like taxes and showtunes, affronts to God above

[mrspleen]

I admire, but can't bring myself emulate, the folks I know who keep up with FOX News or the right-wing blog scene. Yes, it's a failure of will to not listen fully to opposing points of view before deciding whether they're really opposing, and less idealistically, it's a good idea to know what the enemy is thinking -- but I just can't handle it. I

Comments

[koga]

As a democratic voting Libertarian, I object to your commentary

[radioronin]

As someone who had to spend three days with Libertarians while they picked their next presidential candidate (a trying event at which, after only three hours, the reporter next to me to leaned over and said, in a tone of great disappointment, "I thought they'd all be polyamorous software developers...") please, please, can YOU explain the Libertarian platform on global warming?

[koga]

You want me to explain a single platform for a group of people who define themselves with individuality and what amounts to an anti-governmental stance?

I'm sure theres an official party stance, but I can't really speak for the party, nor any other party members. My stance is that its real, it comes from several sources, not all of which are attributable to man.

However, we are the larger portion of it and we need to act to counter our impact. We need to get off the oil drip, lower our emissions and, interestingly enough? Come up with better ways of raising livestock as Livestock accounts for -18 percent- of green house gas emissions.

confessing up front that I'm a nasty troll on a trolling expedition

[arkuat]

Or hey, we could all go vegan, and then we wouldn't need to raise livestock! Why do libertarians carry such a giant animus against vegans?

You know, I think a huge tax on edible meat, and a smaller tax on chicken eggs and cow milk used as human food, would go a long way to help with the global warming thing.

Re: confessing up front that I'm a nasty troll on a trolling expedition

[radioronin]

But isn't that... ummm... government interference?

I should have said "approach" not "platform."

I guess I've just never heard a good argument for how Libertarianism accounts for big diffuse problems that require all individuals to put the long-term good ahead of their short-term gain?

Re: confessing up front that I'm a nasty troll on a trolling expedition

[koga]

Short answer: It doesn't.

Long Answer: It doesn't. Nor does, to any great effectiveness, any other political party. Politics is the art of compromise and settling, up until the revolution. And by revolution, I don't mean Che or rich white Virginians, so much as I mean the coming of a new age or wave of thought.

With revolution comes a new paradigm. Libertarians -as a concept- are the outgrowth of decades of disenfranchisement of local authority by the Federal. Knee-jerk reaction, perhaps, but a reaction none the less.

Re: confessing up front that I'm a nasty troll on a trolling expedition

[koga]

I have no idea. I don't mind Vegans, frankly. More power to em. More meat for ME.

Pass the bacon.

Re: confessing up front that I'm a nasty troll on a trolling expedition

[arkuat]

Actually, bacon is not so bad. Would you object to a tax on beef?

(Now I will demonstrate libertarian-fu.)

Oh wait. First let's get rid of all the agricultural programs and subsidies specifically designed to benefit and encourage beef farmers!

Re: confessing up front that I'm a nasty troll on a trolling expedition

[koga]

You're cute.

Re: confessing up front that I'm a nasty troll on a trolling expedition

[koga]

Butttt. I didn't answer your question.

Re: Tax on beef.

I don't really support vice taxes at all. I support strong, forceful penalties for being stupid with your vice.

Drink all the alcohol you like. Commit a crime while under the influence, and I'll cut your balls off.

Eat all the beef you like. Just don't expect me to pay for your angioplasty.

Smoke all you like; But you're gonna pay a lot more for Insurance due to the risks.

[koga]

Also: Poly? Yes. Software developer? Not so much.

[mrspleen]

I knew I'd get you with that one, and yet, the irrestible urge. Doctors will someday come up with a cure for Mike Gravel Syndrome, but for now we sufferers can only struggle on bravely

[koga]

I cannot tell you how often I have wanted a rocket launcher on the hood of my car.

Or a Camero. Those things are sexy.

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle; Between responsible citizens being nice and people unwilling to take your shit, between strong local government (State) and strong big government (Federal). I don't, as a note, think a small government is necessarily the way to go.

I am just very much in to my personal freedoms, the idea that my government should FOAD before it gets involved in where I stick my pecker or what I do with my private property.