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Slanderer posted:I unironically yearn to return to the gilded age, when men could project their will in steel and stretch their might into the heavens. If returning to the gilded age will allow me to have my own deluxe train that can take me wherever my heart desires, then sign me up.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:41
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It's kind of incredible how different internet libertarians are from their sacred texts. Most internet libertarians seem to basically be dumb hippies who want a world where there's no police brutality and you can smoke dope and unleash your awesome entrepreneurial powers. Many of them seem to genuinely think poverty and crime and everything bad in the world would be solved if you removed the state. Meanwhile, their icons are praising David Duke, calling for the police to beat the poor, advocating monarchical communities where none libertarians will be "physically removed" from society, or advocating a DRO based law enforcement system so cruel and bureaucratic it makes Stalinist Russia look like a free country. Plenty of philosophies have some hypocrisy built into them but its hard to think of another one where the seeming disconnect between the follows and the actual content of the text is so great. Watching Socrates blame the state for police violence when his avatar literally called for the police to go beat up the poor is pretty much the perfect summation of libertarian philosophy.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:44
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Aw man, all that and nothing from Jrod, just some lightweight spouting the usual drivel. Time was lolbs could be counted on to at least post walls of text defending their terrible ideas.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:54
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What prompted the switch on this forum from the posters being mostly unabashed libertarians to being mostly socialist? I'm aware that it's a thing that happened but I never knew why or what the instigating events were.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:57
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Libertarians are only able to exist because the state is so tolerant of insufferable wrong headed idiots. There's no rhetorical difference between a religious fanatic whinging about how the state is cheating them out of their right to suppress a minority and their right to use all existing state benefits without paying either financially or just through common courtesy of not leaving things worse than they found it. Libertarianism is a virus that doesnt want there to be a commons or civic responsibility because then they can't just consume the host without consequences. Once again, thoughtless selfish, destructive intellectual ebola.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:57
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Babylon Astronaut posted:"Curing polio by raising taxes is equivalent to curing someone's bronchitis by shooting him. The "cure" is far worse than the disease." As I said I'm not terribly well read. Who is this gentleman? He sounds positively delightful. "I'd rather be crippled for life and unable to walk than pay a dime in taxes." :edit: Sorry. Just remembered reverse image search is a thing that exists. Time to do some reading. Travic fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 16:57
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DrProsek posted:Socrates16 had better come back and explain what his libertarian society would look like, because right now if he agrees 100% with Jrod, then he should probably stop using words like statist negatively because he totally is one. If anything a DRO-state is actually way more authoritarian and prone to abuse than what we have today. Like many bottom-feeder libertarians, Socrates16 seems to have digested the petulant rhetoric but passed over the critical application. I wouldn't count on it.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:57
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panascope posted:What prompted the switch on this forum from the posters being mostly unabashed libertarians to being mostly socialist? I'm aware that it's a thing that happened but I never knew why or what the instigating events were. The 2008 crash likely helped. I know I went from idiot libertarian to leftist real fast when I graduated and found out that the private sector cared a lot more about hooking their buddies up with jobs than they cared about my hard work or finding the right person. And then when I realized my "hard work" as a white male in college was actually a joke compared to what 99% of the population deals with I became a socialist.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:05
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Travic posted:As I said I'm not terribly well read. Who is this gentleman? He sounds positively delightful. "I'd rather be crippled for life and unable to walk than pay a dime in taxes." He's Murray "We will never be truly free until there is a thriving market in children" Rothbard. panascope posted:What prompted the switch on this forum from the posters being mostly unabashed libertarians to being mostly socialist? I'm aware that it's a thing that happened but I never knew why or what the instigating events were. For one thing, the insufferable smugness of the puppytar brigade threatened to collapse in on itself at about the same time Ron Paul was becoming a thing, and when LF came along they could not resist that siren's song and most ended up in there to defend the good doctor, where they got more or less got destroyed/run off/banned.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:05
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panascope posted:What prompted the switch on this forum from the posters being mostly unabashed libertarians to being mostly socialist? I'm aware that it's a thing that happened but I never knew why or what the instigating events were. As far as I know, three things. 1. Parts of SA aged a bit, its a lot easier to be a libertarian when you're on the dole than when you have to actually work to exist and see how society benefits you generally speaking. 2. The natural conclusion of 8 years of trickle down and FYGM economic policy which didnt even attempt to pull the economy out of a nose dive and then proclaimed that it was good we were crashing, it was just a market correction. The most modern economic disaster caused a lot of pain that reaganites and an caps still hope no one will learn anything from. 3. Generally speaking the general attrition over the years of libertarianism trying to stand up to deconstruction with the same group over and over. As noted earlier in the thread we've heard this poo poo many many many times before.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:07
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Travic posted:As I said I'm not terribly well read. Who is this gentleman? He sounds positively delightful. "I'd rather be crippled for life and unable to walk than pay a dime in taxes." panascope posted:What prompted the switch on this forum from the posters being mostly unabashed libertarians to being mostly socialist? I'm aware that it's a thing that happened but I never knew why or what the instigating events were. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 17:12
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The framing of corporations existing at the behest of the state is so odd. Like hundreds of thousands of people in a single hierarchy doesn't have inertia, if a document in Delaware gets shredded it all dissipates overnight.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:23
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:The 2008 crash likely helped. I know I went from idiot libertarian to leftist real fast when I graduated and found out that the private sector cared a lot more about hooking their buddies up with jobs than they cared about my hard work or finding the right person. The 2008 crash did it for me too. Being gay, I rejected my conservative Christian upbringing early on because it was pretty obvious how bigotry and repression was destructive and horrible. Unfortunately, I naively concluded that the problem was religious people forcing their beliefs on others, but gosh here's Ayn Rand telling me that I don't have to listen to the mystics or deny who I am out of some sense of duty, and gosh there wouldn't be all these problems in the world if there weren't an oppressive state enforcing the whims of the mob on minorities. And all her no-taxes, no-welfare stuff meant I didn't have to challenge any of the other beliefs I grew up with, and anyway I'm a hard worker (no, the GI Bill isn't a social program: I earned that!) and I deserve to keep the fruits of my labor! Then 2008 happened, and all the wealthy Supermen Who Run the World ran crying to the government for taxpayer bailouts, because it turned out all their bullshit about freedom and ability just meant that they didn't want to pay taxes and they didn't want the government interfering with their swindles, but they did want endless taxpayer money because the whole philosophy is a cheap cover for redistributing wealth from the 99% to the top 1%. Seeing the people who got their massive debts paid off and their bonuses covered by taxpayer dollars turn around and blame everything on the poor and fight tooth and nail against any kind of mortgage adjustment for "losers" was the final straw.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:25
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JawnV6 posted:The framing of corporations existing at the behest of the state is so odd. Like hundreds of thousands of people in a single hierarchy doesn't have inertia, if a document in Delaware gets shredded it all dissipates overnight. It's really convenient rhetorically though, because the state exists and pervades every aspect of our lives so you can blame anything and everything on the state. 'State' is to libertarians as 'Obama' is to teabaggers.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:27
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Popular Thug Drink posted:It's really convenient rhetorically though, because the state exists and pervades every aspect of our lives so you can blame anything and everything on the state. 'State' is to libertarians as 'Obama' is to teabaggers. Hell, there's more than a little bleed-over between the two groups as it is. Why no, I'm not just looking for any excuse to repost this LF-era classic: Goatstein posted:King Hussein Obama I, flanked by his bodyguards, stepped out of his blinged Limoscalade and marched up the gold-lined marble steps of Washington Palace. It should have been a glorious day, yet under his heavy yet exquisite crown of carved human fetus-ivory his brow was ridged deeply as he silently brooded. Still, his posse, boomboxes on their shoulders, dance-walked up the steps, chains and gats jangling over the din as they grabbed their crotches. Context for those not about : Kylejack was, at the time, one of the libertarian-Paulshevik stalwarts, though I believe he's since become more reasonable.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:33
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Popular Thug Drink posted:It's really convenient rhetorically though, because the state exists and pervades every aspect of our lives so you can blame anything and everything on the state. 'State' is to libertarians as 'Obama' is to teabaggers. I think even that is giving libertarian magical thinking too much credit. The reality is that corporation would keep chugging along without their magical contract because it's peoples natural inclination to organize and work together. The crux of libertarian thinking relies on the concept that now that the corporation no longer exists, rather than the previous labor contracts being null and void, the workers don't own their own labor, all businesses are sole proprietorships and those filthy proles better keep working because if the don't the DRO has a contractual obligation to enslave them on behalf:of the "owner". Libertarians counter this by hand waving about how that wouldn't happen but remember theres no regulation at play here and wealth is the ultimate power in libertopia.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:40
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Badera posted:Hey Socrates, the guy in your avatar said this: The guy in jrod's avatar too. And let's not forget he (jrodefeld, not Rothbard) was just explaining how awful he considered police brutality in the Ferguson thread.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:40
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StandardVC10 posted:The guy in jrod's avatar too. And let's not forget he (jrodefeld, not Rothbard) was just explaining how awful he considered police brutality in the Ferguson thread. Yeah, but its brutality against 'those' people. Not those people.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:47
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VitalSigns posted:The 2008 crash did it for me too. Being gay, I rejected my conservative Christian upbringing early on because it was pretty obvious how bigotry and repression was destructive and horrible. Unfortunately, I naively concluded that the problem was religious people forcing their beliefs on others, but gosh here's Ayn Rand telling me that I don't have to listen to the mystics or deny who I am out of some sense of duty, and gosh there wouldn't be all these problems in the world if there weren't an oppressive state enforcing the whims of the mob on minorities. And all her no-taxes, no-welfare stuff meant I didn't have to challenge any of the other beliefs I grew up with, and anyway I'm a hard worker (no, the GI Bill isn't a social program: I earned that!) and I deserve to keep the fruits of my labor! If you rejected the private sector because they were bailed out by the government, why not reject the government?
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Aug 15, 2014 17:48
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tbp posted:If you rejected the private sector because they were bailed out by the government, why not reject the government? Because the State is a cipher not a self aware dark god of conquest. Shocking I know.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:51
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tbp posted:If you rejected the private sector because they were bailed out by the government, why not reject the government? Because a banking system that collapses under fraud, greed, incompetence, and bad decisions every 20 years is not in my rational self-interest. On the other hand, proper banking regulation put in place after the great depression prevented meltowns for more than 50 years, until the elites succeeded in pushing a free-market fundamentalist religion and gutting regulation because "well of course it's not in a bank's self-interest to buy toxic loan products it doesn't understand, nor is it in an insurance company's interest to take on trillions in risk by insuring debt without setting any money aside to cover payouts, and obviously a major bank would never sell products designed to fail so it can secretly bet against them because that'd be bad for its reputation, so if we just get the government out of the way then fraud and incompetence will disappear from banking forever  "Edit: There's also that I agree with Libertarians in their complaint that the weath disparity that arises under capitalism allows those with the most weath to coöpt the power of the state and extract rents from the rest of us with the police power backing them up, but I don't share their conclusion that if we renounce all democratic checks on the use of force and allow the superrich to buy private armies directly this problem of extortion by the elite will go away. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 17:55
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RuanGacho posted:As far as I know, three things. My old roommate that I mentioned earlier was like this, sort of. He went through the whole "actually get a job and get abused" thing, but is still a hard core libertarian. He went to work at a pharmaceutical company that Shall Not Be Named and was appalled at the conditions. Poor quality control, health standards, drug purity, sterility you name it. He was amazed that people there skirted the rules "putting out a poor product to make more money". The FDA came in and temporarily shut them down to fix everything. Now he has a slight respect for the FDA, but he still wants to abolish the government. You can't help these people. :edit: Also he couldn't find a job after graduating from college and would be homeless if not for his parents taking him in. "But screw unemployment assistance!" Travic fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 18:39
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Travic posted:My old roommate that I mentioned earlier was like this, sort of. He went through the whole "actually get a job and get abused" thing, but is still a hard core libertarian. It sounds like the only thing lacking is he didn't end up homeless, not that I wish it on him but I have a hard time believing someone would still be screaming to demolish the government when it was literally the only thing keeping them alive.
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Aug 15, 2014 18:58
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RuanGacho posted:It sounds like the only thing lacking is he didn't end up homeless, not that I wish it on him but I have a hard time believing someone would still be screaming to demolish the government when it was literally the only thing keeping them alive. Well if his opinion on the FDA is anything to go by he'd probably take their money and say, "Ok. Unemployment and the FDA can stay, but the rest of the government has to go. Also tax is theft."
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Aug 15, 2014 19:01
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VitalSigns posted:Because a banking system that collapses under fraud, greed, incompetence, and bad decisions every 20 years is not in my rational self-interest.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:38
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tbp posted:The banking system hasn't collapsed though. I put the blame more on the government for not enforcing proper regulations than the banks for doing whatever they were allowed. Uh. Something's wrong with your reasoning there. You blame the Government for Letting the Banks Do Whatever They Wanted, and not the Banks, for Doing Whatever They Wanted. And your answer is to de-regulate? i.e., Let the Banks Do Whatever They Want, which by your own admission, is what caused the problem in the first place.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:41
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JawnV6 posted:The framing of corporations existing at the behest of the state is so odd. Like hundreds of thousands of people in a single hierarchy doesn't have inertia, if a document in Delaware gets shredded it all dissipates overnight.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:42
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Rhjamiz posted:Uh. Something's wrong with your reasoning there. You blame the Government for Letting the Banks Do Whatever They Wanted, and not the Banks, for Doing Whatever They Wanted. No that's not my answer I don't know how you came to that conclusion
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Aug 15, 2014 19:44
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tbp posted:No that's not my answer I don't know how you came to that conclusion You're in the Libertarian Thread proposing we blame the government. What would your solution be, then?
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Aug 15, 2014 19:47
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tbp posted:No that's not my answer I don't know how you came to that conclusion You're arguing the Libertarian side. Your default position is deregulation unless otherwise specified. Are you seriously a Libertarian in favor of greater government regulations?
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Aug 15, 2014 19:48
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Rhjamiz posted:You're in the Libertarian Thread proposing we blame the government. What would your solution be, then? tbp is Just asking questions™
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Aug 15, 2014 19:50
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Travic posted:You're arguing the Libertarian side. Your default position is deregulation unless otherwise specified. I think you're getting yourself worked up about something that isn't there. For that particular crisis, I think that the government is more to blame for the poor handling and prevention than the banks themselves as legal entities. RuanGacho posted:tbp is Just asking questions™ I'm glad you could respond with a meme when that is quite literally what I was doing in the first place lol
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Aug 15, 2014 19:55
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[devil'sadvocate]The government is evil[/devil'sadvocate]tbp posted:For that particular crisis, I think that the government is more to blame for the poor handling and prevention than the banks themselves as legal entities. I agree, but both sides were to blame. The government was stupid to trust them to play nice, and the banks were despicable because they hosed everyone over. Travic fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 19:55
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tbp posted:I think you're getting yourself worked up about something that isn't there. Because the government, being a sentient entity is getting on in years now and just conveniently forgot those regulations that it should have enforced against the banks. Stupid Government! Take your pills!
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Aug 15, 2014 19:58
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tbp posted:For that particular crisis, I think that the government is more to blame for the poor handling and prevention than the banks themselves as legal entities. Do you also blame the Police for crime?
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Aug 15, 2014 19:58
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RuanGacho posted:Because the government, being a sentient entity is getting on in years now and just conveniently forgot those regulations that it should have enforced against the banks. Stupid Government! Take your pills! I think there should have been stricter policies in place and more active efforts to both prevent and punish transgressions of the laws, before during and after the crises of the late 2000s period.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:59
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Rhjamiz posted:Do you also blame the Police for crime? Considering how much they commit, yes quite often I do.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:59
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tbp posted:I think there should have been stricter policies in place and more active efforts to both prevent and punish transgressions of the laws, before during and after the crises of the late 2000s period. Where did the laws go tbp?! Who scurried them away into the night? Some filthy statist probably put them in the shredder and cackled as they did it.
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Aug 15, 2014 20:02
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RuanGacho posted:Where did the laws go tbp?! Who scurried them away into the night? Some filthy statist probably put them in the shredder and cackled as they did it. I think a big part of the problem is the disproportionate influence institutions such as "the banks" and wealthy individuals have on our governmental process, which helps neuter punishment where it is due and enforcement of regulations in times where all seems peachy. As well, I think the complicated nature of the Financial Crisis is a bit over the head of many who like to talk about it often, leading to confusion and misplaced anger. Well perhaps misplaced isn't the right word, but it seems often skewed by a poor understanding of what occurred.
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Aug 15, 2014 20:05
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tbp posted:For that particular crisis, I think that the government is more to blame for the poor handling and prevention than the banks themselves as legal entities. You are quite correct that the government is to blame for accepting idiot libertarian free market ideology and refusing to regulate the derivatives market and the CDS market, and for gutting the regulations that prevented investment banks from gambling with depositors' money or turning the insurance market into a casino. Of course, it was bankers who are entirely to blame for the crimes they committed, and they bear a healthy share of blame for lobbying to roll back the aforementioned regulations too. So yes sure, I blame the government for the crisis in the same way that I blame the dikes that failed in New Orleans for the Katrina disaster. We should strengthen those protections so they don't fail next time, not say (as the Libertarians do) "welp, Katrina just shows dikes are completely useless so let's tear down every dike in the land to keep us safe from the next hurricane!" Edit: tbp posted:I think there should have been stricter policies in place and more active efforts to both prevent and punish transgressions of the laws, before during and after the crises of the late 2000s period. Uh, okay me too, so then what was the point of your original question to me about how I should "blame" the government? If you just meant I should blame free-market ideology and support strong government oversight then well yeah, that was whole drat point of my How-I-Stopped-Being-Libertarian story 
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 20:06
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