
I don't really say this outloud because people get the wrong idea but I consider myself a libertarian, but I do not associate with any party (especially not the de facto american libertarian party)
My beliefs are this:
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You should be free to do as you wish that does not impede on the freedoms of others. For instance, you should be free to use substances as you wish, but you shouldn't be free to operate a motor vehicle or heavy machinery under the influence because it is dangerous and could injure or kill someone, therefore impeding their freedoms.
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The government should have minimal involvement in regulating the people, and the people themselves play a role in governing the country. Get rid of the electoral college, popular vote should be the way to win elections.
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I have absolutely nothing against taxes, but I think the people should have a choice on where their tax dollars go on an individual level. Everyone gets a budget set accordingly to their income, and the individual chooses (at least a percentage) of where their tax dollars go. Every year when tax time comes, you record this to be audited. This way the government can still allocate funds where needed, but they can't overinflate anything's budget without the approval of the people, or vice versa. BTW, no tax cuts for "charitable donations", if you truly wish to be charitable, then you can donate along with your taxes :).
This is unironically the best approach in my opinion. Not looking to start a debate or anything, just thought I'd give my .02. I know the system may not be perfect, but no system is.
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Things aren't just black and white and I wish people didn't feel like they had to pick teams. I lean towards liberalism/socialism when it comes to social issues but I lean more libertarian when it comes to economic issues.
And unfortunately it has been co-opted by the right, like so many other things. They claimed the banner, and fly the flag, while embodying none of the beliefs. If you say you're a libertarian in America, people automatically assume you're Alt-Right, despite the fact that Noam Chomsky is a libertarian, or more accurately a libertarian socialist, or an anarcho-syndicalist.
What's chomsky's solution for bears?
The funniest part of this is the part where we assume libertarians are being honest and acting in good faith
Libertarians are just Republicans who are embarrassed to admit it.
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I'm just going to post this article every time a libertarian post makes it to the front page now. Yes, libertarian taking over a New Hampshire town only to get overrun by feral bears will never stop being funny.
https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
Libertarians are just Republicans wearing silly hats.
The panda-rabbit should be a leopard.
The mental illness is strong
It’s weird seeing American “libertarians”. In Australia, the Liberal Democrat Party were the first to support same sex marriage and drug decriminalisation (even before the far-left Greens) and have long supported peoples right to decide for themselves on euthanasia and abortion. They’ve been the only voice against the governments overreach on internet filtering and their power to secretly force companies to write backdoors into their software. So basically the opposite of American “libertarians”.
After winning some seats about 8-10 years ago, the major parties realised they could marginalise the LDP on issues like gun control, which most Australians know nothing about but support with blind enthusiasm anyway. So we’re back to the stats-quo of 4 parties, Lib/Nat vs Labor/Greens.
Libertarianism in the US is all about personal liberty, basically about being able to do whatever they want and fuck anyone else's needs or desires.
Similar thing with the Lib Dems here in the UK. More socially progressive than Labour, and in theory "centrist" on economics but were also arguably more progressive than even Corbyns Labour. Then as soon as they won a decent amount of seats both the right and left wing media dragged them through the mud to stop them being a threat to the 2 party system that theve invested tons of money into controlling.
American libertarians will say they support things like gay rights and drug decriminalization but they will never actually vote in a way that creates change. They will vote for the Republican that claims to want small government but does nothing to further that ideology. Even if that politician is actively fighting against other causes that libertarians claim to give a damn about.
elites rather
If anyone here lives in KS hit me up and you can meet the locals. It's a lot different than it was 15 years ago.
Comic doesn't really scan considering Libertarian is an ideology that's indistinguishable from being a Republican when you scratch the surface.
It's funny because capital created big governments.
US American Democrats aren't much better. I mean, sure, pro-choice, environmental policies, etc, but their economic policies? Haven't been great for the working class at least since Bill Clinton's era.
*It seems like I have to explain myself, I'm a socialist. I'm very left leaning, very pro regulations, it doesn't trickle down. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, he was very openly Neoliberal. (And, btw, Don't Ask Don't Tell was also from his era). Obama, however charming, did little to bring the dignity of work back to the US, he instead played the respectability politics, pull yourself up by the bootstraps through higher education (which was not available for everyone).
Our progressives still have to be fairly conservative to pull in the swing voters we need to keep batshit Republicans at bay. The Overton window has some fucking miles on it here in the US
It's often a push and pull. The US "progressives" was pulled to the right, which pushed the "conservatives" further to the right. From the outside looking in, it seems that the new anti-abortion laws are proving to be unpopular, which might just pull conservatives back to the centre of this particular issue, and then the progressives can go further left again.
For activism, whichever side you're on, they must always ask for a lot right now, to get a little very soon. It goes both ways.
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It's their firearms policy for me, the economic stuff is just the icing on the cake. I'm literally in the industry, so I know a thing or two about firearms and the laws regarding them, and watching the democrat party be so wrong about the basic functionality of a semi auto rifle or the current laws we already have, or what the one they're proposing will do (spoiler alert: it'll disproportionately affect minorities just like drug laws and stop and frisk) that they're either intentionally misleading the public or have no business making decisions on the matter as they are woefully uninformed has made it so now I can't trust anything they say. It'd be like if you know a lot about cars and then I come on talking about how a catback makes your car faster and more deadly should you try to Charlestown someone so we need to ban them, immediately you'd know I'm a moron and disregard everything I say, same for the entire dem party and firearms.
This is my prediction. After the GOP crashes and burns, the Chris Christie/Mike Pence wing will do a hostile takeover of the Libertarian Party. They are already on the ballot in every state, so that would be easier than building a new party from scratch.
Your optimism is unwarranted. 😥
Yep
All political parties eat the common man. Republican Democrats all fucking bastards
Many people say this but then you have a party that's trying to get students out of debt and another that's trying to fuck students over when they find the time to take a break from their hollocaust against anything LGBTQ+. It's bullshit. One side is so very clearly worse here.
"fuck students over" lol the same students who championed lockdowns, the same students who took out a loan for a liberal arts degree in the first place. Let me ask you this - are the students going to pay for the construction workers Osha training? Are they going to pay for the cement workers personal tools?
Paying back debt is a part of being a fiscally responsible adult. They should learn to leverage their tools to get a job instead of expecting everyone else to take care of shit for them.
In the Democrat version the lion says "let me out you Ailurophobe!" then murders the rabbit, wears its skin, and follows up with "would you oppress me? I'd oppress me"
When conservatives try to mock opinions to their political left by spouting bizarre nonsense that doesn't make sense, they are trying to discredit those opinions by implying they are also bizarre nonsense that doesn't make sense. However, since many times those opinions aren't bizarre and do make sense to anyone who tries to understand them, the only long term effect of the attempt to discredit those opinions is the impression that conservatives do not understand anything, their political opponents least of all.
This comment is a good example of that, because it is definitely nonsense.
