like taxes and showtunes, affronts to God above
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
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Mostly, the libertarian platform is that the government doesn't have any real role save defense, regulation of trade, and generally making sure no one infringes on anyone else. That includes stupidity like 'social' laws such as defining marriage, racial segregation, regulating the conduct of consenting adults and so forth. Small Federal Government, moderate State and local government and an increase in citizens rights.
Problem is, Libertarians tend to get a bad wrap from gun toting survivalists in Idaho who get all the media press. The Moderate people of all parties are all but silenced as fringe groups are the 'headline' worthy ones.
To be clear, I classify as Lib because I'm too conservative for the Democrats as I favor gun rights, capitol punishment and a strong line on illegal immigration.
I'm too liberal for the Republicans in that I support gay marriage, I'm pro-choice, pro social progressiveness and I think term limits are a grand idea.
I pretty much can't go 'rah rah' to anyones party line.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Pass the bacon.
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(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!
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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.
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I more or less agree with you about the role of government. I just enjoy the lengths to which some folks will go to explain why the task of making sure no one infringes on anybody else's rights is actually trivially small and ever so easily managed, and not, say, an enormous and nearly impossible task that can best be tackled with the tools provided by government.
(Of course, I also harbor a socialist fantasy of government as an enabler of technological advancement and social change, but that's probably just the result of a childhood spent watching too much Star Trek.)
Mostly I want the Noam Chomsky "we don't need government because we're all so dang nice" brigade to square off against the "we don't need laws because I have a rocket launcher strapped to the hood of my Camaro" crew, and decide once and for all what the party line is. I suppose the kids with guns would win, but you have to admit it would be instructive.
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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.
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