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Libertarianism is the political philosophy which holds that I have the right to do whatever I want, and other people have the right to do whatever I want.
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Jul 9, 2021 17:49
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Hi everyone, newbie-ish lurker from a Nordic welfare state here. I've finally managed to read through most of this thread and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their contributions (especially Caros), be they providing examples of libertarian madness, dunking on that intellectual and moral void Jrod or providing thoughtful analyses about society, economy and politics.
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Jul 10, 2021 10:50
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Warden posted:Hi everyone, newbie-ish lurker from a Nordic welfare state here. Welcome, Nordic person. Most of us, unfortunately, are members of crumbling hyper-capitalist nations such as Canada, Britain and the US. Please try not to make us jealous. I've read through this thread before from start to end and I've found it very helpful to not actually read anything that jrodefeld/polymathy/whoeverthefuck posts. I only read the responses to him because what he actually posts has all of the actual content of the whitespace between two lines of text.
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Jul 10, 2021 16:27
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Warden posted:I've finally managed to read through most of this thread
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Jul 10, 2021 16:32
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JustJeff88 posted:I only read the responses to him because what he actually posts has all of the actual content of the whitespace between two lines of text. I did that a lot. I usually skipped straight to the posts tearing his nonsense to pieces. His overtly wordy mixture of stupidity, dishonesty and complete lack of empathy was more tolerable when accompanied by scathing take-downs.
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Jul 10, 2021 16:47
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As someone who skipped to the end of the thread, I'm glad to have not read most of the nonsense.
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Jul 10, 2021 16:55
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JustJeff88 posted:Welcome, Nordic person. Most of us, unfortunately, are members of crumbling hyper-capitalist nations such as Canada, Britain and the US. Please try not to make us jealous. I mean, it's not like us Nordic persons lives in a perfect society. That would be Qatar.
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Jul 10, 2021 17:09
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Alhazred posted:I mean, it's not like us Nordic persons lives in a perfect society. That would be Qatar. The capital of Qatar is Dohar sand I remember it because "quarter dollar"
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Jul 10, 2021 18:11
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Don't Libertarians dismiss Nordic countries as actually being pretty capitalist because they think the only reason they can afford their welfare state is  but to keep their narrative consistent they also have to convince themselves these countries are perpetually going to get broke any day now? They treat welfare states like the Smokers in Waterworld, a parasitic society too lazy to work for themselves, mooching off others and right on the verge of their society collapsing because of their unsustainable practices.
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Jul 10, 2021 18:20
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Also, the other gotcha they love to throw out is the fact that there are more people fleeing "socialist" nations and immigrating to "capitalist" USA. If socialism was so great and effective why wouldn't it be the other way around?
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Jul 10, 2021 18:23
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Panfilo posted:Also, the other gotcha they love to throw out is the fact that there are more people fleeing "socialist" nations and immigrating to "capitalist" USA. If socialism was so great and effective why wouldn't it be the other way around? If you think immigration to the US is hard you should try it with the Nordic countries.
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Jul 10, 2021 19:06
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Panfilo posted:Also, the other gotcha they love to throw out is the fact that there are more people fleeing "socialist" nations and immigrating to "capitalist" USA. If socialism was so great and effective why wouldn't it be the other way around? Well, there is a large number of insufferable Americans who are posting up a lovely storm all over the Internet about how they want to move to NZ and how easy is it to get a visa and NZ is their perfect animeland compared to AmeriKKKa*. Oh silly me, I forgot that that's because we're a libertarian paradise. That's why they want to move here, not because of our strong** social net. * There was one clown who in all serious asked how difficult it would be to bring guns because she wouldn't feel safe without her guns. She was roundly told to gently caress off. ** In spite of the last 30-odd years of neoliberal shitheads trying to privatise it all
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Jul 10, 2021 20:22
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Alhazred posted:If you think immigration to the US is hard you should try it with the Nordic countries. As in real life, I refuse to have this discussion because I am an immigrant to the US, but there was a chance not too long ago that I might move to Switzerland and, hoo boy, it is hard to become a citizen there. On another note, I'd have to say that Norway is #1 in the Human Development Index for a reason. Apparently back in 2000 Canada was #1 in the HDI; no idea how that happened. I also always used to wonder why Norway never joined the EU, and I actually found a sort of dissertation (in English) by the Norwegian government as to why. I've always been a firm supporter of the EU, but I read it and, I have to say, after doing so I really understand why. I encourage anyone to look that 'article' up. HootTheOwl posted:The capital of Qatar is Dohar sand I remember it because "quarter dollar" I will now remember that for this reason.
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Jul 11, 2021 03:52
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Panfilo posted:Don't Libertarians dismiss Nordic countries as actually being pretty capitalist because they think the only reason they can afford their welfare state is It's basically a religious belief that more capitalism = higher standard of living, since Nordic countries have the highest standard of living they must be the most capitalist QED. Therefore we should emulate these imaginary hypercapitalist policies and do as much free market capitalism as we possibly can so we can have their standard of living. What we should definitely not do is emulate their actual policies because that's socialism and it doesn't work.
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Jul 11, 2021 05:37
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Libertarians could also criticize my home country for having universal male conscription, which unfairly infringes on their liberties. That's what our homegrown versions often rail against. I mean, it's not ideal, but our neighbor Sweden tried to have a professional army, and had to resume (selective) conscription less than decade later. I try to look at it as a trade-off for having gotten, for example, an university education for free. Plus, you know, Russia is right there. Warden fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Jul 11, 2021 |
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Jul 11, 2021 11:23
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 This came out of the Politoons thread and I figured it needed to be saved here for the next time JRode sticks his head out of his pit to vomit forth more mindpoison.
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Jul 29, 2021 21:12
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Is this his longest break? Maybe he’s gone for good this time.
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Jul 29, 2021 21:41
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I don't miss the sickening drivel he posts, but I do miss the white-hot righteous fury it called forth.
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Jul 29, 2021 22:14
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:Is this his longest break? Maybe he’s gone for good this time. I don't think he'll come back because a bunch of us will hold his feet to the fire and ask if he watched the bell curve video and of course he never will and none of us will let him out of it
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Jul 29, 2021 22:53
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What are the odds that he died of plague after going to an anti-mask/vaxx rally? 
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Jul 30, 2021 02:20
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DarklyDreaming posted:What are the odds that he died of plague after going to an anti-mask/vaxx rally? Still alive last I googled. He's been scamming people with his bootleg bluray company, but people are still occasionally getting merch, so he likely hasn't dropped dead. mod edit: let's slightly reduce the doxxability of other users, even jrod Somebody fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Jul 30, 2021 |
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Jul 30, 2021 02:27
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Caros posted:Still alive last I googled. He's been scamming people with his bootleg bluray company, but people are still occasionally getting merch, so he likely hasn't dropped dead. Dude I'd edit that out -- it's easy to find his details from that link.
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Jul 30, 2021 02:37
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Caros posted:Still alive last I googled. He's been scamming people with his bootleg bluray company, but people are still occasionally getting merch, so he likely hasn't dropped dead. If he does come back I'm keeping that knowledge in my back pocket to remind him that he continues to make money despite visible damage to his reputation under capitalism
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Jul 30, 2021 02:39
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Weatherman posted:Dude I'd edit that out -- it's easy to find his details from that link. Yeah, my bad.
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Jul 30, 2021 03:26
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TLM3101 posted:
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Jul 30, 2021 07:59
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The Lone Badger posted:Is that skull pissing into a bottle? That Skull is pissing on libertarianism. That skull knows what the gently caress is up.
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Jul 30, 2021 08:34
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hooman posted:That Skull is pissing on libertarianism. That skull knows what the gently caress is up. It's probably Da Share Zone.
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Jul 30, 2021 08:38
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Someone was peddling this white paper on a Discord I'm in and just by smell it's fishy. Is it standard techbro nonsense or is there some undercurrent of libertarianism I can't put my finger on?
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Jul 30, 2021 09:26
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NGDBSS posted:Is it standard techbro nonsense or is there some undercurrent of libertarianism I can't put my finger on? its-the-same-picture-meme.jpeg
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Jul 30, 2021 12:51
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https://twitter.com/theSheperd77/status/1420419294807019522?s=19
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Jul 30, 2021 16:51
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Affecting rebellion but fundamentally corporate and commercialized from the start.
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Jul 30, 2021 17:11
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It was in the middle of a Twitter debate about how right wingers don't really create art. Others can probably explain it better, but the gist I got was that creativity doesn't come out of blind nostalgia and reverence for the status quo. Of course 'art' can be really subjective which gives conservatives a ton of room to argue that actually they are the ones that create art, not liberals. This itself is probably derived from the stereotyping leftists as immature histrionic conformist virtue signalers. The right doesn't consider anything the left does as having any kind of practical value and dismisses anything they do as an insincere pastiche of art. So as a hyper simplistic example, a libertarian might see a young woman with short blue hair and conclude that she's doing it for attention because she's insincere about being ugly. When in reality that woman just likes having her hair short and blue. It's what she wants, and the attitudes from the status quo about hair length and color are not dictating her expression.
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Jul 30, 2021 17:31
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That's a silly idea; of course talented artists can be politically conservative. It sounds like a stupid debate that only exists to be had; art doesn't belong to one political faction or another. But the OP of that thread is talking about right-wing Twitter culture warriors, and yeah, those people are constitutionally incapable of producing art. I'm not gonna get into his wanky argument about the difference between Aesthetics and Art; you're right that everything those people do is bottom-of-the-barrel nostalgic kitsch. They feel persecuted by the most minute cultural changes, and it's impossible to make art out of the culture war over the Aunt Jemima bottle or whatever. Was it Schilling who said that the Right doesn't have an intellectual tradition, only "a series of irritable mental gestures that resemble thought?" I agree with that wholeheartedly.
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Jul 30, 2021 17:46
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I also don't see how beliefs/ethics/values etc can keep someone from creating art, but the mention reminded me of a perplexing thing that I stumbled upon some months ago and to this day it baffles me. Somehow I ended up seeing some comments about a survey that was done that apparently showed that the 'left' had higher rates of sociopathy than the 'right', and there were some presumably right-sitting posters crowing about this petty victory. I didn't even get to see the study, just the comments, so I can't say anything about a flawed study or funding from capitalist, Koch-approved think-tanks, but in any event it's irrelevant because one of the features of economic conservatism is selfishness and a lack of concern for others, which is the defining trait of sociopathy. Saying that leftists are more sociopathic than the right is like saying that atheists are more likely to attend church every Sunday; it's an inherent contradiction in terms and trying to say that some study showed it is like saying that a biologist found that moles swim better than fish - probably ludicrous, at best highly dubious. I've often expressed my distaste for the modern so-called left (not to mention my profound distaste of labels), but I would certainly never describe them as more selfish than the extreme right. If there is one trait that defines leftism vs conservatism, and there isn't, it's concern for others. It's of course a spectrum and not an A/B switch, but if I had to pick one defining trait it would be that.
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Jul 30, 2021 19:25
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I'm gonna take a wild rear end guess that the test's measures of "sociopathy" was disregard for tradition, family values, and the right of the government to censor media and regulate individuals' behaviour.
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Jul 30, 2021 19:35
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Panfilo posted:Don't Libertarians dismiss Nordic countries as actually being pretty capitalist because they think the only reason they can afford their welfare state is from the arguments i've seen, at least when it comes to a country like norway, they argue that the only reason they can have a robust welfare state is cause of their oil industry. but this has always been a strange argument cause while i am a hippie green energy supporter, using profits from oil to give people things like health care and welfare doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world. as for the other countries that don't have oil? they argue that it's cause they have low business taxes, which itself is a bizarre argument to make since one of their major talking points is that those same countries tax their innocent corporations and small businesses to oblivion  . but anyway, even if the low taxes thing is true, again, see the above argument for oil profits.and finally, the last thing i've seen these guys argue is that those countries have strong immigration policies so it's much easier to have good welfare systems cause it's not being overtaken by dirty foreigners. 
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Aug 2, 2021 01:47
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I actually don't argue with that. Norway etc are still very much running on the machinery of capitalism, it's just redistributive and regulated. In my opinion, they are capitalist enough that the anti-Bolshevik patrol, spearheaded by the US, aren't going to try to destabilise them. Also, in the case of Norway, they have oil and the US will do anything for more oil. If this thread and the leftist thread have taught me anything, it's that the capitalist west has been doing everything to gently caress any new economic system since 1917. I may have posted this already, but I've always wondered why Norway isn't in the EU when the rest of Scandinavia + Finland is (I am aware that neither Sweden nor Denmark are on the Euro). So, I did a little research and Norway has actually released a statement to that affect. I was of course totally opposed to the UK leaving the EU, but I read this and I'll simply say that... I get it. I understand why Norway doesn't want to be in the EU. It was almost refreshing to see a country give good, substantive reasons for something like that rather than 'we hate foreigners'. I'm not going into any more detail than that because immigration is a subtle and complex issue and I'm sick of black and white thinking. I'm an immigrant myself (multiple times) and I refuse to talk about it in my day-to-day life,. If anyone asks, I simply refuse to address the issue.
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Aug 2, 2021 04:40
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JustJeff88 posted:I actually don't argue with that. Norway etc are still very much running on the machinery of capitalism, it's just redistributive and regulated. In my opinion, they are capitalist enough that the anti-Bolshevik patrol, spearheaded by the US, aren't going to try to destabilise them. Also, in the case of Norway, they have oil and the US will do anything for more oil. If this thread and the leftist thread have taught me anything, it's that the capitalist west has been doing everything to gently caress any new economic system since 1917. Speaking as a Norwegian, the subject of the EU and our relationship with it is a rather contentious topic, but it mostly boils down to the fact that a lot of us, including a solidly and staunch 'No to EU-membership' person like myself, are willing to acknowledge that the EU is a good idea, but the way it's set up gives us a whole host of problems, not least of which is that the EU is set up to be a neo-liberalism pushing machine where you can only ever deregulate markets and centralize power, and almost never the reverse. As for our redistributive system, it's absolutely true that we're still in the capitalist economic category, but it should be noted that for about 20 years ( 1945 to 1965 ) we were run by communists. People who had been thrown into concentration-camps for being communists, in fact. And while they renounced armed revolution and Soviet authoritarian communism in favor of the ballot and socialist/social democracy, that doesn't mean that there isn't a solid dose of socialism in our system, shown in the redistributive mechanisms of taxation and public benefits, as well as the guaranteed pensions. And almost all of it was in place before we even suspected that there was so much as a drop of oil in the North Sea. In point of fact, the whole point of our Sovereign Wealth Fund ( which is currently at something ludicrous like 1.3 trillion dollars ), is explicitly set up to keep the vast, vast majority of petro-money out of our economy, and save it for future spending. And that is the kind of policy that a more purely capitalist/liberal economy/polity like the US or the UK is constitutionally incapable of pursuing. We even have an ethics board for the fund that has managed to get rid of investments that were deemed morally wrong. Which is my way of saying that we're a mixed economy initially set up by literal communists, that the socialism parts are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to improving our lives, and that it's a goddamned shame that things stalled out in the late 80's and early 90's till today.
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Aug 2, 2021 07:01
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JustJeff88 posted:I actually don't argue with that. Norway etc are still very much running on the machinery of capitalism, it's just redistributive and regulated. In my opinion, they are capitalist enough that the anti-Bolshevik patrol, spearheaded by the US, aren't going to try to destabilise them. Also, in the case of Norway, they have oil and the US will do anything for more oil. If this thread and the leftist thread have taught me anything, it's that the capitalist west has been doing everything to gently caress any new economic system since 1917. I would argue it's not about being capitalist enough, norway is genuinely more redistributive than countries that the USA has overthrown for being too pink, Norway is rather sufficient capitalist when combined with sufficient support for US hegemony.
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Aug 2, 2021 09:04
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reignonyourparade posted:I would argue it's not about being capitalist enough, norway is genuinely more redistributive than countries that the USA has overthrown for being too pink, Norway is rather sufficient capitalist when combined with sufficient support for US hegemony. Also probably more importantly it's inhabited by white people and nice and far away and quiet about it.
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Aug 2, 2021 09:14
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