Skip Navigation
64 comments

  • When I was young and in college I thought I was a Libertarian because it wasn't big government, and that libertarians were in favor of legalizing weed and gay marriage, basically letting people do what they want without the government regulating it. At the time around 2008ish, the Libertarian party really was leaning hard into that part, while leaving out the whole wanting to privatize everything. I had to get a bit older and more mature to realize that libertarians want to make every tax payer funded program function more like our fucked up healthcare system. Libertarians think that the fire department should be an opt in subscription service like it was in the 1800s. Fucking dipshits the lot of them.

    • The right to be fucking stupid and do without or to do it yourself shouldn't be denied. It's why I self host stuff. I also have the right to be fucking stupid and not backup any of my systems, but I do my backups myself. Though if I was in a position to have a better fire control situation than my local solution, you damn right I wouldn't want to pay for the inferior service. The same goes for any other utility or public service.

      The whole idea of libertarianism is to take the power away from government and abolish it so that the people can be left the fuck alone. The government is just another monopoly in my view especially in the area of currency and violence.

  • is it the idea that you should only ever care about yourself and fuck everyone else? cuz that seems like priority #1 for united states conservatives

  • Libertarians are an odd bunch these days. They claim to be against "big government" but they want to privatize everything which would essentially make giant corporations into a new authoritarian government.

    The love to talk about being able to take your business elsewhere if you don't like the service your getting, but that doesn't do a lot of good if your house burns down because you were behind on your fire protection plan and no one will come to put it out.

    It's basically become an entire party that believes the idea that "survival of the fittest wealthiest" should be the only law

    • Yeah, the whole "taking your business elsewhere" is bullshit in the modern world. It might work in a town without internet that has 3 barbers; sure, you take your little protest purchase to another barber maybe it has an impact.

      But I've lived in a neighborhood for 6 years where my internet connectivity choices have been Comcast, or DSL. That's not a choice. When the only competitor is equivalent to no service, it's not competition; it's a monopoly.

  • The views of the US Libertarian Party are essentially summarized by "taxes and regulations are bad" with few other guiding principles. As a party, it is largely separated from any sort of political theory (even libertarian political theory), and sort of relies on a politically disenaged and uninformed populous who vote for the people promising lower taxes and legal weed without really understanding that the Libertarian Party's approach to "taxes and regulations are bad" are primarily in favor of large corporations rather than individuals. They posture themselves as a true alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties when practically they want most of the same stuff Republicans want for the most part, with token acceptance of progressive social ideas.

    Libertarianism more broadly is an ideology that believes that individual rights are the most important thing to creating a better society. This can be left wing (extending individual rights to include things like the ability to use land and other natural resources without being limited by property ownership) or right wing (believing that the right of the individual includes the right to accumulate wealth and power through accumulation of capital), and the distinction primarily depends on the approach to ownership and property. Libertarianism differs from Anarchism in that libertarians believe that a state is required for maintaining and guaranteeing individual rights through the use of laws and courts, and defending those rights from external threats via military action.

    All in all, my personal view is that libertarianism, along with anarchism and other "min-archist" movements, is unable to answer the question of "how do you prevent someone from accumulating material and social power and using that power to enforce their will upon others?" For many libertarians the answer seems to be that social norms in a libertarian society would prevent people from doing this and that they would be able to withstand external attacks from groups that do not hold their views. I do not believe this, and I think that human nature means that some people will always want to gain control over others through whatever means they can, and that only a government can effectively combat these tendencies. Social norms are powerful and are a required part of a functioning democracy, but ultimately the law, backed by the ability to apply the use of force in a way agreed upon by the public, is what allows the weak to resist domination from the strong.

  • I was, techniclly still am registered Libertarian. I always considered myself a left-libertarian. The ideology pretty much boils down to government bad. What I failed to realize is that the government is bad because it serves capitalist interests. Now, I identify with marxist ideology. I'm also considering democratic socialism. I intend to change my registration to Democratic before the next election. I also considered the green party for a while but Jill Stein fucked that up.

  • First you have to understand this: Anti “big government” sentiment is basically built and drilled into the American psyche, from birth and in school. We were founded on a rebellion against a king, and that hasn’t changed much.

    I like to think it distinguishes us. Even as we plunge into autocracy, many openly hate the government, and many Trump supporters openly hate government.

    And this is where the American Libertarian Party is coming from. It’s the party of Adam Smith, of hoarding weapons for an armed rebellion against the govt if necessary, of old school homesteading and bootstrapping, of free trade, of minding your own business. I like to think there’s overlap with Warren Buffet's “sensible business” kind of philosophy, which I am sympathetic to. It’s a bit anarchic, like left wing libertarianism. I know because I have family that expresses some of this.

    …It was not prepared for corporate oligarchy.

    It was not built for complex, technical modern systems of society.

    It was built for low tech entrepreneurs/businessfolk to resist foreign kings, not engagement-driven propaganda from within.

    Hence I know registered American libertarians that buy into, say, climate denial, even when they’re very scientific minded people, or conspiracy theories against Democrats while giving Trump a pass. They were essentially a wing of fiscally conservative Republicans for a long time until the whole party got consumed by MAGA, and drug other beliefs in.

  • The views of the US Libertarian Party are essentially summarized by "taxes and regulations are bad" with few other guiding principles. As a party, it is largely separated from any sort of political theory (even libertarian political theory), and sort of relies on a politically disenaged and uninformed populous who vote for the people promising lower taxes and legal weed without really understanding that the Libertarian Party's approach to "taxes and regulations are bad" are primarily in favor of large corporations rather than individuals. They posture themselves as a true alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties when practically they want most of the same stuff Republicans want for the most part, with token acceptance of progressive social ideas.

    Libertarianism more broadly is an ideology that believes that individual rights are the most important thing to creating a better society. This can be left wing (extending individual rights to include things like the ability to use land and other natural resources without being limited by property ownership) or right wing (believing that the right of the individual includes the right to accumulate wealth and power through accumulation of capital), and the distinction primarily depends on the approach to ownership and property. Libertarianism differs from Anarchism in that libertarians believe that a state is required for maintaining and guaranteeing individual rights through the use of laws and courts, and defending those rights from external threats via military action.

    All in all, my personal view is that libertarianism, along with anarchism and other "min-archist" movements, is unable to answer the question of "how do you prevent someone from accumulating material and social power and using that power to enforce their will upon others?" For many libertarians the answer seems to be that social norms in a libertarian society would prevent people from doing this and that they would be able to withstand external attacks from groups that do not hold their views. I do not believe this, and I think that human nature means that some people will always want to gain control over others through whatever means they can, and that only a government can effectively combat these tendencies. Social norms are powerful and are a required part of a functioning democracy, but ultimately the law, backed by the ability to apply the use of force in a way agreed upon by the public, is what allows the weak to resist domination from the strong.

64 comments