Educating Hunter: Libertarians

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

"Going Postal" was great too...going to have to find more of his stuff.

[LMNO]

The feeling I get when I talk to Libertarians is that they seem to live by the idea that selfishness is a good thing.  "I got mine, fuck you" is what a lot of their argumens boil down to.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when you follow that idea to it's conclusion and try to envision a society where everyone is like that, well... That's when shit gets funny.

[Cain]

"Going Postal" was great too...going to have to find more of his stuff.

http://exiledonline.com/

Also The Nation (when they aren't clutching their pearls in horror) and NSFW Corp publish his material, though in the case of the latter you need to pay $3 a month to see it.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

"Going Postal" was great too...going to have to find more of his stuff.

http://exiledonline.com/

Also The Nation (when they aren't clutching their pearls in horror) and NSFW Corp publish his material, though in the case of the latter you need to pay $3 a month to see it.

Megan McArdle, Mormons, Pussy Riot...he's been getting around. And $3 a month is nothing...thanks!

The feeling I get when I talk to Libertarians is that they seem to live by the idea that selfishness is a good thing.  "I got mine, fuck you" is what a lot of their argumens boil down to.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when you follow that idea to it's conclusion and try to envision a society where everyone is like that, well... That's when shit gets funny.

Ayn Rand repubs in denial. 

[Mangrove]

http://www.kochbrothersexposed.com/

Depressing documentary. Oh yeah, Koch Snr was also a big fan of the John Birch Society. The Koch brothers have funded 300 'studies' that say Social Security is bankrupt and should be privatized. It's not and it shouldn't but it provides the current script for Romney/Ryan.

http://www.outfoxed.org/

We've already figured out that Fox isn't a real news organization. Here's how it happened.

http://iraqforsale.org/

Free market? No. Try private companies selling a 6 pack of coca-cola to US soldiers and then billing the taxpayer $45. Or $100 for a bag of laundry. Or $7000 for a monthly car lease.

[Juana]

The other thing regarding the voter ID laws is that they tend to be really, really racist. Older people of color, for example, were not always given a birth certificate because, well, "they didn't need them" according the white people of the time. State ID is also not free - it's like $26 or so in California and there are people whose budgets are made or broken by smaller margins than that. This is not to mention the people who live in the ass-end of places and who would need to drive extensive distances to reach places that give state IDs.
Voter ID laws have sometimes been accompanied by voter purges. There's one district in Milwaukee, I think, where something like 75% of Black voters were purged and it's not like you're informed if you've been purged (at least I don't think so; I could be wrong).

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The other thing regarding the voter ID laws is that they tend to be really, really racist. Older people of color, for example, were not always given a birth certificate because, well, "they didn't need them" according the white people of the time. State ID is also not free - it's like $26 or so in California and there are people whose budgets are made or broken by smaller margins than that. This is not to mention the people who live in the ass-end of places and who would need to drive extensive distances to reach places that give state IDs.
Voter ID laws have sometimes been accompanied by voter purges. There's one district in Milwaukee, I think, where something like 75% of Black voters were purged and it's not like you're informed if you've been purged (at least I don't think so; I could be wrong).

That's the whole point of voter ID.
Can you see many people at say, Pine Ridge going out and getting these?

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

http://www.kochbrothersexposed.com/

Depressing documentary. Oh yeah, Koch Snr was also a big fan of the John Birch Society. The Koch brothers have funded 300 'studies' that say Social Security is bankrupt and should be privatized. It's not and it shouldn't but it provides the current script for Romney/Ryan.

http://www.outfoxed.org/

We've already figured out that Fox isn't a real news organization. Here's how it happened.

http://iraqforsale.org/

Free market? No. Try private companies selling a 6 pack of coca-cola to US soldiers and then billing the taxpayer $45. Or $100 for a bag of laundry. Or $7000 for a monthly car lease.

Outfoxed is AWESOME. I liked the kid who prepared for O'Reilly by timing how long it takes him to start yelling and getting his say in BEFORE that.

Will check out the others. Thanks!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The feeling I get when I talk to Libertarians is that they seem to live by the idea that selfishness is a good thing.  "I got mine, fuck you" is what a lot of their argumens boil down to.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when you follow that idea to it's conclusion and try to envision a society where everyone is like that, well... That's when shit gets funny.

Better:  Point out that they (the libertarians arguing with you) DON'T have theirs.  They in fact will NOT get theirs because - according to their own model - they should be rich already.

[Mangrove]

http://www.kochbrothersexposed.com/

Depressing documentary. Oh yeah, Koch Snr was also a big fan of the John Birch Society. The Koch brothers have funded 300 'studies' that say Social Security is bankrupt and should be privatized. It's not and it shouldn't but it provides the current script for Romney/Ryan.

http://www.outfoxed.org/

We've already figured out that Fox isn't a real news organization. Here's how it happened.

http://iraqforsale.org/

Free market? No. Try private companies selling a 6 pack of coca-cola to US soldiers and then billing the taxpayer $45. Or $100 for a bag of laundry. Or $7000 for a monthly car lease.

Outfoxed is AWESOME. I liked the kid who prepared for O'Reilly by timing how long it takes him to start yelling and getting his say in BEFORE that.

Will check out the others. Thanks!

If you have 'Current TV' as one of your channels, you can probably catch these soon. They've been giving these documentaries heavy rotation lately and also 'Wal Mart - The High Cost Of Low Price'. I watched all these shows in fairly close proximity which I don't recommend doing, unless you want to leap about your house in a rabid frustration.

Outfoxed was cool. The kid who stood up to O'Reilly was great to see. The sad part was Al Franken explaining that legally, it's hard to prosecute crazy people for libel/slander.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Outfoxed- watched that one recently. Quite good.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

http://www.kochbrothersexposed.com/

Depressing documentary. Oh yeah, Koch Snr was also a big fan of the John Birch Society. The Koch brothers have funded 300 'studies' that say Social Security is bankrupt and should be privatized. It's not and it shouldn't but it provides the current script for Romney/Ryan.

http://www.outfoxed.org/

We've already figured out that Fox isn't a real news organization. Here's how it happened.

http://iraqforsale.org/

Free market? No. Try private companies selling a 6 pack of coca-cola to US soldiers and then billing the taxpayer $45. Or $100 for a bag of laundry. Or $7000 for a monthly car lease.

Outfoxed is AWESOME. I liked the kid who prepared for O'Reilly by timing how long it takes him to start yelling and getting his say in BEFORE that.

Will check out the others. Thanks!

If you have 'Current TV' as one of your channels, you can probably catch these soon. They've been giving these documentaries heavy rotation lately and also 'Wal Mart - The High Cost Of Low Price'. I watched all these shows in fairly close proximity which I don't recommend doing, unless you want to leap about your house in a rabid frustration.

Outfoxed was cool. The kid who stood up to O'Reilly was great to see. The sad part was Al Franken explaining that legally, it's hard to prosecute crazy people for libel/slander.

Yeah. They've been stacking the deck for years now. 

Don't have Current TV, but it sounds like one to get. Thanks!

[Reginald Ret]

It has been my experience that giving people what they ask for is the best way to teach them self-reflection.

He wants everyone to be selfish?
Start cutting in line exactly in front of him as often as you can.
Borrow his pen without asking and return it broken. If he bitches about it start discussing the small print of your unwritten agreement.
If he wants to borrow your pen call him a socialist.
Take his seat everytime he gets up.
Try to push him out of his seat while he is still in it.
if it is a chair, take it without giving him a chance to get out of it.
Hoard anything communal, like whiteboard markers or something.
When it looks like he is about to break, offer him a drink to make up. Charge him afterwards. Twice what you paid for it.
In fact, charge him for every little thing you can't help yourself doing for him (holding open a door, lighting his cigarette, welcoming smiles and/or verbal greetings, anything someone could possibly get paid for, charge for it.)

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It has been my experience that giving people what they ask for is the best way to teach them self-reflection.

He wants everyone to be selfish?
Start cutting in line exactly in front of him as often as you can.
Borrow his pen without asking and return it broken. If he bitches about it start discussing the small print of your unwritten agreement.
If he wants to borrow your pen call him a socialist.
Take his seat everytime he gets up.
Try to push him out of his seat while he is still in it.
if it is a chair, take it without giving him a chance to get out of it.
Hoard anything communal, like whiteboard markers or something.
When it looks like he is about to break, offer him a drink to make up. Charge him afterwards. Twice what you paid for it.
In fact, charge him for every little thing you can't help yourself doing for him (holding open a door, lighting his cigarette, welcoming smiles and/or verbal greetings, anything someone could possibly get paid for, charge for it.)

I think : regret: just won the internets. 

[Elder Iptuous]

I can attest as one who previously identified as a libertarian, but, thanks in large part to the rhetoric of this forum, no longer do.
i now consider myself just to be politically selfish, i guess.  i don't believe i've really said so in so many words, primarily because i would assume that puts me on worse footing with those here that decry libertarianism, rather than having me lauded for shedding the hypocrisy that libertarianism is mocked for.

but i still find many of the arguments against libertarianism to be lacking for some reasons i will point out here.
if a half decent argument against my objections is given, i'll likely abandon them as i'd rather not have vestiges of loyalty to an ideal that i no longer want, so have at if anyone cares....

1.'libertarianism requires humans to act non human by assuming everyone to be ultimately benevolent'
-I've not heard any libertarians say so explicitly, and they all say that there is a role for govt. in enforcing voluntary contracts.  the notion, i guess, is that all acts of selfishness that would harm others would be a violation of some contract or another, so malevolent behaviour is controlled in that way.  i don't see how it fails when someone doesn't 'act nicely'.

2 'why don't you just move to somalia then, huh?'
-somalia has all the features of govt that a libertarian would want?  no.  somalia doesn't have a govt. capable of enforcing contracts with even handed justice, and that's obvious. there's plenty of good arguments against the idea without resorting to this, but it seems to be brought up as more than just a tongue in cheek joke.

3 'but the 'free' market is rigged against you!'
-this is true. and it's a pretty mortal blow to the individuals that would support the corporations that are rigging our system as if they are somehow a bastion of the libertarian ideal simply due to the fact that they are private enterprise.  it seems to me that their influence over govt. (buying politics) is a serious breach of the governmental contract with society, which libertarianism should abhor.  So, although the libertarians that deny this argument are without a doubt morans, it doesn't seem a direct hit on libertarianism itself...

4 'libertarian guru uses social benefits! haw haw!'
- this one confuses me because it seems to imply a requirement that a libertarian must martyr themselves for the sake of principle.  why must anyone be willing to martyr themselves in order to profess some principle?  i guess, maybe, if their point would have been made better had they allowed their income to be, as they saw it, swindled, and then not chosen to take what is offered in return, but ..... really. it wouldn't.



regarding voter ID, it seems to me that the democrats should flank this issue.  the nominal argument for voter ID is that it would prevent some amount of vote fraud.  this seems wholly good.  who would be against preventing vote fraud?  the argument against is that the republicans are using all sorts of dirty tricks to turn voter ID into a filter against typically democratic groups.  So the Dems should take the high road and demand voter ID to prevent vote fraud, citing the new scandal about GOP consultant vote fraud, and the mess in FL in bush's first election, etc.
they should pursue it at the federal level because 'it is an issue that should be more important than partisanship' and is regulating national voting, and should be universally extended without cost to the individual.  boom. problem solved.  (right?)