Why "Democratic" Socialism Doesn't Work...

[_The CCC]

Ayn Rand; Socialism for me, when I get sick. Capitalism for everyone else, go die you useless taker.

[_Doctor Steuss]

LDSFaqs, next winter make sure to not use any roads that were cleared with socialist snow plows. If you do, the socialists win.

[_EAllusion]

LDSFaqs, next winter make sure to not use any roads that were cleared with socialist snow plows. If you do, the socialists win.

These arguments are so misleading. When a government taxes the people for services and places distorting competitive pressure on private alternatives, it is not unreasonable for people take advantage of those services even if they oppose their existence in an ideal world.

This sort of argument is as astute as telling people who don't like US militarism to move to Canada if they don't like it. Or saying that if a politician favors higher taxes, they should just volunteer their money to the government with failure to do so proving their dishonesty. Or saying that if a politician really wants publicly financed elections, then they cannot accept private donations in the current system. It's all of the same kind.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

'Spends 20 minutes crafting an answer demonstrating that he can't provide examples of functional Libertarian governments.'

Look.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

You defining Libertarianism is as absurd as my example. The philosophy has become so ubiquitous as to render it meaningless. Anyway. I was responding to LDSFAQs with an equal amount of nonsense since that's the only thing he seems to understand.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

'Spends 20 minutes crafting an answer demonstrating that he can't provide examples of functional Libertarian governments.'

Look.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

You defining Libertarianism is as absurd as my example. The philosophy has become so ubiquitous as to render it meaningless. Anyway. I was responding to LDSFAQs with an equal amount of nonsense since that's the only thing he seems to understand.

- Doc

That wiki does a decent job of defining libertarianism. It's a bit muddled at points, but overall it is solid. I gave you two examples of countries that are generally considered quite libertarian. I'm not sure what you want. There's no "liberal" country either. Name me a single country that embodies all ideals of modern US liberalism, much less one that works. You won't find it. Liberalism isn't a single set of political viewpoints. It's range of related views with some in tension with others. And even if it was a single set of policy preferences, no nation actually embodies them. The same is true of libertarianism. Such is the nature of the political spectrum.

Libertarian philosophy is not "ubiquitous." There isn't even a single candidate in either major US party in the running right now that can reasonably called libertarian. (Rand Paul being the only example before he had to drop out.) Instead, what you have are candidates who hold libertarian-friendly positions on some topics and very much the opposite on others.

Almost all of my libertarian views exist as either dominant or within the realm of legitimate debate in their relevant academic disciplines. What's less common is the combination of them. There's good evidence to suggest that libertarian thought is fairly common in the US, especially among people under 40, but currently the major political parties are doing a suck job appealing to libertarian-minded voters.

[_MeDotOrg]

Hey, King Leopold did what he wanted. He was the ultimate ubermensch carving out a piece of the Dream for himself unrestrained by conscience, policy, or law. Everything else was just a resource for him to put food on the table!

- Doc

If you want to read a great book about the horrors of colonialism, I'd suggest King Leopold's Ghosts. Belgians used to go into a village, kidnap all the women and children as hostages to force the men to work as slave labor for rubber tree extraction. You wonder why the first peace keepers killed in Rwanda were Belgians? Wonder no more....



If there is karma, King Leopold will be a fly on a dung heap for many millennia to come.

[_EAllusion]

King Leopold deserves to be viewed as a villain in the same breath that someone might mention Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

... but currently the major political parties are doing a suck job appealing to libertarian-minded voters.

Why should they? Libertarians, whatever they are or however they view themselves to be, simply have next-to-zero political clout. The fact that their ideology so muddled and there doesn't exist any discernible identity or platform from which they could market themselves simply makes them a non-factor politically.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

... but currently the major political parties are doing a suck job appealing to libertarian-minded voters.

Why should they? Libertarians, whatever they are or however they view themselves to be, simply have next-to-zero political clout. The fact that their ideology so muddled and there doesn't exist any discernible identity or platform from which they could market themselves simply makes them a non-factor politically.

- Doc

I don' think you understand virtually anything about the thought of major libertarian thinkers, how they are alike and how they are different, their impacts on society, or what makes the reasoning tick. Libertarians wield influence. They just haven't been able to get many straight-up libertarian (read: economic conservative / social liberal) politicians into major office. Black Lives Matter is heavily influenced by libertarian ideas on the criminal justice system. You're welcome.

Libertarians as a group are about equivalent in size to progressives in the US. Arguably, libertarians are larger, but this gets into the sticky weeds of trying to place people on a continuum. Progressives get pandered to and then largely thrown under the bus by the Democratic party year after year. Ultimately, they are less successful politically than libertarians in actually achieving their aims, tough both aren't doing all that great. They're in a more favorable spot in that Democratic leadership has to at least pretend to care about them every 4 years or so.

There's no a priori reason that a major party should spend its time appealing to other parts of the conservative coalition over libertarians given relative population size. It's more happenstance, institutional momentum, and media orthodoxy that we see the outcomes we do. There's a near parallel equivalent over on the left. Indeed, the progressive left and libertarian right in some important ways share more in common with each other than they do with the mainstream of their respective liberal and conservative counterparts. This election cycle, it's where the push for criminal justice reform is coming from.

[_ajax18]

EAllusion do you consider John Stossel a libertarian?